Aperitif said:
That is a mighty bike Vernon - befitting a man of your descriptive talents. Now get out and give us one of your entertaining reports of your adventures!
Well done. And I think it is pretty too.
Not being one to waste an opportunity:
Ride report.
Having completed the build of the Flying Gate the day before, I chose to road test it fully on an Audax ride with a few extra miles thrown in for good measure.
The build of the bike had not been without some frustrations.
The sources of cheap new 9 speed Tiagra and 105 components had all but disappeared and 9 speed Sora was way more expensive than the higher spec discontinued stuff. I found some OEM eight speed STI levers and bars taken from an
EBC tourer on
Ebay and bought the whole shooting matche which then initaited the next problem - locating a 1" quill to ahead converter. My LBS couln't source one and I finally got one from another LBS who could. I was sold the wrong Octaling BB and nearly wrecked my chain set trying to fit it onto the wider splines of what turned out to be an MTB octalink BB.
Wiggle to the rescue - they weren't the source of the blunder tho'. A leading mail order outfit lost my order for mudguards and front mech and took three weeks to deliver the wrong mech and a further five days to resolve the problem.
Back to the bike. On the day of completion I took it on a short tour of our crescent which has a substantial roundabout in it several laps later I was happy that everything works as it should and went over all the fixings for a final tightening.
The morning of the ride augered well. Cool and overcast and a half marathon going past the end of the road that had sufficient gaps between the runners to allow me to get out; unlike the cars and their owners. The bike felt OK immediately. I'd set it up to match my Galaxy and Dave Yates bikes as closely as possible. The ride to the start of my 100km audax at Otley was unremarkable but it felt faster. It was - 50 minutes instead of the 55 minutes that it hasd taken me a couple of months earlier.
The audax used an identical route that I'd ridden my Dave Yates bike on so a direct comparison of saddle time would be possible. I always enjoy the first bit of the ride from Otley to the A61 - it tends to be fastish but this time the gentle climb through Huby felt different. Trevor Jarvis had told me that I'd find hills easier and I was sceptical but the hills
did feel easier - I was either fitter or the stiffer rear triangle was tranmitting more of my effort to the rear wheel as claimed by the original makers of the frames.
One minor problem manifested itself. As I'm very porky I use a 26 tooth granny ring on my 105 chain sets and the one that I obtained was not dished like the 30 tooth one that i'd removed. This made changing to the granny ring a hit and miss affair with the cahin sometimes ending up resting on the BB lug. I think that I can sort it with a set of washers to alter the spacing of the rings.
I located a new source of pies at Ripley. The shop's next to the ice cream parlour sells tasty pies though not as tasty as the ones sold by the shop next to the cafe at Ripley Castle. In both instances the prices are elevated northwards of unreasonable. Pie, pop and crisps - £3.20!
Pressing on through Ripon and on towards Thirsk I was passed by a sucession of classic cars; AC Cobras, Lagondas, nearly the full model range of the MG marque and the more mundane Lotus Cortinas and the like they made an unremarkable bit of the route more interesting.
The weird bit of the journey happened just short of Northallerton. I was overtaken by a car which then cut infront of me and pulled into a layby just ahead of me. Strapped to the back of the car was a Baines Flying Gate!. I pulled in behind the car and tapped on the the driver's window. He thought that i was cross with him until he saw thatmy gesticulations were to do with the bike that I was riding and the bike stuck on the back of his car.
We had a ten minute chat about bikes - he has 120 collectables and here's some of the weird bits - he was from my home town of Darlington. He was surprised that I knew about one of the lesser known marques that he owns; Tilstons of Thornaby and he, I am sure, is after the same Bates bike that I am chasing from a place not too far from Darlington though I didn't let on.
Comparing the ancient (1952) and modern version (1983) of the bike, the Baines looked more petit with the rear stays being truer to the pencil stay designs than my version is. The forks were also more slender and the cahinset looked much lighter. The bike was finished in a brownish maroon.
The remainder of the ride was an anticlimax and I got to Darlington in good time for my train back to Leeds. Looking at my ride records, I found that I'd pared 1/2 hour of the saddle time for the route - pretty impressive. Moreover I felt fresh and could have gone on.
A great day out with very pleasant first impressions of my newest toy.
How did he jig that up? 
How did he jig that up? 
