The Roquefort Files

Travels to the pub and back

June 19th, 2006

More money, fewer gears part 2: the build.

So, most of the parts have arrived and I’ve started to build the bike. I started with the front end of the bike – forks, headset, stem, bars and brakes. The first thing to do was to fit the forks and stem, and I hit the first hurdle straight away. Fitting the bearing cups in [...]

June 8th, 2006

More money, fewer gears.

I’ve embarked on a foolish quest to build a single speed commuting bike; i.e, a bike with only a single gear and no complicated derailleur mechanisms. Mostly I like the simplicity of the concept, but partly I want to get a bit more exercise out of my cycle to work and back without making things [...]