My brother is disabled (learning difficulties) and will be 60 this weekend. He has always liked riding bikes, albeit not very far or adventurously, and for a while has ridden a skip find (he works for the local parks and gardens department) which I have tried to get in some sort of rideable shape, but to be fair it's a 90s rigid steel MTB and is not much to work with.
His company use the C2W scheme, and he was talking about his workmates sorting out a bike for him. I helped him research what sort of bike they were pushing him towards, and of course it was some horrendously unsuitable MTB. We therefore did bit of shopping round and discovered that
Halfords et al don't seem to do much that would suit him, all being a bit complicated, and he was put off disc brakes after a "grab a big handful" moment on one of my kids' bikes a while ago. I therefore persuaded him to let me build him something, to a budget and a spec that would suit his short, flattish ride to work.
It didn't need to be complicated either in terms of gears or brakes, and it didn't need to have many bells and whistles. I intended to find him a used hardtail frame until I found a bargain V brake frame in On One's Spring Clearout. and then build it up with budget components, sourced from classifieds, and originally with a £275 budget in mind the build began.
The frame cost 20 quid, brand new, (bit of a story, thanks Planet X Customer Service, you were great in the end!) a rigid cromo fork £35, a lovely handbuilt FSA 26" wheelset, 20 quids' worth of tyres and tubes,(Halfords Schwalbe City Jets) a used Deore square taper crank and a satin black rattle can, a 36t chainring out of my spares box, a cheap chainguard off
eBay, 11-36 10 speed cassette, again out of my spares box, a Charge Spoon off these here classifieds, a bargain SLX mech from Merlin, a Zee 10 speed shifter, UN55 BB and a chain from
CRC, and some bargainous Alivio V brakes again off eBay. Bars headset and stem out of the spares box, £3 grips from Bikehut and pedals for the same money from Planet X.
Total cost £297. It weighs bang on 11kg. I don't reckon that's too bad! Hope he likes it....
cheers AndyRM
