Building my TI-Raleigh Team Pro 753 (…and the other SBDU Ilkeston bikes I've collected along the way…)
Time Trial Special 531c SB5794 (1983)
I thought I had moved away from using tubs, but I had second thoughts about them after I decided to rebuild the wheels on SB5794 with some MAVIC GP4 rims. So using GP4 rims and having no choice, I’ve been dragged back into the process of prepping rims and tubs, and the smell of rim cement is floating around the workshop while I’m picking dried cement from my finger tips! The memories are flooding back…
It’s been a little while, but SB5794 is finally getting the wheels that it deserves! When I initially built this bike I just used the set of wheels that came with the 6207/6208 600EX group when I bought it; those wheels had Shimano 6400 7 speed hubs (I fitted a 6 speed cassette to be compatible with the gear levers). The wheels also had later period MAVIC MA40 clincher rims, and I always intended to bring the wheels back to period spec by using some old MAVIC GP4 rims I had from a previous bike, with some correct spec 6207/6208 hubs I had picked up. Fitting these hubs will complete the group set, and it will be nice to experience tubular tyres again… Won’t it?
It’s a new year and my first day off so I couldn’t think of a better way to spend it than building a bike and writing my first blog post of 2016.
It’s been a few weeks since this little frame arrived, so after the small change of subject and posts about Dave Yates and his brilliant frame building course, it is back to the SBDU and Ilkeston built bikes.
While I was away last week, the post man delivered another Ilkeston frameset and it was waiting for me when I eventually got home.