Projects

How nice is this?

click on the photo for more images

Mate of mine Mark Thurston (and custom tool maker for the shoppe) has built this beautiful cruiser for his missis to pootle around the VW shows they frequent. Parts have been sourced from a variety of places like Ridelow in Manchester, the internet and crucially some retired old 20″ wheeled shoppers from the 70′s – doing his bit for the environment there!

The wheels are a 72 hole radial spoke pattern, they were a 36 hole rim and hub but Mark being Mark he made himself a jig and drilled a few extra holes. Also on the back wheel you can see a retro fit cable disc brake with the cable housing running through the frame – this means no lugs anywhere on the frame – a nice touch.

Check out the pin striping on the mudguards with the chrome centre. All the cream pinstripes were done by hand!

The good news is that he’s got another one called the ‘Shopper Chopper’ and hopefully I’ll have some photo’s of that soon.

At last, the waiting is over.

Firth Cycles now has an online store where you (yes you!) can buy lovely things for your bike. Click on the screen shot below to take you there.

Johnnie Walker and I hope you like it. Its simple clean layout means it’s all about the products and not about the interest free credit, special offers or adverts for mobile phones flashing up all over the place.

Firth Cycles is a real shop run by real people and we wanted the online store to reflect that a bit. One of the first simple things we did was to put the address and phone number on the bottom of every page so you can contact us easily should you need to.

We are listing more of our products every day (except on Sunday’s when we ride our bikes) so please keep checking the home page or alternatively let us know what you’re after and we’ll do our best to sort it out for you. All the prices on the site are the same as those in the store so no surprises if you want to come and collect in person.

Enjoy.

Click on the picture for a few more shots…

We were so impressed with the recon job done on these PACE Air Force forks that we thought we should tell you all about it.

These beauties belong to Mr John Walker and are usually attached to his 1996 Bontrager Race Light which is currently in the workshop for some TLC (thats Tighten, Lube & Clean!). Since Pace forks were bought by DT Swiss they no longer service any models older than 2003 – a shame I know especially since (in my opinion) they are one of the limited brands that has a heritage that should be shouted about. Anyway, one man’s loss is another’s gain and that man is Tim Price who is now servicing the older stuff. He is based in Pickering, North Yorkshire, and be contacted on 01751 476815. Thanks Tim.

The Moulton has arrived in the workshop for a strip down and an assessment of the integrity of the frame. I’m not yet sure it’s good enough to save so the project might stop before it really gets started. The plan is to replace all the 1960’s components with new shiny ones. The old stuff is going in the bin, unless a committed collector of all things Moulton wants them?

Feel free to email with any suggestions about which ‘shiny bits’ we should consider using. The (very) basic plan is to build new 16″ wheels using a Nexus 8 speed hub with coaster brake on the back, and either a hub brake or Dura Ace calliper on the front. Another option is to braze on some disc mounts. Other than that, we’ll just suck it and see.

There are more pictures in the Flickr Set

The Moulton project.  More info coming soon.