Recent content by Spike Spiegel

So last sunday I got together, put on some warm clothes and went out to the nearest "forest" (It's basically a less organized city park, but with a lot of more "wild" parts) called Lasek Na Kole (Koło (eng. Wheel) is a district of Warsaw, so the name translates to "Forest on The Wheel" :cool2...

Thanks! I usally plan ahead, gather parts, consider my options and then assemble. While the bicycle season has slowed down I have a lot of spare time in my shop, so that also helps. Usually it takes me up to a week from concept to assembling a complete bike. But when it comes to records... I...

I did it! Took me a little bit longer than the dissasembly So I fnished at 15:51. Now only thing left to do is some final tweaks to make it road worthy back again, and finally an offroad test.

And done! So had to pause to talk with a client, but I'm still impressed with the time. I didn't rush it not to break anything, and not lose any parts. So right now it's 15:00 here in Warsaw, Poland. I'll catch a quick smoke, and get back to puting it back together!

So I couldn't do the offroad test for a few reasons. First I got sick, and almost the same day it started snowing here in Poland. This weekend I picked up our service truck from the shop and went with my boss up to the town of Wisła to buy new skis & stuff for our ski rental buisness. But I also...

So yes, the bike is still alive but in a slightly different form. Took it in 2021 to the Oldtown Festiwal - the biggest postapocalyptic party in Central Europe. That's where I noticed one big problem seeing other people ride it. It was croocked as heck! Not even did it leave to tire tracks, but...

Sadly I rebuilt a TT bicycle two years ago so a little too early. It's a very weird bicycle with a very weird story. Made by West German Schauff in 1987 for a french perfume maker Lancome to advertise their... golf tournament called Trophee Lancome. Seat tube is 590mm, rear wheel a standard...

I recommend using foil masking tape - it always comes off very easy. Not only those tire sizes :D There were also very rare cyclocross 27" tires dedicated to use in Huragan (Hurricane) and Jaguar bicycles. Those were called Tajfun (Typhoon)

I also remembered when I saw that you use a home-made tool to press the headset... I have a tool for that, but at 95% of the time use it for anything else except the function that it was designed to do... ... like fitting a new headtube to a fork for my daily bike :D

I noticed that the paint finish on those more modern Shimano derailleurs is not that great. I put a few bikes together that used very old Deore & XT stuff and even it was abused it never was this beaten. The same wear pattern also happened on my 105 rear derailleur that never seen any abuse...

Castorama is one of the biggest known hardware & DIY stores here in Poland (other ones are Leroy Merlin, OBI & Bricoman).

So after a few days it was mostly put together. I took it for a spin around my shop to see if everything works properly. Shifting is thing you definitely need to get used to since you need to always start from the 1st gear on the hub, change gears on the derailleurs while pedaling...

So it worked for an hour or so and again I'm getting the same message Oh well... good that I have a spare account :) I'll just post the rest of the build. If anyone has objections - that's ok with me. We mainly just do it for fun & building bicycles, right? :) The next thing I did was pretty...

Nice start. I made a Muscle Bike from a Romet Jubilat back in 2019 for the Winter Build-Off. Might come in handy as an inspiration :) Seat was made from a cut ski and the bars are made from a 16mm railling pipes that I bought in Castorama.

Cool idea, and a great start!