David Singlespeed Unrau

This time around Hugh has put together a custom steel singlespeed 29er frameset with an awesome classic paint scheme. The bike features cream darts over a rich green frame, custom panels incorporating the owner’s initials and an unique look to the gold True North on the downtube to match the rest of the paint.

The frame is singlespeed only, fitted for v-brakes, and with horizontal dropouts. The fork is also custom made to match the frame, with a beautifully fillet brazed crown.

Here is a close up of the darts on the seat tube and fork.

I raced in the ZM Octoberfest Challenge cyclocross race last Sunday. The race was fun, and as Alan Hawley was taking care of the timing, there were none of the timing issues of last year, and the results include lap times, which is neat to look at. I was riding my True North Cycles custom cyclocross bike set up singlespeed, with 39:17 gearing. The course was flatter than last week, so I upp’ed the gear a little and all was good. For the first couple of laps, I was riding with a Michelin Mud 2 on the front and a Michelin Jet on the rear at 55 psi front and back. This combo worked super, as the grass was wet, but over a hard surface. A couple of laps in though, I slid on my shoes dismounting before the stairs and slammed the front tire into the steps. This resulted in a slow pinch flat and I rode the rest of the lap slowly loosing pressure. I didn’t have any spare wheels out, but luckily Peter Mogg (Hub Bicycle Shop) was standing around the pit area and I stole his front wheel for the rest of the race. Thanks Pete!!!! He was running a Maxxis Raze, but I think the Mud 2 was a better choice for me – I could rail into the corners significantly faster. After that minor debocle, I spent the rest of the race over the redline trying to catch the 14 riders that had passed my while I was changing my flat. I reeled in 12 of them, ending up 11th out of 34. I’d like to have seen where I’d have been without the flat, but even with, it was a great race.

Alex the cat looking grumpy because I’m taking her picture.

Round 1 – Tubular Gluing Tape.

I haven’t messed around with tubulars much, because, well, gluing tubulars requires a lot of messing around. For the first round, I thought I’d try out tubular gluing tape. Gluing tape is essentially a gummy double sided tape, and is advertised as completely replacing the gluing process – apply the tape to the rim, mount the tire and you are done. Well, let’s see how it works. Today I mounted a Vittoria Evo XG cross tire on a Ambrosio Excellence tubular rim using Tufo Extreme gluing tape. The tire and rim were new. I scraped the cotton base of the tubular lightly, and cleaned the rim with acetone. The tape and tubular were installed following the Tufo directions.

Note that Tufo only recommends the use of gluing tape with Tufo tires, and recommends standard tape for cyclocross. Mounting the tire with the tape was easy….and rolling the mounted tire off was even easier! At 40 PSI the bond seemed pretty secure by hand – I couldn’t seperate the tubular from the sidewall of the rim. However, on the bike, deliberately pushing the front in a corner rolled the tire off. The force required was high, but definitely in the realm of what would be encountered racing. So, for this tire/rim combination at least, gluing tape is NOT recommended! Next I’ll try gluing the proper way.