After a short ride with my new Master X Light, I decided let her go, and it's on sale in a shop in Istanbul. The main reasons; I kind of ordered a small frame, and I got the constructeur French bike bug.

I'm exchanging e-mails with Dave Anderson, a custom builder who is experienced with Reynolds 953 stainless tubing. Also collecting information to make a list of the parts that would look vintage, but are new or NOS. The French geometry frameset will probably be a 60 for me, while my perfect road bike fit is 56. I'm expecting some 1500 grams of frame weight.

I've been doing spreadsheets again and again, but I'm still far behind 1947 Alex Singer (6.8 kg), and 1947 René Herse (7.0kg) bikes which were weighed with fenders, lights, a dynamo, a front rack, and a frame pump! but excluded tires and tubes due to afterwar short supply of lightweight tires. Adding the tires and tubes made them 7.7kg and 7.9kg with 700c size.

I'm going to use some modern parts here and there, because I own them, and don't think they will affect the overall look that much. Also will go for 650 x 42 tires, and 23mm rims which are a lot heavier to the classic tubular rims I have (290g Fiamme Ergal, 330g Mavic Argent 10, 348g Mavic Monthlery Legere).

It would be nice to have it fully polished, which would make it look like 18-20kg at first sight. The waiting time for the frame is 6 months, so I have plenty of time to gather parts.

650B Randonneur Project

Bar Tapes 35g Guesswork
Bell Japanese Brass 50g Guesswork
Bottle Cage Arundel Stainless 53g
Bottle Cage Bolts Tune Carbon Fiber 2g
Bottom Bracket Tune AC38 117mm 164g
Brake Levers Dia Compe 200g
Brakes Paul Neo-Retro 200g
Cable Pipes Nokon 30g Guesswork
Cables Power Cordz Black 17g
Cassette Tiso 6 spd - Custom 80g Guesswork
Chain 300g Guesswork
Crank Bolts Tune Titanium 27g
Crankset VO Gran Cru 170mm 550g
Derailleur Front Huret Jubilé 80g
Derailleur Rear Huret Jubilé 140g Guesswork
Fenders Honjo 58mm 508g
Frame & Fork Anderson Custom Bicycles 2150g Guesswork
Frame Pump Silca 250g Guesswork
Handlebar Nitto Mod.176 44cm 302g
Headset Chris King No Thread 1" 84g Guesswork
Hub Front Tune Mig 70 + QR 96g
Hub Rear Tune Mag 180 + QR 204g
Light Front
Light Rear
Pedals Steinbach Hakenpedal Titan 192g
Pedal Clips VO Half Clip Stainless 50g
Rack Front VO Randonneur 255g
Rims Grand Bois 650B 32h 23mm 976g
Saddle Brooks B17 Titanium 420g Guesswork
Seatpost Tune Starkes Stück 125g
Shifters BTP Carbon painted silver 15g Guesswork
Spokes DT-Swiss Revolution 2-1.5-2 280g Guesswork
Stem Custom steel threadless 300g Guesswork
Tyres Grand Bois Hetre 650B 824g Guesswork (heaviest quoted)


Estimated Total Weight : 8959 grams

I'd appreciate any part recommendation as long as it doesn't hurt the vintage look too much.

If you can track down a pair, the Stan's ZTR 355 rims would save you at least 200g. I got a pair used right after they were discontinued that I may de-anodize and polish before building them up.

Using 1" threadless is the way to go, you might look at using the Miche Primato headset instead, as it's far cheaper and classier and should be the same weight. The needle bearings permit more preload, helping to dampen the shimmy effects that get brought out by low trail, front loads, and thin non-OS tubing.

Using Pacenti Pari-Moto tires would save 240g and you could use smaller fenders. You could also try shaving the excess tread off of your Hetres like Weigle has been doing, his secret technique is supposed to be revealed in an upcoming BQ issue.

You can save some weight on the fenders by using different stay hardware on the fenders. The Berthoud hardware is a lot nicer and lighter with no draw bolts, and there's also WW Honjo hardware with hollow stays or 4mm diameters.

Thanks for the info! I really appreciate that.

How do you de-anodize those rims? I definitely would find and buy a pair as long as they work with clincher tires such as Hetres. I'm sold to red Hetres, so they come before the weight. I've purchased all previous BQ issues, and signed up for this year. I hope to see what Weigle did. I couldn't get a clear idea of what you meant by removing excess thread. Compared to Grand Bois rims which were claimed as the lightest 650B production at the moment (which is true), Stan's rims would save at least 260 grams in total. 488g vs. 355g.

Just checked Miche Primato headset. It's definitely nicer. I already have a Stronglight A9 sitting at home, but I never liked the baloon-like shape, the matte anodizing, and top printed logo. Thanks for the recommendation. It's about the same weight, claimed at 90 grams. I think I'll order one.

I've seen 4mm hardware for Honjo's in Jitensha Studio website, but never heard of hollow versions. Who sells them? I'll check Berthaud too, I'll definitely use 58mm fenders for 42mm Hetres, may be Berthaud hardware isn't wide enough?

Thanks again. HHave you done a similar project already?

You can stip off the anodization layer with lye, also known as "caustic soda". You can get it in aerosol spray cans as oven cleaner. It's really nasty stuff, you need gloves and a facemask as it will burn your skin. After that you'd polish them up with a buffing wheel on a drill. I'm going to practice on some scuffed-up cranks before I try it on rims.

This is what Weigle does, he literally shaves the tread off the tires:

Shaved Cypress 700c and Hetre 650b by jp weigle, on Flickr

Velo-Orange sold the hollow Honjo stays briefly after they sold them accidentally, Euro Asia Imports is the importer I think now stocks the full catalog. You can call them directly to ask questions about availability but you'll need to buy through a bike shop with an account to order (René Herse would be a good choice online).

Berthouds come in widths up to 60mm, and you can get the stays separately through EAI as well. I used the 50mm Berthouds with Hetres and they fit perfectly, the profile is different from the Honjo-style fenders.

I have a Kogswell P/R that's decidedly non-WW with it's Nexus hub and porteur rack, it's at least 30 pounds and that's without my usual 10 pound bag on the front.

I recently put a deposit on a new Rawland rSogn frameset that will get built up a lot lighter, with a mixed SRAM group, the Stan's rims run tubeless, carbon bars, etc.

Still couldn't find a Stan's ZTR in 650B. They are available as built wheels, but the price is expensive and I don't need all thouse MTB hubs.

Still looking for them...

I would take those old weights for the post-war Singers and Herses with a grain of salt. Just because I've been around the bike industry for over three decades and I've seen many ways that supposed overall weights get "adjusted" downward by magazine editors, writers, and especially catalogs and brochures.

Even if those weights are accurate, do you really think those bikes were robust enough for even careful everyday use ?
They were "event" bikes destined to be display objects at bike trade shows and in the shop.

Exactly. Those sub 8kg prototypes were very small frames with components that were made to withstand a 500km abuse. Considering the frame was 10-3-10 butted, I can't see much of a life in yesterday's 531. I'm not going to use any parts that are dangerously modified.

Dave Anderson kindly asked me to pick another frame artisan because my project became very time consuming with a lot of custom detailing. He advised me to contact Chris Bishop, and now I'm on his waiting list. He's going to start my project after NAHBS 2011, probably in mid May.

I decided to drop Huret Jubilee derailleurs (122g with B-T-P mods) and replace them with 1st Generation C-Record, the most beautiful derailleur of all times. Front and rear set will cost me about 120g, which is huge. Does anyone know if B-T-P jockey wheels would fit the C-Record rear mech? I'm using 6 of a 10 spd Tiso cassette and 10 spd chainrings, so I need narrower jockeys. C-Record hides carbon perfectly.

I luckly found a 122mm bottom bracket from a friend who was working in Tune until January. Now I have a Jan Ulrich special square taper BB! 176 grams including titanium bolts. I didn't want to risk it with aluminium bolts, 176 is already a good weight for such a long axle. Isn't it?

Reynolds 953 is out of question because I don't want oversized tubing and thick seatstays. It's going to be made off KVA Stainless which is heavier and less rigid at >1400Kpa. It's stronger than I'll ever need. Butting for main tubes are 7-4-7. Similar to Columbus Spirit tubes made for lugged construction. Available in standard tubing.

I 've got myself a nice set of NOS Cinelli alloy toe clips. So I think I'll switch from half sized Mini Lapize to full size clips. Cinelli clips weight 29g. Now I need quality and light straps.

I've ditched the idea of using B-T-P's carbon DT shifters. I'll use C-Record aero shifters with internal cable routing. This will probably add some 70g.

The frameset weight will not be anywhere near 2150g, my guess is about 2500g. Frame size will be 61x55, a weird combo, but I have 87cm inseam and I'm 176cm tall. Long legs?

@blasdelf
Mr. Bishop told me that Miche Primato threadless headset's quality isn't good, and advised to look for Stronglight A9 threadless. The chances to find one is very slim, I'm still looking for it. I don't know what's the problem with Miche, do you have any experience with it?

It sounds like your project is coming along well! The KVA stainless tubing looks very good, and is much cheaper than 953 (which is only available in the insane 5-3-5 for standard tubing).

The Miche Primato is not very fancy, but it is inexpensive and does the job well with needle bearings.

It will be extremely hard to find a Stronglight A9 threadless headset, they did exist but not in any quantity.

The Rudelli Giotto is the only other 1" threadless needle-bearing headset out there, it looks even better than the A9. You might contact these guys to see if they have any: http://diegelmannshop.de/

Yes KVA Stainless is priced at the difference you pay for 953 over non-stainless high end tubing. I think it's a good deal on paper. Chris will visit their stand at NAHBS to get more info before the build.

Rudelli Giotto looks good, also a little hard to find. I was wondering if a custom 1" needle bearing version of the stainless Crank Bros headset could be made with a lathe. Chris will look into it. Crank Bros is very light at 66 grams and very simple and strong due to stainless steel.

I'm now trying to decide the wheel size. I was so obsessed with having 650B x 42 Grand Bois Hetre tires in red, but it's getting hard and expensive to make a stainless BB shell to accept 58mm fenders, and bending stainless chainstays are another issue. I think 700C x 32 will be comfy enough and easier to build. It will also help losing a few hundred grams of weight too.

There aren't too many rim options as I need fully polished old school clinchers. I've found suitable rims at Velo-Orange, Sun, and Grand Bois. GB has the best profile. I'm also looking for old stock Mavic MA-2 rims as they are high quality and lighter than the others. Do you have any rim suggestions?

I'm quite interested in your project because I'd like to do something similar myself at some stage.

Anyway, I have a few questions -

What made you choose SS over Ti? I was thinking SS would be really cool for a custom build but it just seems like a lot of the time, Ti ends up cheaper and lighter because of better tubing availability and more builders who work with it? Obviously no one wants money to be the only deciding factor, but does KVA tubing make the build comparable to Ti costs?
The issues you've mentioned such the bottom bracket shell and fender clearance are (very) easy to miss in planning, but do you think these would be made easier from a fabrication point if Ti was used instead of SS?

Why have you decided against threaded headsets if you're aiming for a classic aesthetic? Was weight part of your decision? You've mentioned getting a custom stem made which negates most of the issues with 1" threadless (hardly any good off the shelf stems) and a custom threadless stem would make things look much more classic but I'm just interested to hear your reasoning behind the decision.

Lastly, Velocity off most of their rims in plain silver finishes which would be polished to suit. Their Synergy for instance isn't quite the classic look, but wouldn't be too out of place and is available in 650B sizes. If you are also considering a change to 700c, another rim you could look out for is the H Plus Son TB14 which will be available in hard ano and polished finishes.



- http://blog.hplusson.com/?p=1043

Thanks for your interest in my project.

The reason I'm not after a Ti build is because I want lugs and standard tubing. My original plan was having the bike completed around 8.0 kg, but I came to realize that using sensible parts to keep it visually perfect in my sense of perfection costs more than a few hundred grams. I guess it will end up somewhere around 9.1 kg (20 lbs) which is very light considering all the fenders, lights, frame pump and front rack along with a Brooks saddle. It's going to be a mix of parts from different decades, but the overall package will yell out "Art Deco".

KVA tubes in standard sizing costs $388 for 8 tubes necessary for the frame. It's on sale now until February 19th, just $350. That's a good price compared to Reynolds 953.

Here is my lug design, and the custom Bishop headbadge I partly nicked from an illustration. Both details will change as I'm interested in a lug with three-layer wings, and I'm not exactly sure if it's a good idea to have a badge like this in Turkey. I'm pretty sure Chris will have a very elegant and interesting lug design his mind, and I'd like to hear what he has to say. About the headbadge; I'm still not sure if I want to use a custom headbadge like this. I'd surely get boring comments about me being a Muslim and carrying a cross on my bike. I think it's irrelevant, I mean the name is "Bishop", and I thought he should be the fullest of what he is. I also love Gothic architecture, it reminds me the dark ages of Christianity, and I'd like to have an evil bishop carrying a cross weapon. Anyway, the original logo Chris uses is a minimalist bishop from chess.

Why threadless? I want it to be light, and it allows having a switch as a top cap to operate integrated lights. As for having threadless in a classic style randonneur, Rene Herse and Alex Singer used threadless stems for their lightweight applications in late 40s. Tandems of yesterday always had this kind of a stem for the stroker too. It's an old design, so I don't think that will hurt the classic looks.

Thanks for quoting H Plus Son TB14. It's another box rim option that has a classic profile. I wonder if it's lighter than MA-2 or Grand Bois rims...

I actually have a pair of TB14 rims on order in the prototype batch — they are not going to be nearly as light as what you're looking for at 500g

If you're going to use a 32mm tire the MA2 is somewhat less attractive as its narrowness constrains the tire profile.

I'm thinking about building a similar bike in the future, and I have my heart set on these Stan's '29er' rims: http://www.notubes.com/product_info.php ... cts_id/309

You wouldn't really be able to use them tubeless for road use, but you'd get a lovely tire profile and they're way lighter than any other wide rim with a brake track.

The black ano will wear off the sidewall with use from braking, if you really wanted to you could strip it off with lye and polish them up before building the wheel.

410g is a really good weight. A set would be 220 grams lighter than GrandBois rims. Thanks for quoting.

Lye isn't available as oven cleaners in Turkey, I searched for it when I was trying to do an antique finish on wood for the store windows.

I ended up putting steel sponges in a bucket and added white vinegar on them. After 24-48 hours, you get sodium hydroxide, a very faul smell, and a solution very hard to work with. I guess lye is the most extreme end of alkali at pH 14 whereas sodium hydroxide is pH 13.3. I really don't have anywhere to do that kind of smelly solution for 2 days.

I'll check if I can get lye from something else.

PS: It takes a very very long time for the brake pads to wear off anodization, and it's not a good, clean removal.

AdvanceSpark the reason I asked about Ti vs SS was that for some reason I was thinking you were getting the frame Tig'd. SS makes perfect sense now that I know you're after lugs. I understand your dilemma regarding the head badge and not wanting to make life annoying for yourself

In regard to the headset, if threadless is the go, I'd almost certainly just look at something like a Chris King, Cane Creek or even Campag 1". They are all pretty common, easy to get replacement bearings for and could by polished to remove logos etc.

I think that using something like the Stans 355 or Velocity A23 would be great if you choose to use 700C wheels. They will almost certainly build into a lighter/stronger wheelset than most older box rims. They should work well with the wider tyres and choosing something like the A23 with lots of different drillings also means you could reduce the spoke counts if that doesn't go against aesthetic or load carrying requirements.

Another option for removing the anodizing is to get someone else to do it I'm sure you could find someone who specialises in polishing/painting/plating etc who would be able to do it for relatively little money.

If I wasn't looking for a needle bearing headset, I'd definitely go for Chris King. Needle bearings last longer, are lighter, and reduce shimmy. So Stronglight A9 has always been my preference with threaded till now. I'm out of luck with threadless though

Stan's might be a better option as it has a similar profile to the old school box rims. A23 has a higher, "modern" profile.

There are many places that do Copper/Chrome plating and removing with nitric acid etc. But haven't heard of anyone who does remove anodizing, which probably needs alkali instead of acid.