Sunday 3 November 2013

An Experimental Road Bike

Josh  has finally finished the experimental road bike made from of a Trek mountain bike frame, for a 12yr old.  The standard kids road bike that are available on-line do not have good gears or components.  The challenge was to make a kids road bike from a MB frame with STI shifters for £200.
With 8/3 STI Sora shifters and a new drive train its turned out really well.  The big problem was getting the STI to shift the MB front changer, it took hours of fettling with different mechs and adjusters but he finally cracked it.  There's the result complete with Kojak tyres.  There will be some tests and a fitting before its finally accepted.

The onset of winter means fewer customers however we have sold a large number of kids bikes over the last couple of weeks.  I have started stripping down the Raleigh 531 frame ready for painting you can see the pitting on the steel in the following detailed photos.  I have so far used a rotary steel brush to get at the areas of rust then various grades of sand paper and emery cloth to get it smooth.   I'm hoping that the primer acts as a filler in these areas, it may take a little bit of work but I'm hoping for a reasonably smooth finish.

One of the tricks I'm going to try is to encase the Raleigh badge in wax before I start the painting process.



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