The Front End

Previously on MondoBlahBlah... or...

Read the entire story of the research, acquisition and assembly of my new Cycles Toussaint Velo Routier v2.

Hey, that looks kind of like a bike

So now the frame and fork I bought is assembled into a frame set. It's easy enough to hang some wheels on it, stem and handlebars, put on the brakes, jam the seat post into the frame and put a saddle on it. Now it's starting to look like a bike. This is the first time I'm able to actually straddle it and make sure it's going to fit. It looks like the fit is perfect - like a proper bike with a proper diamond frame. Not a compact "modern" bike with a meter of seat post and a "slammed" stem, but a beautifully proportioned bike with the handlebars right around the same height as the saddle. Visually graceful, with classic lines and elegant curves. Will it feel as great as it looks? We'll have to wait until the build is complete to find out, but I generally find that what looks right tends to be right. Time will tell.

The Cockpit

I haven't run the cables yet since I'm still waiting to see what my buddy Angus has in store for me after I nagged him about the inappropriateness of bar-top thumb shifters on a classic road bike. Also, before I complete the drive train, there are a few things up at the front of the bike that I want to work out, since they are central to the entire concept of the 650b Randonneur style bike and they are all interconnected; the front rack, the stem and bars and the front fender.

The Front Rack
No way around it - low trail rando-style bikes are supposed to have delightful handlebar bags sitting on little racks attached to the forks. That's practically the whole point. Cycles Toussaint doesn't include a front rack with the DIY build kit, which is just as well, since I'm not crazy about the rack they designed for this bike anyway. And besides, like just about everything else on these bikes, each rider is likely to have their own preference anyway. I know I do.

The Velo Orange Rando Rack
w/ integrated decaleur

When I set up my '86 Fuji, I installed a nifty little rack that Dia Compe designed to bolt onto its 610 Center-pull brakes. It is an ingenious design and in concert with a solid decaleur that stabilizes the load and distributes the bag's weight appropriately, it would probably work really well. Unfortunately I never quite got around to installing a decaleur, so the bag's weight tended to lean forward on the rack which ultimately caused the mounting tabs to snap. D'oh!

So for the Velo Routier I have decided to go with what seems to be the easiest solution to a solid, stable handlebar bag solution - Velo Orange's Randonneur Front Rack with Integrated Decaleur. The integrated decaleur means I don't have to figure out how to mount a separate decaleur on the bike. I don't have to worry about getting the height and depth right. I don't have to decide whether to use a stem mounted unit or a headset mounted unit. If the rack fits the bag and it fits the bike, I should be good to go. At least that's the idea...

Handlebars and Stem

Pre-fab cockpit from Cycles Toussaint

The Velo Routier DIY kit comes with a pre-assembled 100mm Kalloy stem mounted to a deep drop, round bend handlebar on which Dia Compe brake levers have already been attached. The stem was not going to work because of its proximity to the decaleur/bag. I thought from the beginning that I might want a shorter stem, just to make the riding position more upright, but I figured I'd try what came with the bike before switching. But after placing the front rack in place, I could see that the decaleur would be too close to the handlebars.

Nitto Young Stem / Olympiad Handlebar

Because I am short, the bike's headtube is kind of short, and the 8 inch tall Acorn Boxy Rando handlebar bag comes right up to the bar height or even a bit above it. With the long stem I think it would crowd my fingers. So I've swapped the stem and handlebars for the 70mm Nitto "Young" stem and classic Nitto B114 "Olympiad" handlebar which have about 10mm less drop than the Kalloy bars and about 50mm less total reach. Hopefully the shorter stem and reach of this setup won't be detrimental to the handling of the bike - did Angus and Evan choose the 100mm stem because it's the optimal size for this bike? - I doubt it, since all sizes of the frame come with the same length stem.

I was initially going to just swap out the 100mm Kalloy stem for the Fuji's shorter 70mm Nitto stem and keep the Kalloy handlebars but it turns out that contrary to the Cycles Toussaint website, the handlebars need a 26mm clamp, while the Nitto is a 25.4mm. Though annoying, it's understandable - most new handlebars are 26mm. So I ended up moving both the stem and bars. The fit is pretty good around the handlebar bag, but the bars are too narrow for me at 40cm. To get where I think I want to be, I may have to go with an entirely new setup with a new stem and bar, but for now I'm going to leave it with the Fuji setup and see if I can live with it.

Fenders

What, you might fairly ask, do handlebars have to do with fenders? Well, everything in the front seems to be interconnected in some way. The fenders are ideally attached to the rack which adds additional support for each. And the brakes have to have sufficient clearance to clear the rack strut. So the fender's connected to the rack strut, the rack strut's connected to the decaleur, the decaleur's aligned with the handlebar and stem and the brakes straddle the rack strut. None of this is all that hard, it's just that to get it all right means doing things in the right order and it requires me to have about four hands to hold everything in the right place while the final, essential bolt is tightened. But I've done this part before with the Fuji, so it was just a matter of putting aside a couple of hours to tweak the positions of everything. The key was getting the rack strut bent to the correct position so it wouldn't interfere with the brakes and would attach gracefully to the rack and fender using a single bolt. It's handy to have a bench vise for that bending, but you could do it with some solid pliers or even just leaning on it on the edge of a table.

Yep, starting to look like a bike.

You may notice that the front fender tab is mounted to the front of the crown's brake bolt. I had initially thought it would mount to the rear of side of the crown, but it somehow just didn't fit right that way. It was impossible to get a proper fender line when it was connected there. When I moved the tab to the front of the crown, everything lined right up. Not a huge deal, really, but as a result of that placement, the bottom of the fender lines up just above the axle of the crank set. I'm just going to go out on a limb and guess this arrangement will lead to some pretty damp tootsies on that first wet ride. I probably better just think in terms of getting some mud guards right away and I should probably get the long ones.

For those of you who have never installed a set of fenders like this before, here's a pretty good video explaining it. The only thing I will say is that I prefer a slightly more refined finish so I wouldn't use the bolt cutters - I would used a sharpie, hacksaw and file to get the fender struts to the right length and smooth them out so the aren't jagged and sharp. Of course having said that, I'm happy to report that the struts that came with the Cycles Toussaint DIY build kit didn't require cutting at all. I think if the rear dropout was vertical it could have been a bit crowded, but with the semi-horizontal dropout there's plenty of room for the slight excess length of the strut.

Brakes

Cool-Stop brake pads on Dia-Compe 750s

Astute readers may have noticed that I have swapped out the stock Dia Compe brake pads for some Kool-Stop brake shoes and dual compound pads. Hopefully that will add some grip to brakes that are routinely described as "mushy". If the Dia Compe 750s just can't do the job, I'll swap them out for a pair of 1974 Mafac Racers from a friend's old college bike. Jan Heine raves about the similar Mafac Raids as if they are the best brakes ever made. We'll see.

Alright, sure, so now I've got a bunch of components bolted to a bike frame. So what? Can I ride it? No. I still have to install the brake levers, the shifters, put a chain on it, run some cables and figure out how to adjust it all. Only then will it be a bike. I'm still waiting to see if my buddy Angus is really going to send me an alternative to the thumb shifters the bike shipped with, but I'm eager to get this baby on the road, so I may not be able to wait. It looks so much like a bike, it seems a shame to just have it sitting there on the stand in the garage. Spring is in the air and a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of asphalt! Come on man, let's get this show on the road.

So join us for our next exciting episode of Mondo Blah Blah when I install the drive train and hopefully complete the build.