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- Aug 26, 2016
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After the wheelie bar was complete, all I really had left to do was add brakes, cables, levers, kick stand, shifter and decals. This part isn't a huge amount of work, but I always take my time running my cables and getting things the right length. I hate it when I see a cool bike with cables flopping all over the place. I'm not generally an OCD type of person, but I pay super attention to detail when it comes to this stuff. I like my cables to flow with the lines of the frame. I sometimes come back from a photo jaunt with a bike I've just completed and I get annoyed with myself when I look at the pics and see my cables have shifted out of place. Doh!
Because of the big fat slick on the back and the fenderless design of this bike, I decided to steal a page from the likes of the CCM Marauder and the Sears Screamer. Dual rear brakes!! It leaves the front uncluttered and clean. I managed to find two NOS matching rear calipers and all of the necessary bits and bobs to make it fit together. Found a nice set of NOS pedals in the cabinet, and also picked out a nice NOS shimano 3 speed stick shift that didn't stand out too much on the frame. I didn't want the shifter to be the focal point of the bike. It needed to be cool but unassuming.
I got the shifter in place and then measured out my cable lengths. In order to attach to the sturmey shift indicator, you need the correct barrel end. I usually use an NOS cable for this and solder on my own end where it connects to the shifter. You can do this easily by drilling the correct diameter hole in a block of wood and making sure to splay the ends of the wire. Just sit the end of the wire in the hole with a bit of flux and the solder will fill in the gaps nicely. I haven't had one break on me yet, although many of my builds are not get a lot of miles on the road. I mostly do it this way because it's much cleaner than fitting one of those cable adapters.
The only thing that never really changed from the onset of this project was the frame, the colour and the name. I found a nice speedy looking font and the design came pretty easily. Cut it out in white on the vinyl cutter and slapped it on.
Have also been making these cable clips which helps me keep my cables in order and satisfies my bicycle OCD. The bike is pretty much complete at this point other than the speedo which I have added but is not represented in these pics. I figured the dragster looking build needed some way to tell how fast it was going.
Because of the big fat slick on the back and the fenderless design of this bike, I decided to steal a page from the likes of the CCM Marauder and the Sears Screamer. Dual rear brakes!! It leaves the front uncluttered and clean. I managed to find two NOS matching rear calipers and all of the necessary bits and bobs to make it fit together. Found a nice set of NOS pedals in the cabinet, and also picked out a nice NOS shimano 3 speed stick shift that didn't stand out too much on the frame. I didn't want the shifter to be the focal point of the bike. It needed to be cool but unassuming.
I got the shifter in place and then measured out my cable lengths. In order to attach to the sturmey shift indicator, you need the correct barrel end. I usually use an NOS cable for this and solder on my own end where it connects to the shifter. You can do this easily by drilling the correct diameter hole in a block of wood and making sure to splay the ends of the wire. Just sit the end of the wire in the hole with a bit of flux and the solder will fill in the gaps nicely. I haven't had one break on me yet, although many of my builds are not get a lot of miles on the road. I mostly do it this way because it's much cleaner than fitting one of those cable adapters.
The only thing that never really changed from the onset of this project was the frame, the colour and the name. I found a nice speedy looking font and the design came pretty easily. Cut it out in white on the vinyl cutter and slapped it on.
Have also been making these cable clips which helps me keep my cables in order and satisfies my bicycle OCD. The bike is pretty much complete at this point other than the speedo which I have added but is not represented in these pics. I figured the dragster looking build needed some way to tell how fast it was going.
