My winter bike is finally 99% ready for winter. It was a really slow and tedious build, partially because the frame was a one-off model and partially because I want to do stuff it wasn't made to do. Well in the end, I won. :-) I got the
front wheel to have a disc brake, 29x1.75 tire and room for full fenders! The rear end is single speed with a semi-slick cross tire and full coverage metal fenders.
Here is the list of problems that I ran into with this bike:
1. Drilled the rear dropouts - didn't have fender eyelets and just barely squeezed a nut and bold in without hitting the hub.
2. The tire bead of cross tires do not want to mount on 28mm wide MTB rims very easily.
3. KMC 1/2 link to get the gear and chain tensioned correctly
4. Front fork disc tab needed to be faced - came bent out of the box :-(
5. Couldn't run a rear disc brake - housing on all my existing brakes was too short without buying a new hose and bleeding the brakes.
6. Tire clearance was an extreme issue on the rear wheel. Super narrow chainstays suck for big tires.
7. Front fender had to be cut - wouldn't fit with big nobbies.
8. I lost a washer for the crankarm fixing bolt, so the non-drive crank was wobbly for about a week until I bought some new bolts.
9. Sliding dropouts didn't come with long enough adjusting screws - had to run to hardware store and search for some that work.
10. Fenders came with hardware BUT not screws. Seriously? WTF.
Through all the problems, the bike actually came together pretty nice and I am happy with how it finished up. I think that this will be a fun ride for winter and hopefully should prevent my other bikes from getting trashed from winter riding.
Some more pics from the build:
You know ... for some reason I just imagine this bike bursting into flames spontaneously during your commute one day this winter.
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