Category Archives: EWR Project - Page 2

EWR Project – Phase Six…Dial Time

Posted by on 09/10/2009 No comments

Another week, another configuration and I’m back in that pine forest again for some more shakedown time, it’s a shame the place is a 100 mile round trip from my house else I’d be blasting round there all weekend….sadly I only get to go once a week and after work as it’s near my office

Last week was the first ever ride on my EWR and it highlighted some ‘handling weirdness’ that needed ironing out….and fast, so last weekend I pulled the front end apart, switched from a 0° rise 135mm stem to a 10° rise stem, lost the 1″ rise Club Roost bars in favour of some Race Face Air Alloy in 1.5″ rise flavour, moved one poker chip above the stem (leaving 20mm of spacing below), dropped the saddle height by 20mm, nudged the rails back and bled the back brake so it’s now ultra vicious

As much as hunting down elusive bike parts is a whole lotta fun, there’s nothing more satisfying than dialling a bike in so the ride is El Perfecto. Plenty of bikes look good in pictures but ride like a wheelbarrow full of runny shit…

So, it got blasted round the woods in the pitch black and wet and gnarly tree roots hidden by freshly fallen leaves focussed the brain   

That aside, my OWB rides 100% better than it did last week but I think these bars are a bit too Cowhorn for my liking. Since 1988 I’ve ridden flat bars and bar ends so this whole riser bar thing is a little freaky to me full stop and these Race Face bars are about a mile wide ……

I suspect that if they stay on the bike they will be saying hello to my little friend….the Sandvik Hacksaw for some ‘amputational correctness’

Cowhorns in the pines

Good job the trail was wide here…

Cowhorns in the pines Part II

EWR Project – Phase Five…Testing in Eastern Woods

Posted by on 03/10/2009 No comments

So the time has come to test ride my baby…….where better to test a bike like this than some woods in the East of England 

I rushed out real quick before we got riding to snap some pix cos the light was failing fast (and so it turned out were my camera batteries), so excuses again for the lame picture quality but here is my EWR, where it belongs, back out in the woods again.

It’s still in testing mode so the stem spacers and stem are not permanent fixtures and the jury is still out on the handlebars….the bars are certainly ‘down in the weeds’ on this bike. Those blokes at EWR really know how to make a bike though, it rides beautifully and just goes where you point it. At slow speeds it is really ‘Trialsy’ and very responsive and at speed it just rolls and rolls and is just screaming at you to manual it off some tree roots and humps….this bike makes you grow horns 

This bike is going to get well used and to endure the British winter conditions I
have fitted Gore RideOn GoreTex durallier cables, these are PTFE coated
cables that run in a continuous, sealed sleeve which runs inside the
outer cable and is sealed with rubber ‘boots’ at the mech ends. They
are expensive but if you want to keep the mud and shit out and have
silky smooth shifting then these are the babies to fit.

Overall I am REALLY pleased with how it rides although I need to nail that bar/stem configuration and my back brake is non-existant, despite me bleeding it twice . The bottle cage is on there solely for my Lumicycle Halogen lights, this time of year we ride in total darkness. My buddies have ‘outgunned’ me with lights recently so I’m feeling a little inadequate…..one has the HID (Halide) Lumicycle lights and the other has Hope Visions AND some helmet mounted Ay Ups .

I guess I could even things up and buy a Lumicycle LED system


Back in the Woods again….where EWR’s belong…


Up close and personal….my Woods in the woods


Then it got dark….we had nearly two hours of flat out night riding

EWR Project – Phase Four

Posted by on 21/09/2009 No comments

Sorry for the lack of recent updates, have been busy and got a little sidetracked on riding bikes instead of building them

I’m still on the hunt for some NOS Mavic 231’s to lace to the NOS DX hubs I have in transit but in the meantime I’ve switched back to the Campy rims I was playing around with before. They were drilled for Presta but a little encouragement with an 8.5mm drill and now they fit my stash of Schrader tubes.

The idea with this stage of the build is primarily to find out where the bottom bracket height is as I want to re-create the exact ride experience the bike was designed for. As a result of this I have grabbed the first pair of tires that came to hand that are going to be similar in height to the end product. I don’t think it’s quite where it needs to be as it currently measures 12.5″ to center of BB axle and I think the measurement should be to the base of the shell (I’m just checking this out with Kenn and Jay from EWR). I figured I would be about 20-25mm out with these forks anyway so it’s no real surprise.

This is the first time I’ve been able to throw my leg over this bike since I bought it and its great to have gotten this far. I’m part way through setting up the brakes and next on the list after that is fitting the gear cables and chain and taking her out for a test ride

It’s bike shaped Jim, but not as we know it

The sun sets over my yard….my OWB basks for the first time 🙂

EWR Project – Phase Three and a half :-)

Posted by on 09/09/2009 2 comments

Not much to report today, ran into several problems that I need to resolve before I go any further

The tyres I had down for this are too big (certainly for the back anyway).
I bought some Mavic/DX wheels from RetroBike and when I fitted them they were very badly out of true .
So I tried a spare set of Campy/LX rims I had stashed in my shed but these were Presta drilled and all my tubes are Schrader .
Also my rear hydraulic hose is about three inches too short so I’ll have to make up some fresh hoseline and bleed the rear brakes.

All this is a drag because I was planning to take it for a test ride this Thursday in my local forest……..you don’t mind while I scream a bit do you?

I’m off to find some Zen like calm (and some more bike parts…..)

My big steel pig is putting on weight…

But doesn’t she look cool…?

NOS DX Thumbies and Magura ‘Tomac’

Overcrowded looking Answer Accu Trax

EWR Project – Phase Three

Posted by on 08/09/2009 1 comment

Finally after a few quiet weeks some progress with the EWR Project

The temporary Accu-Trax are now fitted and I want to see where the Bottom Bracket height ends up once it gets some wheels on, then take it for some test rides and see how it handles. The steerer has intentionally been left long for now so I can try out a few different stems and bar height combinations, then I will cut it again when I have picked a stem/bar height. Apologies for the poor pictures, I was losing light rapidly, wanted to avoid using the flash and the camera produces poor pix when you turn it off

Steerer/spacer mock up prior to trimming the steerer

Saw guide time!!

‘Test’ stem configuration (lots more to be cut, don’t worry!!)

Handlebars…..finally !!

 

EWR Project – Answer Accu Trax Re-wired…

Posted by on 07/09/2009 No comments

If you’ve been following this you will recall I wanted to use an Answer Accu-Trax fork on this build. I wanted a rigid EWR and I believe this fork suits the frame well as it has nice chunky legs and is made of the same 4130 Cromoly as the frame, another thing I dig about Accu Trax is having the offset in the dropout as it gives a nicer ‘straight’ look to the forks, as opposed to the alternative which was a Kona Project 2 which have the offset at the crown.

I picked these up from the USA via eBay and got them for a great price as they are 1″. Also they were threaded so I had a bunch of work to do getting these converted to threadless (see HERE FOR DETAILS) . The whole thing is a temporary fix cos the EWR is 1 1/8″ and is suspension corrected so these 390mm forks might drop the front end too much.

Long term I will get the geometry/BB height 100% with a cunning plan….

I got a fellow RetroBike member to strip and repaint them yellow so they matched the frame better, I didn’t leave the frame with him so all he had as a reference was a tiny chip of paint. The result, plus some repro decals is ok for me and when I go for the permanent solution I will leave him the frame so the next set of forks can be matched 100%.

Some progress shots of the work:

Back from Dave Yates Cycles with ahead steerer conversion

Sandblasted ready for repaint

First coat of yellow over white base coat

Finished article with repro decals

EWR Project – Phase One…Remixed with Bonus Tracks

Posted by on 21/08/2009 3 comments

A Groundog Day update, didn’t I just do all this shit a week ago?

EWR Project – Yard Trauma Compact vs. Standard paranoia story (see below) now put to bed
A quick switch to a 122mm BB cured all the woes. Everything from Phase One has been stripped, replaced and rebuilt, nice clearance now on the chain rings…..my Q Factor looks ok so I won’t end up walking like John Wayne and pedalling like a duck on valium…… The Magura spares I was short on last week arrived in the mail so the rear is complete and the front set are prepped and ready. A sweet Chris King ‘Classic’ headset has just been freshly pressed in and the elusive cable-stop-widget-thing has been attached to the Front Mech so I don’t lose it…..

No chainstay on the breakfast menu today


Fit-Kit graduation….My Q-Factor is ok, is yours? (Macro shot disaster…)



Mmmmmmm Chris King


Jay DeJesus killed my downtube…(I’ll forgive him)


Magura’s with new Cool Stop pads

More Magura

Even more Magura (fronts ready for forks)

EWR Project – Yard Trauma

Posted by on 19/08/2009 No comments

Ahhh the joys of retro builds, one minute your are Soaring Angelic and the next you are Fathoming Hell when you hit a glitch, still, these seemingly insurmountable obstacles are there to be overcome…

This particular bogey is perhaps to be expected, my frame is 1994 and therefore on the cusp of the transition to Compact Drive (or MicroDrive if you worked for Sun Tour ) from the long established Standard Drive 5-bolt 110 mm/74 mm BCD.

Me being a dumbass goat didn’t factor this in and blindly specced some nice 110 BCD Syncros Revolution cranks (see pix below), lovingly spent an hour putting together the chainset from a bag of bits, offered them up to the sufficiently long enough BB (118mm where Syncros Revolution’s should only need 117mm), tightened up the Crank O’s and….BUMMER, the rings wanted to eat the chainstay . Overlooking the obvious (well I am a goat ) I showed this to my buddy and we came to the conclusion that the chainstay ‘indent’ (what the hell is the official name for that?) is positioned for Compact Drive 5-bolt 94 mm/58 mm BCD

This was confirmed by offering up a 22/32/42 chainset which fitted nice and snug in the indent with sufficient clearance. So, the search is now on for a very rare beast indeed, Syncros Revolution Cranks in Compact Drive. I’ve only seen two sets for sale in as many years so this could prove a difficult task…..onwards with the search!!

On a plus note I’ve managed to score a wheelset more suited to this build, sure the Campag Mirox were nice but not really EWR material. The current replacement is a set of Mavic 231CD’s on Shimano DX hubs with 7sp cassette.

More build pix coming soon….

EWR Project – Phase Two – Cock…pit…check? Yes, okay.

Posted by on 17/08/2009 No comments

Cockpit check?
Yes, okay
Largactil, five milligrams
Largactil, check
Valium, ten milligrams
Valium, ten, check

Haloperidol, five milligrams
Which one’s that?
Little white ones, w, w, w for white
W for white, okay, check
Phenobarbitone, five milligrams
Check

Disipel, five milligrams
Check
Glass of water
Check
Our father, which art in heaven
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa

I’m doing my best to keep this project Period Correct and it’s frustrating! I am fully capable and aware of what is required, having done so on many previous occasions….anyway….rant over

The original EWR catalogue shows the OWB with Club Roost Go-Fast bars (complete with superflouous add-on brace).

Original Woods Bike in 1994 EWR Catalogue


I figured this
would be hard work until my regular riding buddy pulled out a couple of
pairs from his gargantuan parts bin. Sure they are not NOS but they
will do the job and I’ll get the GOFAST decal reproduced for the brace.


Go Fast !!!



DX Thumbshifters….no man can live without several pairs of these badboys laying around and i’m no exception. Unfortunately I take it to the extreme and have several sets of NOS ones just laying around the place. They are very cool and work extremely well, who needs to be a sheep and fit M732 XT Thumbies anyway?….
I am still using a set of MT62 DX Thumbies that came new with a bike in 1991, they have shifted God Knows how many times through at least 10,000 miles of cycling and not once did I tell them I loved them, in fact they have never even been stripped, just had copious injections of GT85 over the decades and they are still silky smooth. This EWR already has a bunch of M650 DX stuff on it so lets go the whole hog and hang these little virgins in the Cockpit too…

NOS in the box

Smile for the camera children


EWR Project – From the horses mouth

Posted by on 11/08/2009 No comments

Cussing and critique-ing the EWR ‘Cable-stop-noodle-widget-thing’ and then inviting the EWR boys to look at my Blog was probably not a smart move but as a result I now have the answer from Kenn at EWR himself….and it makes perfect sense

from    Kenn <*****@*****.com>
to    ********<*******@*****l.com>
date    11 August 2009 17:33
subject    Re: Watch this (EWR) space….

Hi ****,
That is really cool!  You know, I had totally forgotten about the
cable stop thing-a-ma-bob for that generation of frames!  Glad you
found one though.  We used that thingy because we didn’t want to run
the cables underneath the bottom bracket.  There were two reasons for
this:
1. We do a lot of winter riding here in PA, and that obviously
means snow and ice.  Bikes of that era that the cabling went under the
BB were prone to having the cables freeze.  Not a lot of fun
2. We were trials riders and bashed the hell out of our BB’s with
rocks and they would have certainly been smashed at some point or
another.

 

Keep at it, I really like the follow along.
Kenn
Kenn Rymdeko
EWR Bikes, LLC
610.659.4430
www.ewrbikes.com

Keep coming back Jay and Kenn….any progress will get revealed here…