Next direction for Holdsworth Mistral

[vcballbat]

Re:

Well done, you have done an excellent job, especially as it's your first build. I like the colour choice and the combination of good reliable components... Suntour vx is a great bombproof touring mech. Love the 3 arm chainset... What make is it?. Is the headset and Seatpost Campag? Level up that saddle and you've built yourself a great go anywhere touring bike.

Enjoy the ride...Who needs a 'Gravel Bike'

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Just a word about your seat post.. You seem to have a Campag. two-bolt seatpost there, (or the SR copy of it, which amounts to the same thing) which is the gold standard for fine-tuning the angle of a saddle- if you can get to the bolt heads underneath the saddle! I'd imagine it is fiddly enough even with the dedicated Campag. spanner, which I've never had, or used. As hard as those bolts are to get to, make sure they are sufficiently tight-i.e. tight enough that there is no hint of the saddle rocking in the cradles. Well, you probably already found out that actually you only need to tighten one of the bolts- doing that will in effect tighten both of them, simultaneously changing the angle of the saddle slightly.

I have a secondhand Campag seatpost like that with cracks in the cradles where they locate on the 'peg' which locates them on either side of the head of the post. Failing that post of mine having once been stuck fast in a seat tube, and freed with the application of a lot of leverage delivered via those cradles, I'd surmise that the only way that could've happened is by someone having ridden with the bolts loose, or worse, sitting, for miles, like a sack of potatoes on the saddle, without even realising they were loose. Maybe they had a heavy saddlebag..

 

[Mules]

Re: Re:

Just a word about your seat post.. You seem to have a Campag. two-bolt seatpost there, (or the SR copy of it, which amounts to the same thing) which is the gold standard for fine-tuning the angle of a saddle- if you can get to the bolt heads underneath the saddle!.

Glad it isn't just me then! I had two shots at bolting it down and figuring out how to lock it down. Got the locking down bit down but it was such a faff to get in at the bolts I thought I'd fix the saddle angle later. Rue the day they stopped letting Victorian children with small hands earn an honest day's wage...

Mine is the SR version. It's one of the few components I didn't change out, along with the brakes and the frame.

Still trying to get tyres to sit on the rims. Thinking of asking our local bike recycling centre if they send any unwanted old ones to the scrappy and I'll offer them a donation.

Have a good Friday all
MM

 

[torqueless]

Re:

Yeah, after getting it finger-tight, which is fiddly enough in itself- the two-bolt seatpost and skirted saddle is a textbook example of why bolt heads are usually hexagonal, and why the heads of spanners are usually fifteen degrees out of kilter with their shafts.
You have to engage the spanner with the bolt head, turn it fifteen degrees, disengage the spanner, invert it, re-engage, turn it fifteen degrees. Do all that six times and you have turned the bolt one revolution. Do the same thing on the other bolt, but in the opposite direction, and you have changed the angle of the saddle by maybe a few degrees?

The two-bolt system does have the virtues that go with it's vices, though..

If 27" tyres are too loose on the rims, maybe you should try a 700c tyre, especially if the rims had 700c tyres on before?