02 November, 2011

New Bike Builds

Sam built this lovely rando-style Polyvalent. Note the VO stem, crank, saddle, seatpost...
Ari has neat place to store a bike lock on his Polyvalent, as well as good taste in beverages.
Debra's Polyvalent looks like a very comfortable all-arounder and has lots of VO parts. Those Polyvalent wide-range cranks are also getting popular.
Robert is VO's buyer and resident cyclo cross racer. This is his new race bike. Not much VO-style stuff on this one, save our hi-low rear hub.


Have a new build? Leave a link in the comments.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Cool black-and-white grips on Robert's bike. Are they just track grips?

Robert said...

It's black Lizard Skins DSP tape wrapped down the bars and tucked into the tops of white track grips. Great for grip when bouncing around a muddy 'cross course.

Anonymous said...

It looks likes the Mk2 Polyvalent wasn't designed for your 58mm fenders or would it work with indentation to get the front fender between the fork
blades. The website lists both 58 and 52 mm fenders with the kit.

Anonymous said...

Clever!

Alec said...

@Anonymous 6:32PM

the Polyvalent build kits come with 52mm Zeppelin fenders, which are great for Pari-moto or Col de la Vie tires.

You're right that 58mm fenders will need a little bit of work to install in this frame. I've done it several times - it's no big deal and takes just a minute - pad the jaws on your bench vise and close them on the fender at the tight areas to squeeze the fender down.

Clearance at the fork crown is 52mm, which is the biggest we can get from our investment-cast lug supplier.

Clearance at the chainstays back where the fender lives is also about 52mm. It's hard to get any more out of a normal 68mm bottom bracket shell without doing weird things to the chainstays.

But, once again, just squeeze the fenders a bit and you're fine even with 58mm fenders.

Scott Cryan said...

Pretty darn cool looking build. Here is a link to my BikeJournal page showing my Surly with tons of VO bits (fenders, racks, bar, bell). Everyone loves the look and it is such a smooth ride.

http://www.bikejournal.com/images/JackRabbitIMG_1736.jpg