Highly fettled Raleigh Pioneer

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Frottish

Frottish

Active Member
Location
London
I don't think the subtle approach would have been enough. I suspect the issue was tyre clearance at the BB end of the stays and near the fork crown, not at the dropouts. Jamming a bit of scaffold tube in the gap and whacking it in as far as possible with a big hammer would have flattened the tubes a bit more where their diameter is large. It's just a more brutal way than how a frame builder will shape the stays to achieve tyre/chainring clearance.

Precisely! It took a fair few whaks to get the steel to move the couple of mm's I needed, but I can get 54c tires in there now. Any bigger and you start hitting the underside of the fork crown...and there isn't too much you can do about that with just a hammer and some old scaff.
 

12boy

Guru
Location
Casper WY USA
Old steel mtn bikes, especially chrome moly ones are great bikes for commuting. The long wheelbase, room for big tires and braze ons for racks, bottles etc make for a useful, comfortable and durable vehicle for ill paved roads. As far as tig welded frames go mine have never failed at the welds and my Surly Steamroller has gone for tens of thousands of miles. Is that a single speed with a chain tensioner? I love single speeds for commuting.
 

spark303

Guru
As for the rack, it's a no-name Cube rack designed for one of their hybrid things, got it for £10 on bike-discount.de. Absolute bargain as all the other mini V-boss mounted front racks I was looking at at the time were £60+ from hipster brands.
Nice one - I've been looking for a small front rack like that but balked at the 'nitto/velo-orange' tax they usually have!
 
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OP
Frottish

Frottish

Active Member
Location
London
Nice! I have a Pioneer in the shed waiting for a similar treatment - out of interest, what gearing did you go with? And what's the chain bit alongside the seat post?

I'm running 42T front and 17T rear. I had 16T originally when running 28c tires, but the move to 50cs made the gearing that little bit too hard on the hills. As for the chain near the seatpost, that is my saddle anti-theft device - basically an old single speed chain split and re-pinned to the right length to go through the saddle rails and the frame.
 
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