Re: "The Bishop" - Finally mocked up!
After a week off, I am finally back at the build. I was at the bike shop right after they opened, and while they were missing one of my stems, I was able to make a lot of progress today. The paint still needs a bit more polishing, and some touching up, so I worked on that for a while before turning toward to new parts. I needed to install the headset, so I whipped up a little tool using a threaded bar, some big washers, and a couple nuts. Worked like a charm. Once they were in, I installed the crown race on the triple trees, and installed the bottom bracket cups while I was at it.
Once those were in, I threw on the forks, the new banana seat, and the half of my handlebar setup, the new wheels, and the Thick Bricks. I'm finally starting to see this thing come together - cafe racer anyone?
I'll take more pics of the build tomorrow, but I wanted to get around to building up the rear wheel. I bought a super cheap rear wheel - it was actually cheaper to buy the complete wheel than it was to buy a rim, the spokes and the nipples. I have a Nexus 3-speed hub on my stock Felt rims that I wanted to use on the new wheelset, so I had to take that set apart. Taking things apart, as we all know, is remarkably easy, and quite a bit of fun!
It was so fun, I took apart the new wheel too.
The wheel that I stripped down had black spokes, but silver nipples. I really wanted the all black look, so I hit them with a quick coat of black.
Building the wheel is pretty easy - especially with a little help from Sheldon Brown. Took a few minutes to lace it up, another 20 or so to tension it up and true it. I started off trying to get it extremely true, but after a beer or so, I figured it was good enough.
So now the wheels are done (well, aside from some nuts that are unaccounted for at the moment), so tomorrow I will finish up some polishing and should be able to get the cranks on. I need to decide what I will do with the sissy bars - I was thinking conduit, but it may be a little too robust...
