Bristol Alleycat

Who's up for entering this? I know I am!

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Fixed Gear Wales Drawing

Jack Kirtley, doodler extraordinaire, winner of Swansea's first big game of S.K.A.T.E and head honcho of Horror Skateboards has drawn up this awesome picture for me, I'm gonna use it for spoke cards, posters and flyers to promote the site and some limited edition t-shirts. Stay Tuned...

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Fixed Gear Wales iPhone Theme

Here is a nice little present for everyone out there with an iPhone, I've knocked together a Fixed Gear Wales iPhone theme, it's nothing special really but it is nice. It is a springboard theme, not a full one. It features a lockscreen background, a bike slider button with modified "skid to unlock" text and, finally, a springboard that resembles this here blog.
To use the theme you need a Jailbroken iPhone, then SSH the FGW-THEME folder to Library/Themes and using Winterboard drag it to the top of the list and select it. If you don't understand any of that then use Google, pretty please don't ask me because this is a bike blog, not a geek blog :-p

DOWNLOAD

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My New (Old) Frame is back on the streets

So I sold my white frame the other day and, while I wait for my new Bob Jackson to arrive, I've set up my o.g Raleigh 'Kellogs Pro Tour' frame. This frame was part of my first ever build and I forgot how much I dig it.

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Sun Worksop Frame Fixed Up

I picked up this snazzy 19.5" Sun Worksop frame at Re-Cycle, it had seen better days, in fact it looked like it had been stored outdoors for the last 20 years but that didn't put me off. It proved to be quite a project, the cottered cranks were well and truly stuck so I 'employed' the services of my good friend Julian who is a real man with tools.
The crank arms had to be angle-ground off the spindle, then one of them welded to a bottom bracket cup in order to unscrew it, he then went to work on the pump arms, cable guides and the hideous light thing on the right fork. Next he beat the living daylights out of the worst of the rust using a wirey attachment for the grinder. Last but not least he got the head badge off for me.
I then did a terrible job of sanding the remaining parts of the frame before masking it up and spraying it Montana 94 Valley Green (9r-6018) which is a super thick, sweet smelling graffiti paint available at Exist. The colour is awesome but its a bit knobbly bobbly cause I really really hate sanding, it's gotta be the worst thing in the world!

I'm not afraid of a bit of rust!

Angle grinding the cottered cranks off

Off comes all the "faff"

Welding a crank arm to the seized bottom bracket cup

A gentle whack and...

...out it comes

Removing the snazzy head badge

Sweeeeet!

Sanding the worst of the rust off

Before

After

Ready for graffiti-ing

"Heroes in a half shell, Turtle Power!"

Lookin' fresh with the classic 'Kids of Clase' graffiti, booyaa!

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Broken Chainring

Oliver from Cardiff added this photo to the Fixed Gear Wales Facebook group. He was riding with only 3 chainring bolts, did a skid and KABOOM! You have been warned...

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Tyron Francis' First Build

"This thing ended up taking forever and costing waaaaaay more than I had thought it would but it has changed my life. Cycling is perhaps the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I hadn't ridden for 15+ years before I built this fixie, I suppose I jumped on the bandwagon in a way cause a few of my buds had them, its hard skating at the same speed as a bike! It was built up from an Apollo Challenger that I found in the paper for £30 (I thought it was ok at the time but after a couple of months came to realise that it was a pile of crap frame, the dropouts starting wearing out, it rattled and was a bit big for me). I bought everything else new. Since these pix were taken 5 months ago I have changed the saddle to a Charge Spoon, the tyres, destroyed the back hub which I've replaced with a System Ex and gone from risers to horns to drops and back to risers."

Apollo Challenger

All the useless bits: gears, brakes, cables etc.

JT getting busy with the angle grinder

Sanding, boooooooooring!

Mach 1 Omega wheel set

Primed, ready for paint

All the bits: chain, tyres, tubes, grips, seatpost, saddle, peddles, clips, bars, 18t
All built up (pretty much) and ready for action

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Beynon's First Build

'This is my first fixie build and a return to cycling after a number of years out of the saddle. Have bulit BMXs as a younger man and ridden a hard tail MTB for several years.

The frame was bought from ebay after about 2 months of searching for a fairly decent frame at reasonable money. After some research i believe it is from a Raleigh Pursuit 12 speed from the early 80's. Its a reynolds 501 frame, not the best but good enough! I stripped the bike to its bare frame, used 'green' Nitromors to strip the frame of its paint and removed the majority of the protruding metal work with a grinder then filled the resulting nasty bits with a smooth car body filler.

The frame was rubbed down with Scotchbrite pads before given 2 coats of Plasticote grey primer. After drying the frame was wet flatted then given 3 coats of Plasticote gloss black, then given 2 coats of Plasticote gloss protector.

Components:
- A new SRAM GXP30 track crank (Bought from Schmoos, Swansea)
- Chain is a Charge Mash item in black (Wiggle)
- Cog is a 17 tooth item bought from Schmoos (the only one they had in stock!),
- Wheels (Charge) were bought from Sion (originally sourced from the London Fixed Gear forum-cheers Sion) cos he couldnt afford them at the time that i was looking for alternatives.(green wasnt my first choice but i do luv em now!)
- Shimano Exage front brake with Dia Compe cable and Dia Compe Tech 99 straight brake lever (gay or not, its staying for the time being!) (Bought from Velosolo)
- SR Laprade 27.2mm Fluted Seatpost (Velosolo) with Charge spoon cromo rail saddle in black (Wiggle)
- Tyres are Vittoria Rubino 700c x 24, standard black (Wiggle)
- Current gear ratio 48 x 17 (17 skid patches)
- Drop bars (Charge bar tape in black) and current stem are from Sions pug.

Soon to add new quill stem and maybe new bars....oh and maybe a chrome finish head set. Then the process starts all over again with a new paint job, new
wheels.......:)'

80's Raleigh Frame


The all important Reynolds 501 sticker

Nitromors doing all the hard work

Plasticote black

Sram s300 GXP cranks, charge wheel

All done

With a 747!

First lesson learned!

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Sion's First Build

54cm Peugeot road

Nitromors Attack!
Socks, sandals, nitromors, perfect

This stuff is awesome

Beynon being a real man's man

Sion on spray duty

You know a good paint job when it glows

Velocity Deep V

The "can't wait to build it up" shot

Magic invisible chain

Completed, looks great!

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Metal!

Had a good "trick session" on Saturday with Ric, Ev and JT. Everyone was trying the both legs on one side of the frame skids with not much steez. There were some leg over the bar skids from the other dudes but I'm still not happy about the slam I took on one the other week. I failed terribly at Keo spins, how the fluck do they work??? I've even frame by framed some on video but instead of the wheel coming off the ground all that happens is that my arse comes off the saddle, they are haaaaard!

Ev managed to snap a toe clip after going through all the effort of finding one of the nut, bolt and washer combos that held it together, luckily there was a handy metal recycling facility close at hand. Then later on I realised that I'd snapped one of the serrated spacer / nut things on my System Ex rear hub, quite a common problem apparently, I've replaced it with a track nut for now which is way wider but does the job.

Anyone up for some bike polo? Get in touch.

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