1990 MB Dronfield restomod build

[wafter]

The shifters are the 4600 series ones, which is when they went to 10-speed, I guess, and 4700 is when they went to the concealed shifter cables. The 4700 ones are certainly nicer looking, but I already had the 4600 ones in the parts drawer...

Ahh, cool - I stand corrected

Might be worth keeping an eye out for a used set of 4700s..? The price of bits seems to be reasonable suppressed currently..

 

[sjcprojects]

I've been looking into the connection between MB and Malcolm Elliott, which confused me for a while until I realised that the bikes he rode which were made by MB had 'ME' on the head-tube and 'Malcolm Elliott' decals rather than the usual MB Dronfield ones.

He rode an MB for the 1983 Milk Race where he came third and won 6 stages. As far as I know MB started in 1979, so this was still fairly early in their history.

This is the best image I've found showing the 'ME' badge – this was in 1984, maybe just before he turned pro, seeing as he joined the ANC-Halfords team at some point in '84?

 

[sjcprojects]

 

[JoeH]

I am actually going to keep the original brakes as they have cleaned up well and they seem decent, so I suppose this will actually be a partial 'mod' build.

View attachment 865047

I'm not the biggest fan of single pivot, not for serious riding.
I really think dual pivot, especially at the front helps a lot.

How are your Modolo single pivot? They are a good brand, never used them myself.

 

[sjcprojects]

I'm not the biggest fan of single pivot, not for serious riding.
I really think dual pivot, especially at the front helps a lot.

How are your Modolo single pivot? They are a good brand, never used them myself.

Funny you should mention that, as I did end up replacing the Modolos. For a single pivot they're pretty good, but I came across some more modern Tektro dual pivots for I think literally about £5 including postage, so I replaced the Modolos for those - partly because I ride this bike in the autumn/winter sometimes, so effective braking is more important. It is kind of funny how much better a fairly basic set of dual pivot ones are compared with what would have been a relatively higher-end set of single pivot ones.

I've found there is a lot of variation in effectiveness between single pivot models, and I do ride with them on two of my bikes (Shimano 105 and 600), but of course they are never going to match dual pivot designs, not even close.

 

[droppedout]

Old single pivot brakes like Weinmann are very lightweight and cheap, most dual pivot brakes are quite heavy unless you spend quite a lot of money on something which is only going to slow you down anyway. For better performance you just pull a bit harder.