File:Monark bicycle from the 1950's I.jpg

English: Monark bicycle from the 1950's updated

The vintage Monark project is nearing completion. Here's version 1.0 beta -- that is, I've got everything in it that's in the final version, but it's missing some testing and adjustment. That's for tomorrow, because I just had a fairly solid dinner and my wife feels that the combination of a half a bottle of rosé wine and first experiments with fixed gear riding falls under the category of "bad ideas even if you're wearing a helmet."

The rear wheel is near its extreme rear position, because being new to this sort of thing I'm not quite certain of my gear ratios, and I figure that I can always remove links from the chain while adding them could be a problem.

Tech information about the bike:

Frame: Monark racing frame from the 1950's. Exact date not known. This is the first time it's ever been built into a bike.

Rims, front hub, cranks, chainwheels, handlebars, stem: from an early-1970's Motobécane "mixte" touring bike (I still have the frame; it's quite nice, Tange double-butted steel, if you want it get in touch). The rims are Rigida extruded aluminum drop center, 700C size; the hub is Atom Normandy and there's something slightly weird about it. The handlebars are especially nice; they're engraved "Guidons Philippe."

The saddle, seatpost, rear hub, cog, and chain are new. The saddle is a Brooks B17, the rear hub is an I.R.O. track hub; the nice thing is that like the Atom front hub the styling is a Nuovo Record knock-off. The cog is a Shimano Dura-Ace 15-tooth 1/8", with a lock-ring. The chain is a Spectra stainless-steel one.

The seatpost is also new. The size on the frame is very rare, 23.8 mm. The closest I could find was a 24 mm chromed-steel post, so I sanded that down to size. It turned out OK.

The tires are Continental Contacts, 37 mm. I picked the pretty fat ones for two reasons. First, my intended main use is urban commuting, which means getting very friendly with curbstones, tram tracks, and such. (I once rode full-speed into a tram track on 23 mm tires. It was not much fun.) And second, the visual image I had in my head when starting on the project was a Whitworth Cycles advertising poster from around the year 1900, and that bike had pretty fat tires by modern standards.

I'm not quite sure I like the red handlebar tape after all; I wanted a splash of red to match the accents in the frame and fork, but this might be a bit loud. We'll see after it gets a bit of use. The handlebars might need some adjustment, and perhaps the saddle some tweaking too. Ideally, I would have picked a frame about a cm or two larger, but I'm pretty sure I can get this one to work for me quite nicely enough.

The bike weighs in at about 9.5 kg -- not bad for a 50-year-old frame and a build where I did not go gram-hunting the least bit.