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UPS man brought me a 13/16” drill bit and a 13/16” reamer
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and now my seat post fits!
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also got a new set of tires for the band saw, so I can make a stubby rear fender for this thing
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Bit of a plot twist here last night, I bolted on my placeholder wheel and installed the new band saw tires so I can fit a short rear fender
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and just for kicks I tried the exercise bike sprocket and it fits! Clears the chain stay, decent chain line, and this guard might even fit with some hacking of the mounts!
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if I did my math correctly, and I probably didn’t, the underdrive low gear of the kickback should give me a usable around town flat land ratio, and a fast direct drive top gear. I’m gonna try it and see. I started looking for some high pressure tires for easy rolling, and in a bit of luck, Dans comp has S&M speedball 70 psi tires on sale for 15 bucks a piece so I ordered a couple. Guess I’m gonna build a little hot rod. Also got headset and bottom bracket parts in the simple green bucket. Got spokes ordered, just need wood bleach and some hardware. Fender and chain guard mounting next…
 
With a 64 tooth chain wheel and a 20 tooth cog on 26 x 1.75 tires, you will have 55 and 82 as gear inches. That's what you are looking for, easy for around town and a high gear like high on a three speed. If that's a 22 tooth cog, 74 and 50. If you use 2.125 tires, add 2.5 to each number.
 
With a 64 tooth chain wheel and a 20 tooth cog on 26 x 1.75 tires, you will have 55 and 82 as gear inches. That's what you are looking for, easy for around town and a high gear like high on a three speed. If that's a 22 tooth cog, 74 and 50. If you use 2.125 tires, add 2.5 to each number.
The hub has an 18 tooth sprocket, and the tires are 26x 2.4, they claim inflated diameter is 26.5" I need to do some research on gear inches cuz I have no idea what it means. I was just trying to figure out gear ratio, and I may have done it wrong! Thank you for the information
 
I'm trying to out what it all means as well
I think it was best replied to in your thread as the missing factors in guessing which ratio works for you before riding are how you ride and how able you are. ( I disagree about the following crank length comment though. When I'm standing and pedaling fast, which is always, I prefer longer cranks so that I can extend my legs without constantly having my knees bent in rotation. Still, correct in it's having little to do with a non-pro ride's figuring )
You don’t need that info, it’s a triviality. What I do is find what gearing I like on various bikes 1 ride for what ever purpose. Find a range for what you’re doing, basically all you need is what low gear works and what high gear works. Forget all that stuff about crank arm length and how far the wheel goes in one revolution. That’s useless. I then use the simplest bare bones gear inch calculation. People say gear inch is antiquated and it might be for hot shots, but for the advanced enthusiast this is all you need. Gear inch equals drive wheel diameter in inches times the number of teeth in the chainring (1/2 inch pitch chain) divided by the number of teeth in the rear cog. Don’t worry about measuring the wheel, if it’s say any of the 26 inch wheels just use 26 inches. All measures in inches so measure a 700 c to see how many inches you get. After you figure what works for high and low you can convert any of your bikes to that. You can also convert various wheels, cogs and chainrings to gear inches and see how far they are from what you need before buying parts. A derailleur bike can be used to see what works for you and your purpose and those high/low gears converted to gear inches. Then you can get those on your target bike. I’ve been doing this for a longtime and it works for me. As I age my needs have changed so I have changed the cogs or chainrings to better get what I need. Hot shots fine tune how far a bike travels with each revolution and each gear is chosen by the terrain and their riding style or ability. I’m not there. In my opinion that’s all you need. The number that works, once you have that your set.
Finally, I find that when I switch my single speed rides up after pushing a harder geared bike around town my lighter geared bike feels way too easy, but I get used to it, and the same thing happens when I switch back after finding it way too tough. So theres something to be said about adapting as well. Sheldon Brown lists IG hubs and compares manufacturers if you're looking for more or less difference between internal gears.. but I think you plan to keep what you've got.
 
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I think it was best replied to in your thread as the missing factors in guessing which ratio works for you before riding are how you ride and how able you are. ( I disagree about the following crank length comment though. When I'm standing and pedaling fast, which is always, I prefer longer cranks so that I can extend my legs without constantly having my knees bent in rotation. Still, correct in it's having little to do with a non-pro ride's figuring )

Finally, I find that when I switch my single speed rides up after pushing a harder geared bike around town my lighter geared bike feels way too easy, but I get used to it, and the same thing happens when I switch back after finding it way too tough. So theres something to be said about adapting as well. Sheldon Brown lists IG hubs and compares manufacturers if you're looking for more or less difference between internal gears.. but I think you plan to keep what you've got.
Thanks, I do plan to just try it and see what happens, if it sucks to ride, I'll change it. I do enjoy learning the technology of these things and trying to understand it, even if a lot of it is irrelevant to what I actually do with a bicycle. There's a lot of knowledge here, and I appreciate it when it's shared.
 
All the bearings and races are soaking in simple green
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stopped at the hardware store for some nuts and bolts and a container of wood bleach, just waiting for spokes. I chopped up a front fender from one of the donor bikes
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then un-spoked my parts wheel to get a good rim. I’ve only used chrome rims on one build off bike before, I usually paint them or leave them original
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I think the next step will be trying to mount a chain guard…
 
I do plan to just try it and see what happens, if it sucks to ride, I'll change it.
The best way to figure out gear ratios, in my opinion! I rode my bike without shifting for a few months until I figured out what gear worked for my single speed conversion. Then proceeded to order the wrong tooth count sprocket
 
Coming together nicely. Those Speedballs are great tires. Very well made. Grab while they are cheap.
 
I’ve been slacking for a couple weeks now, time to get back to work. I have all the parts picked out for this bike, but we had local swap meets the last 2 weekends and I held off in case I found something I liked better. The first one had mostly modern road bike stuff, one gout had some really cool BMX parts but that stuff is way out of my price range. All I bought was a set of Electra truss rods for some future build.
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The one this past Sunday had more stuff I “needed” some stubby aluminum fenders for a dollar each, a slingshot stem for ten bucks, a 5 dollar seat and a 20 dollar brooks
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and some cool bikes for sale too
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now I’ve got to make some progress, June is tick ticking by….
 
Wow! Maybe this is my last season at the bike shop, and next year I'll 'head east' and hit some of the cool swap meets I've seen in Ohio and your 'hood. You're in New England, right Schultzie? Mass? Also, there are a couple in Florida as well IIRC. It's a circuit I've wanted to do for awhile, hit some of our RRB brethren along the way.

Time to start mapping out a journey! Is there any chance my wife would go along with this as a '25th wedding anniversary trip'? :wondering: :shake::bigsmile:
 
Wow! Maybe this is my last season at the bike shop, and next year I'll 'head east' and hit some of the cool swap meets I've seen in Ohio and your 'hood. You're in New England, right Schultzie? Mass? Also, there are a couple in Florida as well IIRC. It's a circuit I've wanted to do for awhile, hit some of our RRB brethren along the way.

Time to start mapping out a journey! Is there any chance my wife would go along with this as a '25th wedding anniversary trip'? :wondering: :shake::bigsmile:
Yup I'm in Mass, a mile from the Connecticut line. If you find yourself up this way I'm sure I've got an extra bike for you to ride...
 
Got some work done the last couple nights, started with the remains of a subway parking sign
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then a cardboard template
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trace and cut
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test fit
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couple of clamps
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needs final trimming but good for now to test fit more stuff
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next project will be the chain guard, I put the crank, hub and chain on to check clearances. I think I want to drop the rear to follow the chain line better
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and the front mount needs to be completely re-done, but I have a plan…
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I actually like the top of the chain guard parallel to the chain stay like you have it; depending on after your wheels are mounted and the stance.

Another line that could only be uttered on ratrodbikes forum....
"...started with the remains of a subway parking sign."

:21:
 
My last part just got here, a layback seat post from Dan’s comp
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a before and after of removing the silver paint from the truss rods
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and the rest of the hardware sprayed with permatex rust spray
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now on to the chain guard… chopped off the old mount
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this one is surrendering it’s mount for the greater good
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a couple rivets later…
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and here’s this evening’s progress.
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now to take it all apart and start removing blue paint, stay tuned
 

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