Saracen Race Elite - back in the saddle

[gmjgreg7]

Ace. Good speed.

Not sure how much you want to spend on the bike, but an eventual upgrade to the cranks would save a massive amount of weight. Those press steel altus jobs you have at the moment weight ten metric tonne!

Wondered if you had any recommendations on a suitable set of replacement cranks... was wondering about taking it as an opportunity to switch to SPDs too?

Anything with replaceable rings. I would look at DX or early LX for the most value for money. The current ones on your chainset have steel rings that will survive the apocalypse but weight a lot.

Put a wanted ad up here, someone will have something.

SPDs aren't really my forte, having only ever used flats, so hard for me to say. But if you are making one change might as well make two so why not. I might give it a go one day too!

Nice one, I'll give that a go and see what offers I get, what sort of specifics do I need to mention... Crank size, bottom bracket etc? What is the best way to work out any of those sorts of measurements?

 

[coomber]

Cranks you need to choose first then bottom bracket follows. Sheldon brown has a list if you Google bottom bracket sizes Sheldon brown you will see a list on his site for most retro cranks.

Shell width is 68mm but length of bb will depend on cranks

 

[gmjgreg7]

Cool, cheers for that, best get searching

 

[gmjgreg7]

Bike got a decent run this morning along with a bit of a clean too!

SPDs (donated by a mate) are working great but I might have to switch to some double sided ones... They look nicer and I think I might find the clip a bit quicker too. I managed to pick up a replacement crankset from PaddlingPool via the wanted section but I've not fitted it yet.

What sort of job is switching the crankset and adjusting the front derailleur? The guy at my local bike shop said he'd do it for £7. Is a 8/10mm hex key, a bit of grease for the tapers and some thread lock for the pedals all I need or am I (as a bit of a novice) best leaving it to the pro?

Any advice would be great.

Nb. The replacement crankset is this XT one:
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... p;t=268159

 

[gmjgreg7]

I ended up getting the crank fitted by a local mechanic (Park Cycles in Streetly) which was fortunate because the bottom bracket wasn't quite long enough & he was able to replace it with one with a longer axle, so the bike is back in business.

I also got him to do the switch to the double sided SPDs at the same time.

Think my next target is the forks, although the Mag21s seem to still be going strong, I'm thinking its time to switch to rigid. I might keep hold of the Rock Shox just in case I want to do some off-road at some point in the future but they don't seem necessary for the type of use the bike is getting.

The guy had a suitable NOS set of forks hanging around, does £30 fitted plus £25 if the headset needs replacing sound like a reasonable price?

Cheers,
Greg

 

[coomber]

The guy had a suitable NOS set of forks hanging around, does £30 fitted plus £25 if the headset needs replacing sound like a reasonable price?

Cranks look good.

What forks are they? £30 isn't too bad as you need a long steerer.

£25 for a headset including fitting is a little steep, but depends what quality we are talking about. I'd personally be tempted with a M Part cartridge bearing headset, my local bike shop sells them for a tenner and fit them for free. But otherwise, you can spend between £10-50 on a headset, depends what you want.

 

[gmjgreg7]

The guy had a suitable NOS set of forks hanging around, does £30 fitted plus £25 if the headset needs replacing sound like a reasonable price?

Cranks look good.

What forks are they? £30 isn't too bad as you need a long steerer.

£25 for a headset including fitting is a little steep, but depends what quality we are talking about. I'd personally be tempted with a M Part cartridge bearing headset, my local bike shop sells them for a tenner and fit them for free. But otherwise, you can spend between £10-50 on a headset, depends what you want.

The cranks and aluminium rings to look a bit better don't they, pleased I went for them to be honest.

The forks I saw are, erm, ...black ones with a threaded steerer . No idea what brand they are but I'm assuming they are steel and will weigh a fair bit less than the Mag21s and require zero maintenance (always a positive where I'm concerned). But for £20 and then £10 to fit I guess it's not so bad.

£25 for the fitted headset was for an aluminium one, but I only after one that works so could go for £5 less and stick with a steel one and I might use your advice to negotiate on the fitting charge, cheers for that

 

[coomber]

Bike got a decent run this morning along with a bit of a clean too!

Hope you have changed the saddle angle. Looks uncomfortable to me!

 

[gmjgreg7]

To be completely honest I hadn't noticed it... I'll see if flattening it out makes things a bit more comfortable - especially with a trip along the Monsal Trail in Derbyshire planned for tomorrow!

 

[stewlewis]

Get some Bakewell puddin in ya!
Hope the weather picks up, there some nice picnic spots on the Monsal.

What's with the crudguard type mudguard on top of the tube?