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The Making of a Work of Art.
The Making of a Work of Art.
Naked beauty
Naked beauty
The bicycle I will be performing the incredible feat of cycling from Lands End to John O'Groats in Scotland on, is made by Mercian Cycles of Derby, England. The model is a King of Mercia, Vincitore Special, and is a reet flash, touring bicycle built from steel (Reynolds 853 tubing) to carry a 200lb monkey like me.
Those nice people at Mercian called me and asked me what kind of Chain-set I would be using as they had to make some special adjustments to the chain stay depending on specification, so I took the opportunity to ask them to take some photos of the unfinished business. Well...
Will you take a look at the Lugs on that !!!
Mercian hand build their bicycles in the UK and make sure they come out of the factory with an East Midlands accent. Personally, I don't find that particular accent nice in a lady, but my goodness... they make them with beautiful bodies.
The picture to the right is called the bottom bracket shell. It's the bit where the pedal cranks go through. The fancy bits are called the lugs. They hold the whole thing together and make a very respectable attempt to look pretty whilst doing so.
And if you don't mind my saying so son, that's a lovely bit of bodywork.
For a cracking picture of the head-tube (the bit at the front), look on my blog (link to the left)
Component Specification (a.k.a. Geek Corner)
Component Specification (a.k.a. Geek Corner)
This is the geek bit...the part where I list every component (apart from the cassette locknut, the tyres, inner tubes and bar tape), that I will put onto the bike. Before I do so, I will take a photo of them all looking pristine. I'll do this just because I want to!
The Frame
The frame is the most important part of the bicycle - it is the bicycle! This one is made in Reynolds 853 tubing because that tubing has a number of qualities which I think I need.
- It is stiff so any power transferred through the frame goes into the pedal rather than bending the frame. The negative side of the stiffness is that it is more brittle, but this has been countered by the manufacturers by heat treating it to increase its "yield strength".
- It carries weight very well.
- Being steel, It should last for longer than I do.
The Wheels
A bit of bicycle porn for all of you sicko's out there. The picture below:
is a pair of Royce 'Titan' Hubs (the bits that fit in the centre of the wheel). Hubs not dissimilar to these were used by Chris Hoy when he attempted to break the world km record in 2007. He recorded a time of 58.88 seconds for a distance of 1km - which is really quite fast. Since I am not riding at altitude as Chris did, I will not be approaching that sort of speed.
The wheels I am using on the ride will be built around these. I chose them because they are reliable, durable, not too heavy ( I need all the help I can get) and being British made, they compliment the bicycle frame. Unfortunately, the wheel rims are American (Mavic), and the spokes and nipples are Swiss (DTSwiss). The idea of an all British bicycle was quite romantic though...On the left is a picture of the wheels all built up in pristine condition. They were built by OnYourBike of London Bridge who so far, appear to have done a great job. Apparently, they may go out of shape after a few rides because having a lard arse like me sitting on them changes the stresses. If that happens (it hasn't so far), then I can just pop them back into the shop and they will adjust.
The Chain-set
This is where the power goes when you're riding. Again, the fully compatible Shimano groupset is
proven and tough. I choose the 48/36/26 front mech so that I can get a higher gear ratio on the bike than an MTB triple chain-set (44/32/22). This means that when I've finished this ride, this will become my winter commuting bike and I'll still be fast enough to dodge raindrops on it.The rear mechanism (36-11) has a higher gear ratio than any bike I've ridden. I've previously had a 12 tooth smallest cog. The combination of this smallest cog and the 48 tooth front mech. means that overall, this bike should have gearing not dissimilar (but not quite as high) to my road racing bike.
The pedals on this bike are chunky. They can be used with or without clip-in cleats something that I wanted because it's useful to not have to wear a special pair of shoes if you want to just pop to the shops.
I've a bit of experince riding this now and have realised that my choice of rear mech. may have been a sub-standard decision. The reason for this is that Shimano MTB rear mechs do not have a cable adjuster at the point where the cable meets the rear mech - I suppose this is because MTB cable adjustment is usually done from the rapidfire levers. Because I have chosen to use downtube shifters, this means that I have no point at which I can make cable tension adjustments to account for (eg) cold weather or cable stretch. To overcome this, if I have issues with accurate shifting, I will have to either change the levers from being indexed to manual (old-style), which is easily done via an adjuster on the levers; or will have to loosen the cable locknut on the rear mech, reset the cable tension then re-tighten. Next time, I would probably go for a long drop 9 speed road bike rear mech.
The Brakes
Good, solid Shimano brakes which have stood the test of time and have the added quality of being made with a long drop so that they can be fitted to standard road wheels (700c) or MTB wheels (26")
The Peripherals
Brooks saddle - a classic, requires buttocks of steel to wear in. But I can do it! I shall be allowing people to squeeze my bum when I finish but only if they add an extra donation!My experience fitting the mudguards proved to be the most difficult part of building the machine! Hacksawing the stays to length, filing off the front mudguard fitting so that I could use the frame attached fitting to make the mudguard more stable then fine tuning the whole affair - take my advice, let the pro's deal with it!
The Final Shakeout
The Final Shakeout
One of the most pleasing aspects of building up the bike myself was understanding how it all fits together so that I can easily fix it if I have problems. It does take time, but that is discountable - what
take more justification is having to explain to yourself why you have to buy new components at extortionate costs when you manage as I did, to the strip the thread of the external bottom bracket. I decided to put it down to the cost of learning the tricks of the trade.On the positive side, building it up yourself means that you can take time and effort to put finishing touches such as rubber washers which should make the bike rattle-proof and hopefully, spare the curses in the middle of nowhere.The bike arrived on 11 May 2010. I WAS SO EXCITED! It was like having a new baby so I allowed my own babies to show it off at it's best as I thing they show it off better than I do!
Take a look at those classic lines - threaded headset, simple, but striking paintwork and as vain as you like, the family name (Doherty) on the top tube beside the seat post. That was a touch I liked most of all because I like to think that one day, this frame will travel from Lands End to John O'Groats with one of these two riding it - I emphasise "...like to think..." because the reality will probably be that they will sneer at me, call me an old fart and speed off on their belt driven, ultra-light, carbon-fibre record breaker. None-the-less, it's good to dream!
After I had built the bike, I spoilt the beauty that it was by sitting on it! In real life, I am sure that my belly doesn't hang out that far but despite my wifes loving re-assurance that my position on the bike isn't complimentary, I recall that old saying "the camera never lies". At least it gives me a target!
So far my experience of riding the bike has been good but there are a number of lessons to be learnt. Foremost of these is that this is a bike built for distance rather than speed. This translates to changing my riding style from attempting to be as fast as possible and (trying to) chase down anybody that overtakes me, to relaxing, focussing on building up speed slowly and not trying to shred my tyres when starting off from traffic lights. It takes time however and so far I've felt twinges of discomfort in my left knee from putting too much pressure on it.I haven't yet loaded the bike with the weight I expect to be carrying in August, but I have been commuting on it. The idea at the moment is simply to get used to the bike. I will start loading it up in a couple of weeks time and will then try a couple of long rides into Kent with it. Follow the rest of my progress on the blog
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