Chloe strips the Fisher frame

Chloe finally got to get her hands dirty as we stripped off the old running gear from the Fisher mountain bike for our singlespeed build project.  She’s biting at the bit to get her hands on the grinder and knock off the cantilever brake mount points.  I may just have to claim jurisdiction over that operation.

Chloe holding her frameA couple of folks have already asked how I plan on mounting the brakes – especially the rear one.  In truth those details haven’t been totally worked out.  It may require a little custom-bracket making.  I’m giving serious consideration to actually moving the rear brake down to the chain stays instead of the seat stays.  We’ll see…

Single speed project for my daughter

Just picked up this “gem” at a garage sale for $15:

Fisher on Work Stand

I think we’re going to try and make this into a single speed (non-fixed gear) for my daughter.  She is itching to become “all mechanical” and really get her hands dirty working on a bike.  This particular frame seems like a good candidate because: (more…)

Quill stem conversion

Not too long ago, over on VeloReviews.com, I was casually discussing the possibility of swapping out my forks and quill stem for a threadless set.  My initial intent was to replace my aluminum forks with a carbon fiber set and change the stem type at the same time.  Well, turns out that conversion got expedited when I ripped my stem apart while riding home from work.  With something of a timeline looming over me (this bike is how I get to work) I opted to move forward with the a conversion of the quill stem to an adapter to allow the use of a threadless stem.  The forks will remain the same.

In the top of this picture you can see the pieces of the original broken quill stem.  On the bottom, the more modern Bontrager stem pieces.  And finally, on the bottom right, you’ll see the adapter that will allow me to mount that Bontrager stem. (more…)