Author Archives: gdukebicycles

Happy New year everyone

Local Musician Andy Williamson bought himself a cargo trike for shopping and possibly carting his instruments around. These things are seriously heavy and he wanted to improve both the go and the stoping capacity of it, and, he wanted to be able to fit a decent set of cranks, rather than the one piece BMX style that it was made to accept. Given the brakes this thing had (see pics below) I am not at all surprised with the stopping wish. He purchased a front wheel with an electric hub and disk brake and while he went off to the Woodford Folk Festival asked me to make it all possible. The front wheel was fairly simple. I needed to narrow the gap between the dropouts and then given the difference in axle diameter, turn up a new set of drive washers. There was no way that the wheel was going to sit in these dropouts and not move under braking. Once that was done I knew it was just another disk tab addition

The crank issue was another story. The original setup used a BB shell with a set of 40mm diameter steps that accommodated the pressed in cups. While the 40 mm’s was favourable, the BB stepped down through the centre to something a lot smaller. I decided to carve the ends off a BB shell made for lugs and braze them in to the stepped recess. Given the outside diameter of a threaded BB shell is 40mm this was the clear way to go. I had originally hoped that the internal step might not be so great and that I could turn down the shell to fit. No such luck but at least it wasn’t so big that a sealed BB wouldn’t pass through once it had threads.

All in all I was happy with the solution and Andy was happy to know that he could at last fit a decent set of cranks and didn’t have to rely on that original brake. Sorry there are no pictures of the entire vehicle. I got carried away with the process

Brakes on a cargo trike

Original Cargo Trike Wheel

Replacement Wheel and brake

New (and old) drive washers

Cargo Trike BB

Original BB cups

BB Solution

Sealed BB in a cargo trike

After what was possibly the most miserable Mt Macedon challenge I could imagine in November I am looking forward to a few weeks over Christmas when I can get some miles in and feel confident for the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Ride in January http://cadelevansgreatoceanroadrace.com.au/. If you havnt heard of this yet it should be a great day.

I am also looking forward to getting  back to the bench and while that ongoing home renovation means I am never really alone for long in the workshop I keep telling myself its not for ever and I am still able to do some work. I have a couple of jobs lined up for the Christmas break so check back in the New Year for some updates and pictures.  In the mean time enjoy the Christmas season and please, whatever you do, be safe out there.

Enjoying some fruit cake along the way at the Mt Macedon Challenge ride 2014

Cresting a hill later in the day at the Mt Macedon Challenge 2014

Fellow framebuilder Tris asked me to make him a BB post for his alignment table. He had the handle and threaded insert for the BB from a Cyclus facing tool and we designed the post around this. Given the threads on the Cyclus handle are M16 x 1.5mm pitch rather than the standard 2mm pitch and the fact that you really want the thread to be straight over that sort of length it was a fun job in the lathe. We are both really happy with the way it turned out

Turning a BB post

Turning a BB post 2

Turning a thread on the BB post

BB post and Cyclus handle

BB Post, Handle and Insert

Bundit turned up at my workshop with an old frame. You know the sort. It had the original iteration of integrated headset (everything old is new again), bolt on rear seat stays and  unicrown ( if that is the right wording)  chain stays. Built for 28 x 11/4 inch wheels. It was too long for him. He wanted to know if I would shorten it and in the process make it more amenable to a press fit headset. My first question was WHY. The reasons for doing something like this are always personal. The frame may have sentimental value or the owner may just want to do it. It can be a bit like hot-rodding a car. We got past that question. The next one was more a question to myself. Could I do this without compromising the geometry of the frame. Bundit said he wanted to run 700c wheels. That meant the resulting longer headtube might be offset by the shorter blade forks. I did some further calculations. As long as he agreed to run a fork with a reasonable amount of offset in order to reduce toeclip overlap it should pan out. I made it clear that the replacement headtube lugs wouldn’t match the originals which were rather blocky. Bundit understood. I was running out of reasons not to take this job on. He left the frame in the cue and I got on to it a couple of weeks later.

Bundits frame

Off with the headtube

Looking through the lugs

Filing finished

Reaming and Facing

New Headtube

With the workshop out of action I had no reason to feel guilty about a trip to Lorne for the fantastic Amy’s Gran Fondo. Back into it now though. Just have to put up with it being a makeshift kitchen for the duration of the reno.

Decent into Lorne at Amys

Out at Deans Marsh during Amy’s

We recently embarked on a home renovation. We didn’t plan on discovering that the sewerage pipe that runs under my workshop would need to be replaced. I had already given up space in the workshop for storage during the reno but didn’t imagine this. They say patience is a virtue and I have always thought that being a framebuilder required a healthy degree of that. I suppose things will get back to normal soon enough. I haven’t shut the door and am still open for work. It may just take a fraction longer for a while

Leo brought me his much loved Repco Superlite with a broken rear dropout. We decided rather than just replace one and have them mismatched I would do them both together. Easy Peasy

Repco Superlite

Broken Rear Dropout

New Dropouts brazed in

Dropouts finished with paint

Crowns, Blades and dropouts

Bundit’s single speed conversion

Bundit’s single speed conversion

And 2 pair of forks

A couple of forks on the go

single speed dropouts

Bundit’s Forks and H tool

Straight Forks for Bundit

Moultons have often interested  me. I never really wanted one and had never worked on one before this but the fact that they are a different concept in bikes and in their day, very innovative, has always been there. This one came in for repairs on its carrier.

Moulton

The rack had been repaired before and had seen better days but in the owners defense the fact that they are cantilevered out doesn’t bode well for a long life.

Moulton Rack

The previous repair looked to have been done with an arc welder given the fact that rust aside, a lot of the tubing  had been eaten away by the heat of the fix. I cut out sections of the tube and made up replacement lengths along with sections that went inside to support them.

Moulton Rack and bits

I could have built a new rack but then it wouldn’t have been an original Moulton one. I decided to make up some support webbing to go underneath and in order to preserve the flat top of the rack chose to limit the wrapping to the unloaded end. I feel pretty confident that this rack will see lots more use now and is in keeping with what originally came from the factory

Moulton Rack

Support webbing