Astore
Well-Known Member
It's been a while since I've posted, so here's what has been keeping me busy. While trawling eBay in search of inspiration I stumbled across a 22.5" Kuwahara Hirame frame which seemed very cheap, I'd liked the look of these and heard good things, so I took a punt and bought it for £30. I carried on surfing and found another complete bike (21") in fairly sorry condition but with a lot of nice parts, also very cheap, so I bought that too with the intention of making one bike out of the two.
The frame:
The Bike, which looked to have spent a fair amount of time outdoors:
Once I had both at Astore Towers, inspection of the frame revealed a very stuck seat post and equally stuck chain set. So with some application of patience, moderate heat and penetrating oil I managed to shift them and get the frame cleaned up, degreased, polished and waxed. The quality of the paint and chrome on these frames is very, very good and it came up superbly well.
The donor bike came apart without a fight and provided a 36 / 50 Nervar Chainset, CLB Brakes and levers and Ambrosio handlebars and stem. I had planned to use the Suntour SVX derailleurs too, but decided to use a Suntour BL GT set I had instead, as the SVX wouldn't cope with the 13/32 Shimano freewheel I aquired late in the build.
The donor bike also came with a set of 27" wheels, Ambrosio rims and Normandy hubs, which I used for another project. For this build I used a set of 700c Araya / Suzue hub wheels I had lying around; really just to have more clearance and a better choice of tyres. My plan was to build a slightly more rugged road / path bike.
Some new cables, bar tape, tyres and tubes and some mudguards finished it off. I had planned to take it over to Cumbrae to ride the coastal path, but didn't manage that this year. However, it has seen some action round the mean streets of rural Argyll over the past months and, while it's not the lightest of frames, it is beautifully smooth. It's become a bit of a favourite. It's definitely a keeper.
So, what happened to the donor bike? Well that got a makeover too. I had initially thought the frame might be suffering from its stay outside, the paint was in a very poor state, but after stripping it down and removing the paint, it proved to be perfectly acceptable, so it was re-sprayed in metallic purple, received a new set of decals and was rebuilt almost entirely from my (now depleted) store of parts. Just the wheels, mudguards and seat post were bought specifically for the project. My plan is to ride it a bit, the it will be auctioned in aid of the RNLI in the spring.
The frame:
The Bike, which looked to have spent a fair amount of time outdoors:
Once I had both at Astore Towers, inspection of the frame revealed a very stuck seat post and equally stuck chain set. So with some application of patience, moderate heat and penetrating oil I managed to shift them and get the frame cleaned up, degreased, polished and waxed. The quality of the paint and chrome on these frames is very, very good and it came up superbly well.
The donor bike came apart without a fight and provided a 36 / 50 Nervar Chainset, CLB Brakes and levers and Ambrosio handlebars and stem. I had planned to use the Suntour SVX derailleurs too, but decided to use a Suntour BL GT set I had instead, as the SVX wouldn't cope with the 13/32 Shimano freewheel I aquired late in the build.
The donor bike also came with a set of 27" wheels, Ambrosio rims and Normandy hubs, which I used for another project. For this build I used a set of 700c Araya / Suzue hub wheels I had lying around; really just to have more clearance and a better choice of tyres. My plan was to build a slightly more rugged road / path bike.
Some new cables, bar tape, tyres and tubes and some mudguards finished it off. I had planned to take it over to Cumbrae to ride the coastal path, but didn't manage that this year. However, it has seen some action round the mean streets of rural Argyll over the past months and, while it's not the lightest of frames, it is beautifully smooth. It's become a bit of a favourite. It's definitely a keeper.
So, what happened to the donor bike? Well that got a makeover too. I had initially thought the frame might be suffering from its stay outside, the paint was in a very poor state, but after stripping it down and removing the paint, it proved to be perfectly acceptable, so it was re-sprayed in metallic purple, received a new set of decals and was rebuilt almost entirely from my (now depleted) store of parts. Just the wheels, mudguards and seat post were bought specifically for the project. My plan is to ride it a bit, the it will be auctioned in aid of the RNLI in the spring.
