The Parts – oldbicycleshowroom

Once I’d secured the donor bike, the next step was to assemble the parts I’d need.  An online search turned up www.theoldbicycleshowroom.co.uk where I sourced most of the key items– a fantastic website devoted to the restoration and rebuilding of vintage machines.  Here I found the Brooks leather grips – a lucky find as it was the last pair available in ‘Honey’ – the North Road drop bars, the rat-traps, the quill stem, and the Brooks saddle (I opted for the classic B17 ‘Narrow’).  At this stage I also stumbled across an interesting link from the Old Bicycle Showroom to the Pashley website (*Pashley build high-quality vintage style bikes).  Pashley, I discovered, build a ‘Path Racer’ model which is essentially the same style of bike I was aiming to build.  Initially this discovery was quite discouraging - there was already an established company building the 'unusual' bike I wanted to put together.  But once I recomposed myself and dried my tears, I realised the Pashley bike was turning out to be quite an inspiration as I progressed with the project - if nothing else, it gave me a clear picture of how my own bike would look once complete. 

As well as the Old Bicycle Showroom, other parts were sourced from various online bike shops, some of which trade on Ebay.  All in all, here’s a list of the parts I ended up buying:

• 1 pair of Schwalbe Delta Cruiser tyres, 26” x 1.75”
• North Road drop handlebars
• Quill stem, alloy
• Brooks Leather Grips, Honey
• Brooks B17 Narrow saddle
• Sylvan rat-trap pedals
• Brake levers, spring-loaded
• Cables and cable clips
• Saddle clamp
• Paint and consumables
• Sturmey Archer indicator linkage (chain that screws into the 3-sp hub)
• Inner tubes and rim tape

Not a cheap project, but I felt it was worth using top-quality parts in order to capture the appropriate vintage vibe.  Brooks leather saddles for example start at around £60 but I can’t imagine building a bike like this with anything less (even secondhand ones on Ebay are similarly priced).  Plus I figured any of these parts could be re-used on other future project bikes and given the quality, should last a lifetime.  I haven’t worked out an exact figure but the parts ended up costing around £250 - £300.  The donor bike was the real bargain though:  it cost me 6 bottles of beer…

*Just to compare, the Pashley bike retails at £825 for the 3 speed version – although I should stress that much of that cost goes into producing the fabulous hand-built frame.  Many of the parts used are seriously high-end products (like the B17 Titanium saddle which retails at over £170.00) so in my opinion the beautifully-finished Pashley is a superb machine for the money.  If I could justify the expense I’d be more than happy to buy one.  But until then, let’s continue with the story of this project bike…