sjcprojects
Orange 🍊 Fan
While looking for a winter/beater bike, I decided to take a punt on one of those eBay listings full of useful information such as 'Road Bike' - starting at 99p. There was practically nothing in the listing description, but under the make, they had put Graham Weigh. The photo was both very small and quite blurry (see attachment), so I couldn't even tell if it had DT shifters or not, let alone mudguard eyelets, but I thought, why not?
To my slight surprise I got it for £26. It turned out to be pretty decent for £26. The frame has had what I would call a rather 'agricultural' paint job - it was originally burgundy, but has been painted silver (without removing the old paint, obviously...). It looks good from a distance, not so good up close. Still, not too bad - and it does mean I don't really care if it gets a bit bashed, which after-all was part of the point of buying it.
The frame number is 266992, which I take to mean a 1992 build. That would make sense with the 105 groupset, which I was immediately pleased to see. The wheels were some Rigida ones which I don't like because from experience they are an absolute swine to get any tyres on (let alone winter tyres), so I replaced them with a front I had already, and bought a back wheel from someone on here. I already had the Gatorskins to replace the horrible cheap tyres. I also replaced the headset, saddle and seatpost - which had been bodged to fit using some tin foil and a washer put on the seatbolt - not very clever. All in all this makes it more like a £75 Graham Weigh - but that's still not too bad, I reckon.
Anyway, I've taken it for a few shakedown rides and it's a nice enough ride. Now I just need to workout how to put mudguards on it. There's not much clearance.
I'm also not quite sure about the cranks being so far on the spindle that there's literally not 1mm of spindle showing - because they are on a campy BB (odd given the rest is all Shimano, but there you go...). It doesn't seem to effect riding it, but it does give me some pause for thought. Is this going to be okay? Any thoughts appreciated...
Oh, and it's named The Silver Shadow for obvious reasons - and as a homage to the classic cheap Hi Tec trainers of the same name.
To my slight surprise I got it for £26. It turned out to be pretty decent for £26. The frame has had what I would call a rather 'agricultural' paint job - it was originally burgundy, but has been painted silver (without removing the old paint, obviously...). It looks good from a distance, not so good up close. Still, not too bad - and it does mean I don't really care if it gets a bit bashed, which after-all was part of the point of buying it.
The frame number is 266992, which I take to mean a 1992 build. That would make sense with the 105 groupset, which I was immediately pleased to see. The wheels were some Rigida ones which I don't like because from experience they are an absolute swine to get any tyres on (let alone winter tyres), so I replaced them with a front I had already, and bought a back wheel from someone on here. I already had the Gatorskins to replace the horrible cheap tyres. I also replaced the headset, saddle and seatpost - which had been bodged to fit using some tin foil and a washer put on the seatbolt - not very clever. All in all this makes it more like a £75 Graham Weigh - but that's still not too bad, I reckon.
Anyway, I've taken it for a few shakedown rides and it's a nice enough ride. Now I just need to workout how to put mudguards on it. There's not much clearance.
I'm also not quite sure about the cranks being so far on the spindle that there's literally not 1mm of spindle showing - because they are on a campy BB (odd given the rest is all Shimano, but there you go...). It doesn't seem to effect riding it, but it does give me some pause for thought. Is this going to be okay? Any thoughts appreciated...
Oh, and it's named The Silver Shadow for obvious reasons - and as a homage to the classic cheap Hi Tec trainers of the same name.
