In my first article, I wrote about 'making do' with the bike you have to get you around. This is not a definitive guide (is there such a thing?) to making do. Rather, it is story of how I set out to build a bike from the frame upwards with as few newly purchased parts as possible, using some common sense and ingenuity to make things work and mesh together, despite preconceptions. If ‘hacking’ suggests doing something outside the norm, this is on the spectrum of about as hacky as it gets - if not all the way there.
The starting point for my build was a 1990s Specialized Rockhopper 26” mountain bike frame. I’d wanted one for absolute ages but couldn’t find one in my preferred (and admittedly rare) 58cm top tube length. So, when this one cropped up on the eBay page of Nottingham Bike Works, I was prepared to ignore the gentle spiderwebbing of surface rust that coated the navy blue frame. £50 won me the auction and a short train journey later, the Rockhopper was mine.
My initial plan was to strip and transplant every single component for this bike from my existing bike, an 80s Holdsworth Ultima mountain bike that I had converted to a drop-bar cargo runaround, but was way too small for me. Simple, right? It was only after I had stripped every part off the Holdsworth and begun to try assembling it on the Rockhopper that I realised my first two problems: neither the headset nor the seatpost would fit.
To the experienced, that there are multiple headset and seatpost diameter standards would come as no surprise. As one of those experienced, it should have come as no surprise to me; it was simply something I had overlooked in the spirit of “It’ll be fine.” If only - while the Holdsworth used an admittedly miniscule 1” threaded headset and a 24.9mm seatpost, the Rockhopper needed a conventional 1 ⅛” headset and a stout 30.9mm post.
So much for my plan to keep my spend to a minimum. To eBay again, then.
The seatpost was easy enough to acquire and I found a tidy NOS Easton seatpost for £20. The headset presented an altogether unique problem. I had always planned on transplanting both the headset and the fork from the Holdsworth, but now neither would be viable. Sure, I’ll just buy a 1 ⅛” threaded headset and fork on eBay, I thought. It turns out that 1 ⅛” threaded is a hideously uncommon headset standard. I’m sure someone could point to a specific time period where this was not the case, but I found none.
The only headsets I did find that would fit my bike were 1 ⅛” threadLESS. This might well have worked as I would then only have to purchase a fork with a 1 ⅛” steerer tube, but then I encountered my next unanticipated problem - forks with a 1 ⅛” steerer tube that were designed for 26” wheels and post-mount (i.e. cantilever or v-brakes) were also hideously uncommon. I found several forks with a 1 ⅛” steerer that were designed for 700C wheels. Or that had disc brake tabs instead. This was rapidly turning into a Goldilocks situation, and I was losing hope.
I had more or less resigned myself to purchasing a new fork from a third-party manufacturer (which would then become the most expensive purchase of this build - more than the frame itself!) when finally - a solution. I had put a request out on Instagram for parts and a very helpful man called Jack responded saying yes, he had a 1 ⅛” fork, with post mounts. That I was very welcome to it. And that I should just pay for postage as he needed it getting rid of anyway. I very gratefully accepted this offer and, to my delight, a gloriously bright pink fork arrived in the post the other day. The right part and the right colour! This build was officially on its way.
I purchased a cheap headset, fitted it, fitted a crown race onto my new pink forks and got ready to put it all together. I got set to put it together, thinking this was the end of my struggles; but when I slid the steerer carefully in place and went as far as it would go, it was apparent that it was way, way too short.
This was my fault - my 58cm bike had an admittedly large headtube (part of the reason I chose it!) and the fork steerer had clearly been trimmed at some point. As it stood, the top of the steerer tube barely cleared the top headset cup. Now, anyone with half an ounce of sense might’ve just given up and purchased a fork with a right size steerer tube, but I was wedded to both my initial plan to spend as little as possible, and to the combination of navy frame and pink forks which was, admittedly, very bling and suitably 90s. The solution was simple, in my mind - to extend the fork steerer.
I already had a number of quill-style extenders that were designed to fit a conventional a-head stem to a bike with a 1” threaded headset. Why not use those? All I would need, in theory, was a shim to decrease the internal diameter of my steerer to fit the adapter; luckily, the amazing SJS Cycles (who are a champion of the small, usually unnoticed and overlooked parts often used by older bikes) sold just such a shim. And voila! The quill adapter fitted.
The last minor problems were dealt with swiftly, aided by my newly-found confidence. Some of you might have noticed that I did not install a star nut to my steerer tube. This would have been impossible with the quill adapter. As a result, I could not preload my headset bearings as one might do normally with the top cap and bolt. Instead, I had to apply the right amount of load manually using the stem, the right number of headset spacers and the brake cable hanger that I needed for my cantilever brakes that, conveniently, also clamped around the steerer tube. Once I had the right amount of preload and there was no play in the headset, I held the whole thing carefully in place while tightening both the stem and the brake hanger bolts. Nothing moved; it was done.
And so you have it! A story of how it was possible to problem-solve and build a bicycle with some ingenuity, using the parts one has to hand and with the bare minimum of newly purchased parts. Now stay tuned to see how I made a drivetrain work using some of the same skills.
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