A Summer of Cycling - Single Speeds - Castle Combe

It was great to go on a ride yesterday,  I knew we had some jobs left over from last week and the shed was crammed which is not a good sign.  Nick was there as always when I arrived at Spindles at 9:30,  quickly followed by Josh and Robin with Alistair completing the compliment.  Edgar is currently in Turkey.  Some of the jobs were easy however an upgrade to a disc mountain bike proved unachievable.  We had some lovely racing bikes in for a quick fix along with a lot of enquiries about mountain bikes.
I was keen for us to finish early and go for a ride on the updated Bob Jackson,  yes the five speed Sturmey Archer hub has been replaced with a King Kong flip flop.  Tim arrived on his new Thorn Sherpa, Nick dusted off his Ken Bird, Josh was on his Look Spectrum and king of the mountains Ben on his upgraded Viking, completed the crew.
I haven't ridden a single speed since I was 10 which was a Halfords kids bike in a fetching pink, what were my parents thinking of?  I was surprised by how quickly the 531c frame could climb provided the commensurate energy was provided.  Towards the top of Neston I instinctively went to change gear which did not exist and so just put more effort in.  An interesting question came into my head, what would be the difference in speed over the same course between my Mercian with its 27 gears and the Bob Jackson?
The trees are now in full leaf at last,  the standing water that was around some of the fields a while back, a testament to the rain of the last 12 months, have finally subsided and its summer.  Josh announces that he's doing the 100mile sportive next week at the Castle Comb cycling festival, he's 17 and already doing serious distances on a bike he put together himself.  Spindles will also be at Castle Combe riding bikes, building bikes and hopefully selling bikes.  I would like to do an all night ride this summer and see the sun come up

See you at Castle Combe

Cannondale Mountain Bike Single Speed on Ebay - SOLD

SOLD - This Cannondale 20" frame has been around for some time and was turned into a Single speed as a project.  The frame is either an M2000 or M1000 from between 1990 to 1996.  Its does not seem to have the decals to support this  I cannot find the serial number on Vintage Cannondale web-site http://www.vintagecannondale.com but is BI-0301 as far as I can make out and it is located on the inside of the RH seat stay.  The frame is completed by Pepperoni Forks.

Condition of the frame- The structure is sound but there are a lot of scuffs and scratches particularly around the chain stay and on the forks.  Some of these have been highlighted in the images below

The headset is 1.25" and is brand new
There is a new saddle and seat post
The rear brakes are new Suntour self energising Cantis whereas the front are some very good cantis of unknown make.
 The FSA 175 cranks hold a new Talon 44 tooth single speed chain ring
The rear sprocket and cassette conversion is also new as is the singulator.

Other components are used including some great tektro brake levers and bar ends.


The Rims are Mavic 231 and Ritchley Rock under slick tyres.

Here are some images

Picture shows the frame number on the RH seat stay

A lot of scuff marks on  the inside of the chain stay