I’ve been introduced to a chap that makes a living doing the most fastidious service and professional set up jobs on bikes you’ve ever seen. His attention to detail and obsession with ensuring everything lines up would put even the most ardent STWer to shame.

He is also a thoroughly lovely bloke.

He’s based in Sutton, south east of London, works from home and just does the most amazing restoration jobs on bikes. He has a great facebook page so having just had a ‘hors category’ service on my work horse Genesis Equilibirum I thought I would share and give him a well deserved plug.

Check out the fanatical attention to detail:

Doctor D Facebook Page

There’s a great deal of self satisfaction in handing back a bike that has had a bare frame strip down and polished/waxed to a mirror finish, it used to one of my favourite jobs to do in the shop and would often take me all day as I sat with a box of components over the parts washer to remove months/years of oily gunge, even down to pedal stripdowns to replace bearings.
The look of shock from the customers faces as I handed them back a pristine looking bike used to make me very happy indeed – job satisfaction and immediate reward as soon as you took it for a test run as you knew how the bike rode before the work, notchy headsets, cruddy bar tape, poor shifting gears, crudded up drivetrain, ineffective brakes, annoying squeaks, loose cones/bearings, stiff levers etc.

A bike in an optimal mechanical state is a wonderful machine.

There was a welsh fella with a workshop in Bovey Tracey in Devon who did this sort of service on a bike for me..

Absolutely top notch..
He’s closed down now though 🙁

Is it wrong that I really want a parts washer?

No, i make do with a can of petrol, washing up bowl and an assortment of brushes.

Hope he removes the seals on those bearings to clean and re-grease them.

has the missus noticed the funny taste on her tooth brush yet? 😆

Not just me that cleans jockey wheels etc.. then!

I use to give the bike a strip every year and clean it top to bottom, love it. I wish I had room for a parts washer!

He’s an obsessive – look at his strava figures

What are those mudguards op?

For those interested in new parts washers, my mates told me that JTF wholesalers are currently doing a couple for dirt cheap. One is a free standing one (obvs a bit bigger) and another smaller benchtop one. The benchtop one is £25, the same unit in Machine Mart is apparently £75.

This was the Preston store by the way. Not sure how JTF works exactly but I assume they’re national.

Is it wrong that I really want a parts washer?

No, they’re great! I use the one at the LBS all the time.

What are those mudguards op?

Pimpy custom carbon

Aldi currently have an ultrasonic washer in i was tempted by.

I tried the Aldi Ultrasonic cleaner. It was rubbish. It might work on ladeez jewellery but it didn’t work on cassettes and chains.

The one at work does 😀

But if you forget about it and leave it too long it’ll take the writing off your chain…

A mate made mech hanger for something obscure on race support. Good effort (4 day race away from any known bike shop)

There’s a great deal of self satisfaction in handing back a bike that has had a bare frame strip down and polished/waxed to a mirror finish, it used to one of my favourite jobs to do in the shop and would often take me all day as I sat with a box of components over the parts washer to remove months/years of oily gunge, even down to pedal stripdowns to replace bearings.
The look of shock from the customers faces as I handed them back a pristine looking bike used to make me very

This. There is also a lot of satisfaction in buying a service from someone who clearly feels like this as a result of their work. Kind of a ‘my being delighted with the work made him really happy and that just made the outcome even more enjoyable’ .

As for wanting a parts washer. Yes. I want one also.

So OP, how much was this service?

APF

£190 + parts and worth every single penny. The bike rides like a dream. All the rattles from the mudguards have gone; it shifts and brakes like it was brand new; the bar tape is perfectly wrapped; every little detail is just so. It’s a joy. An honest top goodness joy.

Parts washers are great. Like most bike shops we use a rozone,this has been modded with a splashback, longer hoses and wall mounted park workshop clamp.

Wheels off, hub with q/r skewer and stack of cassette spacers (allows chain to run freely whilst turning drive train during washing), you can see it hanging up above eye protection sign.

Allows you to wash a bike thoroughly without removing all the components, which generally does not do them much good. To clean the non-driveside you just remove the bike, adjust the clamp angle and clamp it back on non-driveside.

That is cool!

This is where I really wish STW had a ‘like’ button.

@njee20

Its something I’ve been working on for a while, and keeping robin at rozone in touch with. Ideally we’d like the US parent company to tool up a moulded splash back piece to replace the stock bench top, but it would not be cheap.

The time saving on my setup is immense, the only downside is higher consumption of rozone Ozzy juice as its more messy (more splashing). You need a good floor, we use a modular chemicals resistant floor from slip-not.co.uk

Thanks for this, I live about 2 miles from him so will definitely make use of him

Really like the equilibrium. Nicely selected bits of kit!

Really like the equilibrium. Nicely selected bits of kit!

Very nice of you to say so, thankyou. It rides nicely as well.

I am got a Lyndsey cx for commuting duties but am not feeling anything for it and am considering trading in for something along the lines of the equilibrium. Would you recommend it for year round grotty weather commuting?

Blimey it’s a good job!
£190 is a lot of cash for a full strip down but I suppose it is in London!
Whenever I get a full strip down in, I love to strip calipers down and they’re always sweet as a nut afterwards.

£80 for a full strip and re-build my place. We don’t get many in for the “works” but when we do I like to strip the lot down and get everything in the parts washer, clean and then re-build like new. I love doing a proper job on a bike.

Really like the equilibrium, did you get just the frame and build it up? 853?

Really like the equilibrium, did you get just the frame and build it up? 853?

Yes I bought the frame only and built it up from there. It originally had 105 on it but when I switched to DA9070 Di2 last Autumn (amazing deal from Ribble on the entire drive train) I decided to donate the 7900 to this bike.

It is 853 and has, as you can see, an 853 fork as well. It’s the ‘special edition’ model and at the time was only available as a frame only.

Would you recommend it for year round grotty weather commuting?

Well this one has been up and over Box Hill on a 100km round trup commute (only twice a week mind) over the whole winter and through some horrendous conditions so I guess I would recommend it!

A few comments to make. It has a steel fork which makes the frame set only fractionally lighter than the 725 version; the frame itself is lighter being 853, but the fork is quite a bit heavier than the carbon one on the other Genesis frames.

But the fork does make it significantly more comfortable. I had the 725 version previously so I am making a direct comparison to that.

I’d prefer to have mudguards and 47mm drop brakes rather than the deep drop 57mm brakes here as the former limits your choice and does mean you don’t brake quite as effectively. The upshot is that in very poor weather on the hills you do end up dragging your brakes a bit more to control speed, which wears rims quicker. But it’s not a deal breaker.

The overall bike weight as is, with guards, is around 9kg. It heads north of 11kg with lights and a bottle on, so it is heavy but it rolls nicely. As a winter/training/commute bike it’s about as good as it gets in my view.

£190 is a lot of cash for a full strip down but I suppose it is in London!

It is a lot of money and I’m really glad that we haven’t had the sniping of ‘more money than sense; you were robbed’ etc type comments. A very good friend of mine used to say that ‘love needs to be fed’ and Rohan has an awful lot of love for bikes and he still has to put food on the table.

His passion, love and pride in his work is worth quite a bit extra but aside from that, there were quite a few things he did that went above just cleaning the bike.

The guards are lovely and were made by a friend of mine (Swarf Cycles) as part of him setting up a new bike company and trying to find products he could make and sell to help finance the business. They are lovely and light but they have also been a bit rattly! I’ve tried many times to bodge them so they don’t rattle, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. Rohan has actually fabricated some new fitment parts as well as shimming all the other fittings out and setting them up so they are totally silent and won’t come loose again. That was a big part of why I gave him the job.

He also did a lot of other things like alignment checks, trimming the steerer, taking great care to get the cables set up properly with little rubber boots and caps to reduce friction and prevent water ingress. All things I am sure a good LBS would also do, but these things all add up to the price being what it is.

I doubt I’d swallow more cost but I have no qualms about the price as is being very reasonable indeed.

I do this sort of thing on my own bikes every season, down to jockey wheel and headset bearings and seals and so on. I don’t have kids yet though and don’t exactly earn megabucks either, which are two reasons why I imagine some people would pay others to do it…

I do love cleaning and reassembling jockey-wheels. It’s a weird, deep satisfaction that awakens me to a vague possibility that I may have obsessive bike issues 😉

PS that’s a beautiful looking bike BTW 🙂

I used to pore over my bikes when it came to cleaning – removing botls and clean and re-greasing threads, waxing the frame, and oddly used to get satisfaction from cleaning jockey wheels so they were spotless.

You’re right though. The bike does feel great to ride when its had a good dose of tlc.

I don’t have kids yet though and don’t exactly earn megabucks either, which are two reasons why I imagine some people would pay others to do it…

Nail/Head interaction there.

PS that’s a beautiful looking bike BTW

Again thank you, very nice of your to say. I confess I’d lost as little love for the thing lately but since it’s had a new cockpit, a damn good clean and a fettle and a tinkering, I have fallen for it’s simple charms once more.