Almost everything on the bike has been upgraded. The brake levers below are Pauls – lovely finish and very minimal. The stem is a nice VO stem with a classic silver finish. On the top tube are cable stops that we added when the frame was about to be powder coated. The forks were chromed at the same time.
It has a Paul Funky Monkey cable stop for the front brake (which is a Paul Racer M, a nice CNC centerpull brake). The cable top is one of the best out there, with some drop on it, enough offset to clear the headset, a nice locking mechanism and a barrel adjuster. Everything you could want really. The headset is a black Chris King Sotto Voce. It has some of the nicest bearings you’ll see on a bike and is terrific quality all round.
The seat is a Brooks Imperial and it rests on a Grand Cru seatpost. The seatpost has a lot off offset which makes it a good match for Brooks seats, which have short rails and don’t allow as much adjustment as more modern saddles.
The bar tape is Fizik microtex. It lasts for ages, grips well, and looks great.
And the new wheels we built for it are Phil Wood hubs laced to H+Son Archetype rims. They are shod with Vittoria Randonneur tyres. The result is an extremely practical tough wheelset that is still light enough to ride nicely and should work for 10s of thousands of kilometers without giving any grief.
Altogether it’s a lovely bike – tough, comfortable and zippy.
Just lovely. Well done chaps!
This bike gives me a stiffy.
I have an All City Big Block frame.
Do you know if that requires the recessed or nutted Paul brakes you have above?
Recessed I’d say.