Hi Mick,

was/still am involved with Brompton. Sadly I’m not allowed to share all the interesting projects i get to do there.

Here we go! I remembered  how to do it.

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https://www.instagram.com/p/Cu_55v-IAtB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

It’s been so long since I’ve posted here that I’ve hilariously forgotten how to do pictures. :)

I made some ghetto brompton CX tyres.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CbSQWzrM95I/

https://www.instagram.com/p/CbUtv42M53g/

Magnetic racks work for me.

These ones are IKEA, they’re great, when they get covered in magnetic crap you can take the metal cover off and wipe all the swarf off.

I tried some amazon ones before and they weren’t very strongly magnetic and covered in uncleanable swarf pretty quick (no cover).

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that and the lasercut faceplate.

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for fancy signage. they’re getting powdercoated and have graphics going up on all sides then stuck atop big poles.

A big-ass pile of aluminium boxes. I’m getting better at the alu tig. v. happy.

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Fixed a REALLY well used bianchi frame today.

Loving rewelding bikes still. Here’s a bike that was shortened and steepened. I’m looking for something cool to do this to. I really want to find an old super bling frame to weld a 44mm headtube to the front of. I want to commit total sacrilege. Anyone on here got something?

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I was riding this around with only one brake for aaaages. I’ve finaly got round to making the adapter to run a brake (on the sliding dropouts) on the front.

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I also made a butt feeler.

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I made a jig for making bike frames. The ones you can buy are mad expensive, even the ones labelled as lowcost. This one’s way cheaper and better than most.

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head angle is not independent of fork rake in terms of steering feel.

but a half degree difference is nearly nothing. The measurement that matters is the trail value measured perpendicular to the steering axis. This is the measurement you should be comparing for how heavy the steering feels. Be aware that this also controls how tightly you can turn. Contrary to what is said in the mags a larger trail’d bike WILL turn faster than a low trail one as you can lean more for the same radius of turn.

But honestly get the trail figure right and the weight balance between the wheels and ignore the numbers which get you there. The rest is fluff.

For your delectation here’s a project with a vertical headtube and reverse rake fork.

Also this:

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I made a laser alignment tool for validating the alignment of my homemade bike frame jig.It mounts on the bottombracket post and checks that the headtube/seattube cones are in plane.

I wanted it to be accurate to within 1mm at 1m from the BB for future cargobike builds. This meant that the laser needed to be within 0.06 degree perpendicularity of the BB shell. I was scratching my head thinking about precision machining (i’m just a hobbyist and can’t hold tolerances like that).

I ended up 3d printing the thing adding a bunch of adjustments using bolts and using the milling machine bed as a surface for aligning it. I fired the laser at the opposite wall and adjusted until it was within spec.

I’m really happy with this, I honestly didn’t think it would work.

I’ve tried loads. The Surly Moloko’s are the best I’ve used.

I even commited sacriledge by replacing the Jones bars on my Jones bike with them.

People complain about the weight, but this is something I have never ever noticed while riding.

This bike is long-since sold and I’m now looking at photos longingly wishing I still had it.

@jonm81
I really like that! Particularly the colour! Telemagenta? RAL 4010?

I made some tools for servicing a DVO rear shock.

I actually made these a while back. But I’ve just been sent this setup picture and need to share. :)

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Still a work in progress.

@Jameso Please do.

Yay! I get to share things!

@Jameso
I’m currently building a 90degree headtubed, adjustable reverse rake cargobike. I should have the frame riding this week, with the rack etc. later. I just need to add seatstays and cap tube ends now.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CGYNUX_Frj-/

@bigblackshed
The different leverages between the handlebar and front steered wheel don’t work particularly well. At least that was my experience. I tried it on a previous bike with an adjustable link, I kept adjusting it until honed in on the perfect setup. When I measured it I realised that I had just honed in on a 1:1 ratio.
There’s some video of that setup here: https://www.instagram.com/p/CAIUVBrgn2w/

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Vertical headtube and a reverse rake fork. Sliding dropouts for adjustable rake and trail. Steering run on a linkage to take a Brompton sized wheel.

Follow along here.[/url] Channeling Tony Foale.

@Edd Those cranks are rad!

I made a bike frame from an older bike-frame. It was rewelded to make the minimum turning radius tighter.

More here:https://www.instagram.com/colin_woof/

Try Bike Mielec.

Similar price-point to Marino but aluminium and Polish.

https://bikemielec.com/en/

His English isn’t great so best bet is to get a Polish pal to translate for you.

I finally got round to finishing this off. I needed to make a disc-mount tab welding jig to position a disc brake. It took me an entire month to get around to it.

It’s nice to finally have two brakes.

I’m really happy with this one. It’s taken a bunch of iterations of cargo-frames but I have the handling absolutely dialled.

as always, more here if interested:
https://www.instagram.com/colin_woof/

I really like that cargo bike. To make it even more storage friendly, could you include a folding mechanism for the handlebars?

I’ll have a think. This is a good idea. I know satori do a qr turning stem. unfortunately i’m already using a qr stem raiser so not sure how to get both functions working.

Another Cargo-bike. Lightweight and again with a folding rack. Pictured here at the top of a scottish tenement stairwell.

Got a few wee jobs to do to it and then will upload more photographs to:
https://www.instagram.com/colin_woof/

If you’re not set on Steel there’s also Mielec, based out of Poland who builds in Aluminium.

725 is the same as 4130, it’s just the reynolds branded stuff, if the 725 is butted and the 4130 is not, which is what I would expect then I would take the upcharge and get the 725 but it’s actually the same metal.

I made the pink thing which is carrying the yellow thing. I’m making a thing for the yellow thing.

More here if you want to see me stoating around glasgow.
https://www.instagram.com/colin_woof/

@reluctantjumper you’ve got me into the rabbithole of slapshoes nascar videos

I really loved my Jones. It was my only mountainbike for 2 years.

but I sold it with the intention of building something better.

I loved the body position with those bars and the weight balance between the wheels. It made it the perfect mile-muncher. And the feel of the truss fork was awesome.

It was utterly terrible in rock gardens and landing big jumps at speed though. It just got in trouble way too easily. I think it was the relatively short mechanical trail.

Maybe I’ll get around to making a better one someday.

So this was actually built 6 months ago. But I’ve only just managed to get it on the road. Work and life has been getting in the way.

With only a front brake that works. a mix of incompatible drivetrain parts, rear mech not hooked up and zipties left long so I can get ’em off again and re-use. I couldn’t wait to ride the thing (and take photos in the deserted streets)

It’s a Cargo-bike built to test some ideas I had. It was built from the scrap pile in a day and a half so it’s pretty rough around the edges and has a bit of unnecessary weight to it. The funny looking design decisions were all due to what I had on hand. The chainstays are cut from a charge blender. The downtube is a big thickstraight guage thing etc. I didn’t want to mess about doing difficult mitres so smacked on little horizontal tubes to make the mitres on the seatstays identical at both ends.

I’m going to ride it for a bit and then built a legitimate, non ugly version using purchased tubing and maybe even throwing in a bit of that old engineering thing. ;)

There’s a ratio between the steering and the front wheel to make it feel more like a normal bike. So far it’s riding really really well. I need to get a load of weight on the rack to check where it starts to become unmanageable.

Oh! The photos don’t show it, but it’s waaay smaller than my mountainbike. Same end to end length as my hybrid. That rack is the same size as an omnium minimax AND folds to the side to get into a scottish tenement flat.

Agagagaga! I really like it.

Colin

that’s superb, but pilot has front brake whilst stoker has rear?

The cables aren’t long enough to reach the length of the bike, I couldn’t be bothered 1) splicing the cables or 2) buying fancy tandem cables. It was a scrap-pile build afterall. :)

It’s the same reason for the floating-ring tensioner.

Social distancing Tandem now built and being ridden around the streets of Glasgow. The police stopped while we were taking these photos. I totally thought they were going to tell us off but they just laughed and carried on.

View this post on Instagram

The Distandem. A bicycle built for two in these strange times. Following Covid guidelines on spacing. Thanks to @alasdair_watson for the photography.

A post shared by Colin Woof! Building bicycles. (@colin_woof) on Apr 30, 2020 at 11:26am PDT