The Wheels

With the bike completely dissasembled, the easiest bit to do first was to regrease the hubs and polish the rims up. The wheels are Ridgida alloy rims 36 spoke, on some French hubs with a silly name which is difficult to read. Dimension wise they are 27" x 1 1/4".
Tripple O wire wool and t-cut is great for polishing up the rims.
Also, in these environmentally friendy days, to clean the grease out of the hubs and off the ball bearings, first wipe off as much as possible with kitchen roll then if you have some Sainsbury's kitchen cleaner put all the bearings in a pot squirt with cleaners, slosh for a bit then wash off in water and hey presto shinny balls. Of course if you have some nice posh degreaser then you will be better off using that.

Thinking

I am still undecided on how the bike should look when it is rebuilt, somedays I think let's do something different, unique even, then today I thought, how about restoring it so it looks the same as the day it left the factory.

Finding a bike

Intrigued by the simplicity of this type of bike, the papers were scanned, cards in newsagents windows looked at and, 1 or 3 trips to the recycling centre. The plan was for a MTB fixed wheel as the 26" wheels would allow me to cope with the hills with lowere gearing. I found a Holdsworth with Reynolds 500 tubing and a pair of v section wheels with sealed bearings, brilliant I thought, until closer inspection revealed the hubs on 1 wheel and the rim on the other were cracked. This was all recycled! Several trips later to the nearer recycle centre I picked up a Carlton with nice lugs and surprisingly, had hardly been used. Now I am more excited as it reminds me of my old race bike. In exchange for £20 I now had my doner bike. Pictures to follow.

The start

Whilst out riding with Team Pud, we came up with a plan to build fixed wheel bikes in the spirit of scrap heap challenge.