At home I started the build by installing the Selle San Marco Regal saddle, Nitto Dynamic (this may become a Deluxe) stem and Noodle handlebars. Then I put on the Dura Ace hubs and Mavic Open pro wheels and stood back to eye the proportions. It looked good although it’s going to take me a while to get over my French fit/Rivendell prejudice against the lower handle bars of the Eddy fit that I’m going for with this build. Next on when the Sugino Alpina (48t-34t) crank, the Dura Ace rear derailleur and the IRD front derailleur. I positioned the derailleur at the bottom of it’s mounting bracket as I’m using a smaller than spec big ring, but it looks fine. Then I mounted the brake levers, the Dura Ace bar end shifters and threaded the SRAM chain through the derailleurs, and around the crank. Somehow I feel that a bike comes to life as soon as I feel the tension of the rear derailleur against the chain. Not long now, just the cabling to finish off and the handlebars to wrap and we’ll be all done.

And here’s the finished article.

President’s day gave me the opportunity to go on my first longish ride on the Neo Primato. The weather wasn’t ideal, cold and windy, but I couldn’t resist and the thought of tea and cake half way through the ride spurred me to wrap up warmly and get on the road. I noticed two things almost at once. The Neo Primato is far more responsive than my Rivendells, I can turn quicker and more sharply and the San Marco saddle is doing my butt in. After 20 miles it was pretty uncomfortable. I suppose I’m just accustomed to the give of a Brooks leather saddle so a Team Pro or Swift will have to be purchased.

Broadway Bicycle School in Cambridge, MA

As a schoolboy I tinkered with bikes, and as a middle aged man I’ve continued my amateurish fiddling. My cheque book is now considerably larger so I can mess around with more bikes and buy bits and pieces for them, but I’ve never had any formal training as a bicycle mechanic and generally just use my experience as an engineer and some common sense to work things out. This works fine most of the time, but I’ve wanted to build my own wheels for a while now and to do that I thought that I should get some real training. So I looked for a suitable course and found that the “Broadway Bicycle School” in Cambridge offered one. There were two drawbacks though, a pre-requisite was their “Advanced Mechanic” course which also had a pre-requiste of the “Basic Mechanic” course. Well a little learning never hurt so I decided to take both courses to gain admittance to the inner sanctum of wheel building.

The Broadway Bicycle School is a full service bike shop in a quaint and cozy store with wheels hanging from the ceiling, a creaky wooden floor, an excellent collection of old chainrings and just enough space for a few bike stands. Get eight bikes and their owners in there along with an instructor and the space becomes even more intimate. But that’s really what this shop/school is all about. It’s friendly and a great place for the bike geek or interested newbie. It’s owned by the employees and they set out to not only fix and sell bikes, but also to teach people how to maintain them. For a small fee they even let you use the shop and it’s tools to work on your own bike. It’s definitely not a store for the lycra clad carbon riding racer, but it’s perfect for the city rider who loves their bike.

I’ve now completed two of five evening classes in the basic course and I can highly recommend them for both a complete novice and for someone who has a little knowledge, but wants to see how to do things properly. Our instructor, Kate, was bright, cheery and knowledgeable and took us through fixing a puncture in the first class with lots of show and tell and then we were set loose on our own bikes. For the second class we got to adjust a cup and cone hub and learned about headsets. I found this useful as it’s been a while since I adjusted an old style hub as I now buy hubs with sealed bearings. Next week it’s brakes………….

54cm (c-c) 2009, red, De Rosa Neo Primato with threaded fork special ordered from factory
Head set: Chris King 2Nut
Stem: Nitto Dynamic, 100mm
Bars: Nitto Noodle 44cm
Tape: White Fizik
Brake Levers: Shimano BR 600
Brakes: Dura Ace BR 7800
Shifters: Shimano Dura Ace Barcon
BB: Phil Wood 111mm
Crank: Sugino Alpina, 170mm, 48-34
Pedals: Shimano PD-A530
Chain: Sram PC-991
Cassette: Dura Ace 12-25
FD: IRD CD
RD: Dura Ace RD 7800GS
Front Wheel: Dura Ace FH 7900, 32 hole Mavic Open Pro, DT Swiss
Rear Wheel: Dura Ace RH-7850, 32 Hole Mavic Open pro, DT Swiss
Tires: Conti Ultra Gator Skins, 25-622
Seat Post: Nitto Dynamic
Saddle: Selle San Marco Regal, white

The Fixed Sprocket

This is as simple as it gets, just a sprocket screwed onto a hub. If you pedal forwards it rotates anti clockwise, and if you pedal backwards it goes clockwise – there’s no ratchet so you can pedal both forwards and backwards. This “fixed gear” style of riding is how bicycles started out, it’s the mechanism used on track bikes and it’s also become popular with a sub-culture of urban riders who’ve discovered it’s simplicity. To stop the fixed sprocket from unscrewing when you ride backwards it’s retained by a lock ring that screws onto a slightly smaller diameter left handed threading that all fixed hubs have. To install this puppy you need a chain whip……….it’s not what you’re thinking, it’s just a handle with a couple of lengths of chain that wrap around the sprocket so you can get a good grip on it to tighten it. The end of the handle will often be a lock ring spanner too. Remember when looking at the sprocket turn it clockwise to tighten and anti-clockwise to untighten, do the opposite for the lock ring and always use plenty of lube on those threads.

The Freewheel

This sprocket has some smarts. There’s a mechanism inside with a ratchet. If you pedal forwards the ratchet engages and it works like a fixed sprocket and the motion of the chain is transferred to the hub and the bike moves forward. However, if you pedal backwards the freewheel spins freely. The useful upshot of all this is that on down hills you can coast, unless you decided to go down the hill backwards and then the wheel’s motion would be transmitted to the pedals, but no one would do that.

Freewheels are notoriously difficult to remove because the act of pedaling thightens them onto the hub. There are a couple of different sorts of freewheels that need different tools and techniques to remove. Make sure you know what type of freewheel you have and necessary tools. They only cost a few dollars. Shimano type freewheels require spline tool (park FR-1). This spline tool fits down over the axle inside the freewheel and it is retained by reinstalling the skewer. The you grip it with a big wrench and unscrew it by turning the wrench anticlockwise. If it’s tough slip a bit of pipe over the wrench handle to give you some extra leverage.

Tools. The pipe is for extra leverage if needed

Shimano type freewheel with park FR-1 spline tool

Use a big wrench and turn it anticlockwise

The second type of freewheel uses a 2 or 4 pronged removal tool (FR-6). This fits into slots on the freewheel body and then you again use the skewer to lock it in place. If you don’t do this it will simply slip out when you apply any force. Now take your courage, a big wrench and maybe that bit of pipe and unscrew the freewheel.

BMX style FR-6 four pronged tool and freewheel

Four pronged freewheel tool held in place with skewer

Freewheel removed to reveal the threads inside and on the hub

The Cassette

The cassette is what comes on most modern bikes, but it’s actually similar to the fixed sprocket as it has no mechanism in it. It’s just a series of sprockets that instead of having a thread on the inside diameter have a series of splines. There’s still a ratcheting mechanism, but now it’s in the hub. The cassette’s splines slide over mating splines on the hub mechanism and it’s kept in place by a lock ring that on Shimano cassettes is tightened using the FR-5 Shimano spline tool. This arrangement makes removal of the cassette easy as there’s no thread that is tightened by pedaling. Place the FR-5 tool in to the cassettes splines, retain it with the skewer, grip the cassette with the chain whip to stop it from rotating and use a wrench to turn the spline tool anticlockwise until the retaining ring comes loose. Then simply pull the cassette off. Some of the cogs might be individual and others locked together on a carrier, don’t worry, just don’t loose any of the single cogs.

Use the chain whip to stop the cassette from rotating and unscrew the lock ring by turning the removal tool anticlockwise with the wrench

The splines on the hub and inside the cassette body

All loaded up with my groceries.

Shrimp and pasta. It’s whats for dinner!