NERD my ride

Posted on April 12, 2013 by Mark Skulls

Bike too cool?

Nothing says 90′s nerd like barends on your commuter. Climb like John Tomac or get aero in your skinsuit.

So after a quick nerdabouthenet I found these bad boys on ebay with bonus integrated tool kit nerdpoints.

Stashmodathon! I thought.
Having already modded my keys and tools into one I wondered what else I could fit in there.
Take that shit apart.

The built in tyre levers are quite good so I got rid of everything else and found some useful stuff to cram in there like glue and patch’s and quick-links and how about a tire boot? Sure why not.

While your at it you might as well grind down your security skewer keys to fit in there too.

Lets hope no thieving bastards are reading this!

2013-04-12 19.41.56

Job done! now where’s my helmet mirror?

But wait ! I still have the problem of no spare tube…. and no oversized seattube/steerer/stem to stash it in on this old steel frame.

So this calls for some old school ghetto style stashing.

In the baggy it goes

This ones called the mule.

This ones called border patrol
But in the end I went for the classic up ya bum.

NEW 1×10 ROADIE

Posted on November 30, 2012 by Mark Skulls

Got this old GT EDGE

recently and decided to build it up fairly light with sram 10 speed mtb bits.

So I roughly stripped the frame and added some faux welding marks with a butane torch then just clearcoated it.
Its got KCNC cranks with some of that scandium through the middle and a scandium kcnc stem. 48t stronglight chainring and a sram 11 to 36 cassette.
Sram rival levers with one shifter removed (40 gram weight saving mod)
Sram XO ten speed rear mech.

I got deda bars and U.S.E. seatpost that I polished up and a Ti flight saddle.
Shimano mtb spds
Sram rival brakes
My wheels are PIMP! suzue road hubs laced to mavic open pros with radial and 4x sapin cxray spokes.
The fork is a 1″ full carbon easton ec90 that was kinda loud so I “realtree” camo duct taped it for that raw militant look.
It weighs 8.8kg at the mo.

I took it for its first big ride today, it was chilly …..

but with numb fingers and toes we managed a good 85km loop up through epping forest

out to the “secret” nuclear bunker

and back to good old hackney for some pizza and beer.

I’m really happy with the 1×10 set up, the spring on that xo mech is soo strong its never dropped off the front and I only just touched the range on that cassette this ride, I think I was in the smallest tooth twice and the second to biggest once. But london is fairly flat…..
And cold…..
Im gonna get another beer.

My commuter

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Justin Henehan

It’s only taken four months and two paint jobs, but I finally got my commuter bike going yesterday.
I picked up a mystery ‘Italian’ frame for a hundy off Tradme a while back. It’s still a mystery frame, but a nice one. All the lugs are Cinelli and it looks to be a mixture of Columbus SL and Genius tubing. ‘R.BOYD’ is stamped on the BB shell, but no one knows who that is.
I had Arcro Powdercoaters on the North Shore do an experimental paint job for me. It turned out nothing like what I asked for, but looks cool anyway. It’s a layer of candy blue clearcoat with silver sprayed on top at the powder stage and the two colours baked together. It’s as sparkly as a disco ball, weirdly textured and slightly translucent — you can see the brazing in places through the paint. Constructivist as.
I wound up getting that fork for it (get it), but I might chuck the original fork back on because it’s a bit steep and twitchy. The stem is a Kelly Bikes cromo one that I had painted to match the frame. The wheels are Chris King and Mavic OP. Alister Worrall sold me his old Sram Rival Wi-Fli climber kit for a bargain, so it’s got heaps of easy gears on the back (11-32! MEGA RANGE). The crankset is a LAF Italian set up from FRM. It’s all scandium and titanium — weight weeeeenies!
The bars are those comfy Humpbert jobs and the brake levers are some Dia Compe numbers with the built in finger grips that Tim gave me.
Completing it all is an old Controltech post (I’ve run on almost every bike I’ve owned in the last 6 years) and a nice new/old flite saddle.
Mods to come: original fork back in, Carradice Camper-C saddle bag, Soma front rack, Skulls Modz steering stabliser, suspension seatpost …

Thanks to Tim White, Teva (for the brakes) and Josca.

Cyclocross bike next.

Skulls lowpro porteur cross build mutant FAIL

Posted on August 28, 2012 by Mark Skulls

So I might have rushed into this one a little quick.
I wanted something a bit lighter with bigger tyre clearance than the Dean. I also wanted it ratty and cheapish so I wouldnt have to worry about losing it.
So I bought this Paul Milnes Cyclocross frame on ebay without really checking out the size properly.

Its a great frame, nice and light with loads of tyre clearance but had steeper geo and a shorter top tube than I was expecting. I did a bad job of stripping it with nitromoores for that ratty look and built it up with a cheap 700c hybrid fork originally with a fat 54c tire on the front. It looked sweet but when I rode it I found the toe overlap far too bad and my position too upright. I didn’t want to put drops on and I hate toe overlap (especially when drunk!) so I changed to a longer stem and less swept back bars. The position was better but overlap still annoyed me. Then I realized I had some pace trials forks kicking around doing nothing, so I checked out the AtoC and they were the same as my hybrid forks! So lighter forks and a reverse brake mounts! Only dropping the front by 3-4cm by using a 26×1.95 and giving me 10+cm up front for my big feet.

So heres how it looks now.

cheap town bars and used shifter and free stem thanks to fitzrovia

parts bin seatpost and grips

my VO porteur rack

Magura Racelines off ebay cause Ive always wanted some and they’re cheap good brakes

My sram rival cranks and parts bin chain ring and gaurd

1×8 set up 11 to 34 super range!

Halo supadrive rear hub makes a great sound.

Fluro trials pedals and holdfast to match maguras

shitty dynamo front hub on free rim. not hooked up.

47c rear conti cityride

So basically its too small and rides like crap. The geo is too steep for a load in the front so its already been stripped down and parts re-appropriated.

Im still on the look out for old cannondale CX frame 56cm if anyone sees a cheap one.

Ah well you cant win em all.

More builds to come.

Sunday Roast

Posted on July 14, 2012 by Teva

finally remembered to take pictures of my winter bike that took me a while to build because i was busy spending money on pretty strong carbon (more on that later…). so i had the opportunity of getting a amazing sillgey last year in october (read ‘free’! thanks to DADDY Too White!)

that’s the frame before i got it pimped up

anyway, after a few months of having it just lying there collecting dust i finally got it painted by procoat and got the classy treatment (which i have been patiently waiting to get it done) and got a gloss black with gold flakes.

after getting the frame re-couloured, i had my good mate Baxter to fabricate me some ultra rare-pretty much one of a kind- stickers for the bike and voila! magic!

after that part i started to go awol with my budget and decided i needed to put the whole bike as swiftly as possible. so i wanted to have two words in a certain particular font that this japanese company made plastered all over the bike because i thought it could be nice.

here is the result.

are those ultra rare vintage xtr brake levers that only use to come in a lever/shifter combo?!

of course not! nothing a bit of steady hand and dremel won’t create adventure times.

duracell
duramarmite (dad’s jokes are lame)double dura ace! all the way!

yup carbon braided saddle

you might have notice i’m running 2 different model of dura ace brakes for extra dura points

octalink to 55teeth of heavy grinding

22 tooth of 72 engagement point

allegance to metal

please support your L.B.C.

L&S Creations 26″ Cruiser

Posted on July 8, 2012 by Justin Henehan

This is my L&S Creations cruiser. These frames and parts are being reproduced by Boss BMX founder Carlo Lucia to the exact specs from back in the day. Carlo started out making frames for Patterson and Panda before going on to start Boss. After Boss folded, Carlo set up L&S Creations.

People either seem to love or hate the paint, which is cool. Rather than trying to buy a patina, I was going for something I’d seen at the Old School BMXhibition I put on a few years back. Andy White had picked up this rad Titan BMX with this crazy textured paint job just like the mini in the pic below. Hutch also did a run of frames in the same colour/finish which they called Futuristic Black. They were super rare and freaky looking.

I just really liked the texture of the paint, which Josca aptly described as looking like it had been pulled out of a tar pit. I reckon it has a kind of 80s sci-fi feel, like Bladerunner meets Robocop. Tim at Procoat knew exactly what I was after and nailed it first time.

T.Whites Bikes sorted me out with all the profile bits, including an awesome looking set of blood red mini hubs.

Tim White, the choice dude that he is, gave me a brand new set of Jive Tentacle grips complete with Jive nuts. Rad!

The rest of the bits were mid-school parts that I had picked up from here and there, including a new Odyssey Svelte saddle, chrome GT layback seat post (Adventure Cycles find), Odyssey Pozi-stop seatpost clamp and an Odyssey pitbull brake.

Asha’s Alpinestar

Posted on June 29, 2012 by Mark Skulls

This is the misses old commuter that Ill be getting rid of soon as Ive built her up something lighter and rad’er.
Its a fairly rare Alpinestar Cross Bike that I switched the bars, levers and shifters on. I built up a super cheap dynamo hub and added a old light and rear rack I had lying around. I used the super wide mtb pedals on my Maeda and used old odessey twisted. The fenders and bars were the only new bits.
It rides super nice and looks rad but the old Crmo frame is a bit heavy for lifting up and down stairs.

OG Parts

Posted on June 13, 2012 by Mark Skulls

For my new build.

Not what you might think…

jungle cloth

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Teva

anyone has any 90′s anodized part they would like to donate for the ‘poor yeti pro fro conglomerate of awesome international foundation for the cure of monochromatic 90′s diseases’?