Retro-modern fusion gravel build madness. The new Superb!

[Mickeyspinn]

I think I'm still in a good place.
I've got that buggered campy top cup and a spare JIS sealed bearing cup to try the workarounds.

There's always other fallback options - e.g. Velo orange French headset & a grinder

To be honest, quite unlucky of me to get the 27mm race fork.


So, any ideas why I shouldn't use the Tange race with a campy cup, as long as the fit is nice & snug, and the headset turns OK?

I think that cups and races are matched by bearing diameter...it means that one side of the balls contact is exactly opposite the other..IE through the balls center line...i think you'll get a headset for a while but it could go nasty fairly quick.. but if you find the magic size bearing that might make an improvement!?

Right just pulled one of mine to bits...I have a fork from a 1937 la Fileuese that's a 27mm crown race.....through luck it would appear the one I've fitted has such a huge lead/chamfer on the bore size of the race just before the seat lands on the crown it snugs up... That's a 26.4 race btw!
I think the tree your barking up is correct...make it fit...file it dano....the fork obv not the crown that won't work!. Keep trying it on ...it'll leave witness marks were it gets unhappy...too tight it'd crack....if it ends up baggy.....cough ..epoxy...cough....which is what I've done on another and that has a some mileage now and appears fine!
Now as for uptop.....not on the la Fileuese because bizarrely the original is very happy but on my other Frenchy fancy...standard British 1" thread goes on.... It's not right sure but it's not so loose it's come loose !

And don't forget......never ever listen to what I say..

 

[M_Chavez]

Don't need to listen to you - I have enough voices in my head telling me what to do

Been brainstorming this one for a while now and rummaging through the workshop trying different options.

Bottom cup is simples. Plenty of solutions. For the record, if anyone is facing this issue in the future (to repeat, running a 27.0 fork race into 30.2 frame cups which can happen with some French, Italian and JIS forks):
1) Buy Tange Passage/Levin JIS headset (to borrow the 27.0 race) + tange passage ISO (for the ISO cup). Both run off 4mm bearings, so races are interchangeable. With cheapo Passages the cost is £25 - pretty sure that's what I've paid for a used bottom cup on my summer bike (ok, ok, it has "hope" written on it). Both headsets are low stack, so should work in prehistoric frogbikes.
2) Any JIS bottom headset fitted into the frame with a beer can shim. Up to you to decide whether it's safe or not, I've never tried it. you'll be fitting cups designed for 30.0 frame into 30.2 frame; a beer can is supposed to be 0.11 - on paper they were made for each other.). Don't blame me if it goes tits up.
3) Potentially, any threadless EC30 ISO with a split ring (Both JIS and ISO seem to use the same 45 degree cartridge bearings and come with identical split rings regardless whether it's a 26.6 or a 27 race!). If your stack height allows (sealed headsets tend to be taller).
Neco H673 and H610 seem to be low-stack models.

 

[Mickeyspinn]

Don't need to listen to you - I have enough voices in my head telling me what to do

Been brainstorming this one for a while now and rummaging through the workshop trying different options.

Bottom cup is simples. Plenty of solutions. For the record, if anyone is facing this issue in the future (to repeat, running a 27.0 fork race into 30.2 frame cups which can happen with some French, Italian and JIS forks):
1) Buy Tange Passage/Levin JIS headset (to borrow the 27.0 race) + tange passage ISO (for the ISO cup). Both run off 4mm bearings, so races are interchangeable. With cheapo Passages the cost is £25 - pretty sure that's what I've paid for a used bottom cup on my summer bike (ok, ok, it has "hope" written on it). Both headsets are low stack, so should work in prehistoric frogbikes.
2) Any JIS bottom headset fitted into the frame with a beer can shim. Up to you to decide whether it's safe or not, I've never tried it. you'll be fitting cups designed for 30.0 frame into 30.2 frame; a beer can is supposed to be 0.11 - on paper they were made for each other.). Don't blame me if it goes tits up.
3) Potentially, a combination of a threadless JIS race into a threadless ISO cup (Both JIS and ISO seem to use the same cartridge bearings). If your stack height allows (sealed headsets tend to be taller). Threadless JIS race can be taken from a £9 Chinese MQUZI threaded cartridge headset. You'll need an EC30 for the ISO cup though (good luck finding one!).

In my particular case, I have an old Campy mirage cup running 4.76 balls that seems to be very happy accepting the Tange race designed to run 4mm balls. Very strange. Even stranger, the Tange race for 4mm balls (supposedly a Campy rip-off) does not run in another campy headset designed to run 4mm balls (that one only works with a campy race).

I'm either going to run Tange + tange or tange+campy. Campy cup's destined for the bin anyway, I have nothing to lose apart from my teeth.

I think Frannie will eventually succumb to your charms Chavez... persistence will win her over

 

[M_Chavez]

Right.

Found a low-stack threadless cartridge bearing EC 30 headset (Neco H673 and H610). Split ring race covers both 26.6 and 27.0.

Hopefully, a £25 solution to a million franc problem.

 

[Woz]

Or the other option as I hinted at earlier. Get rid of the fork steering column once and for all. 1" threadless is the future

Somebody here does fork steering column modifications and extensions. danson67 maybe?

I'm sure any competent local welder / mechanical worker wouldn't find this rocket science.

 

[Woz]

Right.

Found a low-stack threadless cartridge bearing EC 30 headset (Neco H673 and H610). Split ring race covers both 26.6 and 27.0.

Hopefully, a £25 solution to a million franc problem.

Stop stop stop .....



How are you going to stop a 1" JIS or ISO top cup with the wrong diameter and thread flopping about? They are too big.

Where are your getting at least the very top French locknut from in all of this pick-n-mix?

 

[M_Chavez]

Get rid of the fork steering column once and for all.

 

[M_Chavez]

How are you going to stop a 1" JIS or ISO top cup with the wrong diameter and thread flopping about? They are too big.

The steerer is only 0.4 mm bigger than the EC30 split compression ring, so a couple wraps of gaffer tape, some epoxy, beer can shim and a squirt of WD40 will sort that out.

I will try to use double lockrings Sheldon-style to apply & lock the pre-load on the compression ring and the bearings. I am running on the assumption that French steerer is the same as modern M25x1. I'm no engineer, but it seems to be the case. Will try once the alloy nut arrives some time next week.

You are correct that my previous thought of using an ISO threaded cup for a threadless set-up is flawed. That set-up requires some sort of a compression ring too - the ones you get in threadless headsets. Unless you have a 1" kicking about, you might as well buy an EC30 headset.

 

[M_Chavez]

Spent a bit of time working on the wheelset this morning.
Weight comes up to 1850 without QRs or rim tape. I am quite pleased, given it's a 32 spoke count rim-brake one.

Bike industry never fails to fail. With all the hype surrounding the glorious return of 650B, there's not much choice of non-disk rims, tubes and tyres.
The whole thing is quite disappointing really. *sound of balloon deflating*

The project is, naturally, a bit of a folly. I should have just gone for a 26er, given that Mrs rolls on a 26er and I already have spare tubes, rim tape and a spare set of lightweight rims. But I've had problems sourcing 26" "gravel" components a few years ago. Heavy-duty rims for wide tyres for serious offroading - there's plenty of that. But lighter options appear limited. Mrs ended up with a pair of Panaracer Paselas in 45mm, but I remember struggling to find many options in 42-50 size.

Anyway, rim-brake rims are available in 650B, not nearly as many options as 700c. I ended up going for a symmetrically drilled rear, which is not ideal with a hub for an 11s cassette. I decided to add a 2-3mm dish away from the drive side to try and distribute the load a bit more evenly across the spokes. Should be enough clearance in the frame for this.

Tubes turned out to be quite rare too. You can easily buy MTB-oriented 27.5 tubes at about 250g each (!!!), but limited options for gravel. I went with a pair of maxxis ultra lightweights in the end (from memory, about 150g per tube).

Tyres - I picked up a lightly used 47c set of WTB horizons and a well worn set of panaracer gravelkings in 44. Neither of them fit my moderately knobbly requirement for offroading but they were selling cheap and I want to try different sizes to see what can go into the frame with guards.

The only really exciting and unique thing about this build is that I'm getting an audax-geometry frameset that can accommodate 2"+ knobblies without guards if I want to run it as a rigid monster cross. I think combinations like this are quite rare these days.

 

[Mickeyspinn]

Stop stop stop .....

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How are you going to stop a 1" JIS or ISO top cup with the wrong diameter and thread flopping about? They are too big.

Where are your getting at least the very top French locknut from in all of this pick-n-mix?

Oh dear...I'm gonna have to pull Nocim apart ....it's a longtime ago since I did it and I can't remember what was done....but that has a new headset top and bottom...matching...it does have the french filed flat thread washer and the top nut has been modded to remove the stop but that's it! Unless Nocim is iso I doubt that!