My dirt-cheap singlespeed daily

lae

Hi all. I wanted a new road bike but being a compulsive tinkerer I was unable to allow myself to purchase a £1000 racer, plus I didn't want to end up with a bike I would only use twice a month. And besides, I'm going to university soon and there's no way I'm taking anything of value (I learnt my lesson the first time I went to university!). So I decided to rebuild an old bike.

Got this 1980 Raleigh Magnum off of ebay for an incredible £12. It was literally perfect, even the tyres were inflated correctly!


I decided to go for single speed (just because I've never had a single speed before) and went about stripping the bike down. The only problem I had was with the LH crank arm - the internal thread stripped meaning I couldn't remove it from the BB axle (I have a couple of hub pullers which would have worked on the chainring, but not on this side!). So I had to get out the angle grinder and veeeery carefully cut the BB axle apart. My LBS didn't have a replacement BB axle but gave (sold) me a cartridge unit which was about a £15. Not wanting to fork out on a new crankset I just re-used the old one, which means I'll have to take the angle grinder to it again to get it off, but hopefully I won't need to do that for a few years. I refurbed all the mechanical bits (with no gears, that basically left just brakes) and polished all the aluminium using a felt wheel in a drill bit (held in a vice) and Autosol as a polish.

Then I ground off the non-essential braze ons to give it a smoother look, and I scuffed the old paint on the frame (no point taking it all off as it was in very good condition) prior to painting with some paint I had left over from respraying my old Datsun. I initially wanted to paint it a pearlescent white but it's shockingly expensive!

I got some cheap 700c wheels on ebay for about £50, and lowered the brake blocks to suit. Forked out on new tyres which were about £25 for both. Then I got a short Bluemels mudguard and painted it to match (although looking at the angles I don't think it will actually do anything at all) and a Brookes saddle from a car boot sale for £30.



Probably cost me about... ooooh.... £125 for all the bits including the bike itself, and I sold the original steel wheels for £25 too! Don't worry about the cheap QR on the back, I only put that on there to test it and have since replaced it with some high-quality Shimano items. The bike is very nice to ride and surprisingly light - a friend of mine has a 2008 Specialized Allez and we are both in agreement that there is no distinguishable weight difference between them! I'll have to see if somewhere near me has something more suitable than bathroom scales for weighing it though (it's basically impossible to weigh a bike accurately on bathroom scales!). The extra brake levers mean that long distance rides and cruising around on the tops is really easy and comfortable.

I think I'm going to repaint it soon, I'm not a fan of the colour. I think I will go for a dark silver with white highlights (tyres, tape, chain, cables etc) with some light silver detailing on the frame. Plus going to university means I won't need a car, which frees up a lot of cash to spend on the bike. I've already bagged some vintage Sugino Maxy cranks for it and I'm eyeing up some Campagnolo Scirocco wheels... but I'm not sure if the frame is nice enough to warrant spending comparatively big bucks on it!

One thing I like a lot about it is that it isn't covered in logos and stickers on every single component proclaiming how fast it is. It only has a Raleigh badge on the front (which I'll remove next time I paint it) and decals on the tyres (which I might gently buff off if I can). It seems it's very difficult to buy a good quality bike without it looking like the kind of thing that a Power Ranger would ride - there's clearly a market for good quality bikes with subtle styling otherwise the whole boutique/fixie culture wouldn't exist at all. Motorcycles suffer from Power Ranger syndrome too. I suppose it's just as well that I'm actually doing my degree in Automotive Design and can specialise in bicycles and motorbikes if I want to!

I hope you like it.

PS Does anyone know what steel the frame would have been made from? I doubt it's anything special as there were no stickers on it, but it'd be nice to know. It's a 1980 Raleigh Magnum btw.

alphaanne

Awsome
Ive just arrived home with a very similar looking Raleigh (tempest)....frame looks identical except for the colours....

I was just sitting here browsing and wondering whether it was worth attacking or if I should just ebay it .....but if I can get it looking even a little bit as good as you have done with yours 8) then it is worth a bash!!

Is changing it from geared to singlespeed easy or should I get someone in the know to do it for me?

Oh Im quite excited about it now!!

Anonymous

Good job mate!

toshmund

Cracking job mate! I like how you have highlighted the quality of the bike, by using that wall as a backdrop...Please don't say the wall was a previous project

ColinJ

frinkmakesyouthink wrote:

The bike is very nice to ride and surprisingly light - a friend of mine has a 2008 Specialized Allez and we are both in agreement that there is no distinguishable weight difference between them! I'll have to see if somewhere near me has something more suitable than bathroom scales for weighing it though (it's basically impossible to weigh a bike accurately on bathroom scales!).

If your scale are accurate, then it IS possible to weigh the bike accurately using them - just weigh yourself holding the bike, and then again without the bike. The bike weight is the difference between the two figures.

lae

^ never thought of that. It's pretty obvious actually.

Alphaanne, doing anything like this is really satisfying, whenever people compliment me about the bike the first thing I blurt out with a massive smile is 'IBUILTITMYSELF '. Bikes are so bloody simple that a small selection of tools and a technical manual is all you really need (I have the Haynes Bike Book which is detailed enough for older bikes).

I have scored a 1970s Coventry Eagle frame on fleabay, it's Reynolds 531 and has a Sugino bottom bracket to suit my Sugino chainwheel. And the lugs are very intricate and pretty - I have decided that this will be my project/weekend bike and the Raleigh just kept as it is as a daily.

Dustine

If its going to be hanging around a university campus/ city, i would probably have left it all original, so it didnt end up nicked or with those tango'd wheels you often see which some drunken **** has done.... Admittedly, it wouldnt have the pride of ownership that it has now youve done that sweet job on it.
Watch you dont lose that saddle; a Tesco bag over it when you leave it ought to help it look like a cheapo job...

Im with Toshmund, though; thats a shonky bit of bricking up a doorway!!! :-)

lae

It should be pretty safe, at coventry uni they have proper sheds to keep your bike in overnight. Anyway I think my two locks cost almost as much as the bike so it should be pretty secure.

Much better than at york uni (tried to do a history degree a few years ago, didn't work, too boring) where you just get rows of those c-shaped racks that you can only lock your front wheel to. I ended up locking the wheel to the rack and the bike to the wheel!

gtitim

wow! Great job mate, I always think of getting a cheapo bike off ebay but never see such a good deal as that! Its come up beautifully. I love the lack of branding on it.

Not sure about the mudguards but each to their own.

Great job

SilverSurfer

I like your thinking but....

The conversion rates as a fail from me because:

- I hate resprays - could you not have just touched up any rust and left it looking all original and weathered?

- Those guards are gay. Full guards pref for commuting or none for posing. Those diddy things are shoit.

My brother has one of those bikes (even with the stem mounted positron gears) and they look very classy. Perfect for a fixed conversion.

Still, a good effort and you are going down the right path in my (worthless) opinion with the tarting up old bikes thing.

lae

Yeah I've lost the guard now, it didn't actually work anyway.

I'm getting some skinwall tyres and leather bar tape for it, to match the brooks saddle. I only used the red tyres/grips because I had already bought them!

The paint looks washed out in the photo, in real life it's an amazing pearl colour that looks gold in the shade but when the sunlight hits it, it pops out in a really bright silver.

I agree that it doesn't look right. I'm going to put the skinwalls and leather tape on it and see how it looks - and if I don't like it I'm going to paint it something like the original bronze colour.

TheHatter

Great job, the bike looks great I even like the colour it is now as it sets of the Brooks saddle (though I would have left the original guards on).

As for buying brooks tape my only concern is that you're starting to change the bike from its original purpose of not being something of real value should it get nicked. Even as it looks in the pics I'd be pretty gutted if I lost it.

lae

I have fitted the brooks tape and amber wall tyres, it looks pretty classy now. I'll get pictures up when I get a working camera! I have the original guards somewhere, I'll fit them for the winter.

As for stealing - yes it could be a problem, but the bike actually looks a lot more discreet without the red, so less attactive to brainless thug/thief types. Maybe more attractive to your more knowledgable bike thieves though... overnight it's kept in a really safe place and things are so close here I just have it for riding rather than for transport, so I don't really leave it anywhere unattended.

Does anyone know if you can get security bolts for seatposts too? Just one spanner and some sod has nicked a £40 saddle that will last forever. I could use a component cable but they look very easy to cut through to me.

Thanks for the kind words too.

stickman

Yes, when is someone going to manufacture a saddle lock? It's something well overdue. I run a small cable lock through one seat rail and around the top tube and use cable ties to make the cable position look better if I need to. It won't stop a serious thief but will stop it from someone with just a spanner taking it.

lae

Found this

http://www.evanscycles.com/products/kf/ ... t-ec011572

but for nearly 30 quid, I think I'd rather take my seatpost bolt down to a motor factor or hardware supplier and see if I can find a security bolt that would fit.

trig1

nice lookin bike you have there!

stigofthedump

There is a single speed conversion video on youtube where they use some spare chain to loop around the seatstays and saddle to secure it. Some old innertube and a ziptie keep everything neat and tidy. A good lowbudget but effective solution.
Here is the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01TPK7ChLmA&feature=fvw

Enjoy

Captain Turok

stigofthedump wrote:

There is a single speed conversion video on youtube where they use some spare chain to loop around the seatstays and saddle to secure it. Some old innertube and a ziptie keep everything neat and tidy. A good lowbudget but effective solution.
Here is the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=01TPK7ChLmA&feature=fvw

Enjoy

I'd played around with the chain around the frame & saddle before but got irritated by the rattling. It never occurred to me that you could run the chain through an innertube! Works a treat now, many thanks.

lae

How hard are chains to cut through though? I imagine even a modest pair of bolt croppers would work, and it wouldn't be long until someone figures out that there's a very small and cheap tool specifically designed for splitting chains :shock:

And it seems to me that any highly visible chain/cable/thing is just saying 'this saddle is expensive', too. I think a security bolt, like a locking wheel nut on a car's wheel, is a better and much more discreet solution.

Maybe I'm just paranoid. My bike is left in a keycard-access only gated compound with CCTV and 24-hour security guards so I probably don't need to worry that much...

itchieritchie

Then I ground off the non-essential braze ons to give it a smoother look, and I scuffed the old paint on the frame (no point taking it all off as it was in very good condition) prior to painting with some paint I had left over from respraying my old Datsun. I initially wanted to paint it a pearlescent white but it's shockingly expensive!

Hey, firstly great job there. Maybe too good as some have pointed out.

Second, a Datsun...??? Damn....my dad had a 120Y back in the day, they're ancient (never broke down though!). Keeping it all vintage, I see what you're doing there...!!

Isn't it mad to go single speed? I love it too. I have a Genesis Flyer, which brings me to my question. I need to somehow lose the brake cable stops on the top tube as they're all bent and twisted, due to some barsteward wrenching the front wheel and forks off. I'd also like a much cleaner look and in any case I only run with the front brake so the stops are redundant and spoil the shape of the frame. You mentioned 'grinding' your braze-ons off. Think I could do this to my cable stops? What tool did you use if so? Or could I maybe just take a hacksaw to them?

Advice muchos appreciated...!

redvee

itchieritchie wrote:

Or could I maybe just take a hacksaw to them?

Advice muchos appreciated...!

Junior hacksaw then a file and wet n dry. Have done similar in the past on a Raleigh mtb frame when I took the brake stop off the seatstays.

lae

For grinding I used a grinder. But yeah, a carefully wielded hacksaw, or a file, finished with some sandpaper, would work just as well.

I've also broken this bike up into parts and put it all up for sale (keeping the brooks saddle and bar tape of course). It has been replaced by a 1950 Claud Butler as a weekend bike (kept in my girlfriend's bedroom), and the new daily is my old mountain bike which is theft-resistant by virtue of being the biggest pile of poop on the road.

Will post a new thread on the new bike soon.

GarethPJ

If the braze ons are actually brazed on, bronze rather than fusion welded, then a gas axe would be the neatest way to remove them. OK so it wrecks the paint, but a grinder hacksaw or file is going to do that anyway and a gas axe won't scratch. Make sure you're only heating the work enough to melt the bronze sufficiently to release the braze ons so you don't damage the tube.

I've done a few this way and as long as you have access to the equipment it's a much quicker way of getting a tidy finish. BTW you don't need a full oxy aceteline setup, a good old fashioned brazing torch will do.