Kaffenback is back

pangolin

After checking last week whether dura ace bar end shifters would work with deore drivetrain, I ordered the shifters and some brake levers, then spent Saturday changing my flat barred kaffenback to drops. Here's the result!



They're On One Midge bars, and very comfy so far. I reckon the bike is looking pretty good now. I don't think It will ever really be done. Next I will probably get some lighter wheels (these are chunky things with Deore hubs and Mavic rims, which take 28mm tyres), then eventually a better crankset. For now though I'm happy with how it turned out.

The shifters were surprisingly easy to set up. The front is just friction and the rear is indexed, but you can switch it to friction if you needed to for some reason.

What crankset would go well with it do you think? Something silver would go with the overall look better. These guys sell the right sort of stuff but not cheaply http://www.freshtripe.co.uk/freshtripe/Drivetrain.html

Libraio

Nice!
Still thinking about a black Kaffenback with the swap-out drop outs and throwing on the parts from my VanDessel.
SRAM Rival is availible in silver? Not cheap but does look the part unlike ShimaNo.

UndercoverElephant

I was going to suggest Velo Orange, preferably the Grand Cru, but it looks as though you've already found them.



Mmmmm....

rjsterry

UndercoverElephant wrote:

I was going to suggest Velo Orange, preferably the Grand Cru, but it looks as though you've already found them.



Mmmmm....

I have this earmarked as a possibility for the Mercian (if I ever save up enough money), but NOT in a compact.

pangolin

Yeah, I really don't like the look of Shimano ones. I have ultegra on my road bike but even so. It's the way the end of the crank arm just sort of splurges out into the chainring. Like it's been melted on or something. I think it goes OK with wavy carbon frame lines but not so much with straight steel ones.

Sram looks nicer, and Velo Orange stuff looks the nicest out of what I've seen. But, £135...

UndercoverElephant

pangolin wrote:

Velo Orange stuff looks the nicest out of what I've seen. But, £135...

But they're sooooo pretty! Actually, so are some of the older Campag chainsets, you could go with one of them.

samsbike

pangolin wrote:

Yeah, I really don't like the look of Shimano ones. I have ultegra on my road bike but even so. It's the way the end of the crank arm just sort of splurges out into the chainring. Like it's been melted on or something. I think it goes OK with wavy carbon frame lines but not so much with straight steel ones.

Sram looks nicer, and Velo Orange stuff looks the nicest out of what I've seen. But, £135...

Actually what I would like to know is what is that rack at the back.

styxd

Looks good. What size rings are on there at the moment? Looks like a triple? What about some old shimano Ultegra 6600 series? They usually come up fairly cheap.

pangolin

Yeah it's a triple, and I'd like to keep it that way. I don't know how many teeth off the top of my head, but it could do with being geared a bit higher(?), lower(?) more difficulter(?)... It needs more teeth.

samsbike - it's a Carradice Bagman QR sport, holding up a Carradice Pendle. This is actually the first day I've used it and I really like it.

samsbike

pangolin wrote:

samsbike - it's a Carradice Bagman QR sport, holding up a Carradice Pendle. This is actually the first day I've used it and I really like it.

cheers its nice. Is it expensive too?

pangolin

I think about £35 - £40 for the bag, and similar for the rack. They do a bunch of different bags. Barley is the smallest, Nelson is bigger.

pangolin

Just a quick update, I've replaced the chunky Deore/Mavic A319 wheels with Planet X A57 wheels, and put on GP4000s tyres instead of the vittoria 28mm ones that were there before.

Also put on some nice looking Curana C mudguards. This took ages. Far longer than it should have done. Oh well.



Next is the cranks I guess.

alan_sherman

If you are after some traditional looking cranks then you could just go square taper. Either old stock campag, or Stronglight, or even the spa cycles own brand one. I went with an old campag one (in black) when I was looking a couple of years ago.

Spa range is here with the stronglight ones (obviously available elsewhere too but this shop's page shows a number of options well).

pangolin

Ooh those are some nice options, thanks Alan! Will leave it a month or two though. The wallet dictates a gradual upgrade process.

alan_sherman

Sorry the link didn't post but its not too hard to navigate there!