--- In bentechriders@yahoogroups.com, "lew2au" <john.lewis@...> wrote:

> Top Tube: I haven't tried a top tube but I fitted two idlers to manage
> the chain. I think it may be visible in photo. Look in photo section
> John's Bike. Can't remember what I put there now. I'll have to look
> into your solution.

Look here
<http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/PhilProsser/BILD0009.jpg> and
here <http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/PhilProsser/BILD0010.jpg>
then. Sorry about the cluttered background. Ours is a very small
workshop, and usually has about three jobs at once going on. (Best not
to mix metal- and woodwork though, if the woodwork produces shavings and
the metalwork produces sparks. Seriously!)
>
> I'd be interested in some pictures of your pannier mounts.

Pics here
<http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/PhilProsser/BILD0012.jpg> ,
here <http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/PhilProsser/BILD0008.jpg>
, here
<http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/PhilProsser/BILD0006.jpg> . I
also have a conventional rack, which you can see bits of in these shots
(but you can see it better in the one I posted yesterday). Before
having the frame powder coated, I brazed in bottle cage bosses beneath
the seat for this sort of thing, although I had no concrete plans at
that stage for a low rack. I had in mind a bottle cage, and a pump
clip - now the bosses support, between them, the low rack, the pump clip
and a battery box for my rechargeable light setup.

The other bits I was pleased with include:

this computer mounting bit
<http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/PhilProsser/BILD0005.jpg> .
This started life as an offcut of wardrobe hanging rail. Before the
bike was painted, I experimented with fixing a computer onto the front
headset (my bike' USS), but found that it was too close to me. If I
wore anything other than skintight shorts, I couldn't see the computer -
my trousers got in the way. Pressing the buttons on it in public could
have got me arrested! So I brazed up this bit of 25mm tube on a couple
of thin steel scraps and brazed the whole thing onto the boom in front
of the front head tube, where I can read it and it's directly above the
sender thingy on the fork.

bottle cage bosses
<http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/PhilProsser/BILD0013.jpg> on
the derailleur tube. You have to choose your derailleur carefully to
get a bottle cage to fit around it - there's not much clearance. As it
is, the chain takes the anodizing off the cage in places and makes the
bottle a bit greasy sometimes. But it's the only sensible place to put
a bottle cage really. For long-distance touring, more bottle cages
would be nice but I'll probably have to carry more bottles in my
luggage. Haven't done any long-distance yet on this bike, but watch
this space. Trans-Am late this summer is not out of the question...

front light mounts
<http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/PhilProsser/BILD0014.jpg> on
the derailleur tube. I cunningly didn't use bottle cage bosses here.
Why? Because my light brackets have concave surfaces; they're designed
to fit against the curved fork crown of an upright bike. Bottle cage
bosse's surfaces are flat - it would have worked, but it wouldn't be
elegant. So I just drilled through the derailleur tube, and then brazed
an M5 nut on the inside of the tube. The light bracket's concave rear
surface fits against the concave surface on the tube nicely. There are
two of these holes-and-brazed-in-nuts, as I used to have two lights, one
above the other. The unused one has a screw in it to keep the weather
out. One light broke, so I'm down to one for now. The small LED light
you can see is just an emergency backup - no way I can see where I'm
going with that!

to get the 'bars where I wanted them, I needed a really short stem. I
couldn't find one in the shops or on Ebay - quill stems have gone right
out of fashion. I could have used a quill-to-threadless converter and a
threadless type stem, but that's bulky, expensive and inelegant.
(Actually, I think threadless setups are inelegant altogether, but
that's another thread). So in the end I cut down this steel quill stem
and re-welded it
<http://i59.photobucket.com/albums/g307/PhilProsser/BILD0011.jpg> .
(Gosh it's rusty in that picture... shows the bike gets used!) This
turned out to be a bit of an undertaking. First I cut off the
forward-projecting part (OK, it projects forward on an upright bike),
then used a file to fishmouth the cut-off end. Then I cut down the
vertical part so it was short enough to fit in the Bentech's very short
rear steerer tube. (Otherwise it'd poke you in the backside through the
seat... undesirable). The clamp bolt had a washer on it to stop it
pulling through the top of the vertical part of the stem, so I didn't
have to worry about that, but the bolt was now about 3" too long.
Besides cutting that down, I had to cut the thread rather further along
it. I had to buy a cheap set of taps and dies to do this, but they've
since been useful for other jobs. Finally, it all fitted together.
You'll see in the pics that most of the frame is powder-coated blue,
with black for the fork, seat frame and low rack. I just got the
powder-coating guy to do the handlebars and stem in black as well.

Actually, you can also see that the powder coat on the 'bars is cracking
off. That's because the steel the bars are made of is actually pretty
soft and cheesy, so every time someone tries the bike and falls off it,
the bars are what hit the ground first, and they get bent. I plan to
make some more out of better-quality steel, or maybe get some alloy ones
made up. My bars are straight copies of early Azub underseat bars,
thanks to Hoogie for that idea. Very easy to make in steel if you have
brazing or welding kit, and a pipe bender. Maybe I could just buy a set
of Azub bars...




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]