Well I've been a little remiss. I have had a new working, fully built bike for a couple of months now with no report on what it's like. Though in my defence I've been busy trying to renovate a house, which doesn't actually work as an excuse for my lack of posting as I really should be putting up at least a little information about that.
Anyway enough of my waffling on, time to show off the bike.
First off I want to say that I bought this bike piece by piece and assembled it myself. I bought most of the bits from eBay at I have to say excellent prices. One piece, the Handlebars was given to me as a birthday present, so I have to say a big thanks to Dad.
While the price was good and I had time to research each piece before I bought it, it did take an excruciating 6 months of purchases to finally have enough pieces for a working bike. Six months of riding a barely working bike around. I did get impatient several times but there was not much I could do.
What I did get out of it though is a bike that fits perfectly with what I want. I needed a commuter bike to get me around the 'Ville' with speed and with more ease than I've had with my dual suspension bike. Because of my size though I needed a tough bike that could handle the bumps. To that end I had decided on a mountain bike frame but build it up with more road or hybrid type parts.
Most hybrid bikes have large Road bike size wheels but I needed strength as well so I needed to buy a mountain bike wheel. This prompted me to look into an emerging part of the mountain bike market called
29ers.
The basic concept of the larger diameter is simple: there is less of an angle when ever you encounter an obstacle and it's easier to roll over the obstacle. The larger wheel offers increased centrifugal force, which in turn improves the bike’s stability. The extra three inches also increases the amount of tire contacting the ground at any one moment offering better traction.
So I decided to buy a 29er, probably in steel to keep cost down. I needed a slick or semi-slick tyre to keep rolling resistance down so I looked into
Schwalbe tires and found the Marathon tires. In the end the
Marathon Supreme seemed to suit my purposes best. Next I had to think about a drive train. I had decided to simplify the drive train on my new bike and only have a nine speed bike. I love the clean look of a single speed bike but I'm a slacker and decided I needed at least a few gears. the solution was to only have the rear gears (see the third photo). Lastly but definitely not least I had to figure out the Forks for my bike. I wanted simple and long lasting so I decided not to get a suspension fork. They need maintenance occasionally and are much more prone to failure than solid forks. With that decision made I chose to go with some light weight Carbon forks.
The last important piece was of course the one less car sticker.
I now have a fast fairly light and above all reliable bike that gets me around. Ride Quality is not nearly as forgiving as my dual suspension
Specialized, but it is fast and brilliant on the roads where I ride it %90 of the time. I have so far beaten my previous best time to the strand from uni by nearly 10 minutes.
I really have enjoyed building and then riding my new bike. I hope it likes me too as over the next probably 10 years we will be doing a lot of Kilometres together.
On the left is the Water Blaster a Kartcher G2500 with a genuine Honda engine. Water pressure goes up to 2500psi hence it's name. When looking for a model to buy I found I could buy a Petrol powered one cheaper with much higher pressure output. It also looks like it will do the job and last quite a while. I have cleaned mine and Mine paths and drive ways with it so far and I am very impressed with the pressure and ease of use.
On the Right is a Spray painter a Wagner project 115. It has a 10 litre paint hopper on the top and the same gun as the professional models that sell for over $4000. have used it with some water and spraying is easy. Hopefully there wont be a lot of over spray and the quality of the finish will be what I'm after. I will let you know when I do some actual spraying of paint.
