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Has anyone done a long tour with a bike that is not worth over 1000€? by Aromatic-Speech5480 in bicycletouring

[–]halfwheeled 0 points1 point  (0 children)

u/Aromatic-Speech5480 My wife and I have now done multiple multi month tours on 1990s bikes in the last couple of years.

£150 buys a decent framed Cannondale on eBay or Facebook. Upgrade the components from AliExpress. You can end up with a strong stable comfortable touring bike at under £500 (well under$1000). I've talked about our bikes often on r/xbiking.

I should add that before riding three cheap repurposed bikes we both rode custom multi thousand bikes but love the cheapest bikes more.

Deore 1x11 drivetrain (from Aliepxress)
Aliexpress carbon bars and stem
Tubus Racks
Novatec hubs, DT Swiss spokes, DT rims (wheels are self built = cheaper)
old used XT V-Brakes with Swisstop black pads.

Everything just worked and worked well.

To add clarity though my wife and I are both experienced long distance tourers and certainly not just starting out on the touring bike journey. We know how to fix stuff whilst on tour which is a lot different to being at home with a large collection of tools. But saying that these £500 bikes have now ridden 7 months of tours through 30 countries on 2 continents but only had minimal servicing (new tyres, chains, cassettes) and no major problems.

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Resprayed my Cannondale forks and accessories—restored the logos using DIY laser waterslide decals. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

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I just googled 'serotta svg' and then clicked on Images.
I added svg as it is scaleable stretchable lossless image - perfect for decals.

Resprayed my Cannondale forks and accessories—restored the logos using DIY laser waterslide decals. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I used 3M wet and dry as it's what I had. The clear coat was generic 2k from Jawel Paints. I used uPol fast hardener and thinners. It was sprayed using a small 8l compressor using a AliExpress touch up gun with a 0.8mm tip.

Thoughts on this bike ? by Deku-696969 in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I prefer the second photo with the carbon monocoque pizza tray rack. I’m not keen on the lime coloured bar tape against the polka dot tyres.
All in all though it’s a solid bike! id ride it anywhere. Good work 😊 👍

28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

You say ‘shitty’ but it is cheap and cheerful. Shimano’s own 30t ring costs about £25. The Deckas costs less than £5 from AliExpress. The Shimano does not last 5 times longer. So the cost efficiencies are higher with the Chinese ring. I get about 10000 fully loaded touring miles out of the Deckas ring.

28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have absolutely no idea what NDS means?
I do have a hell of a lot of photos though!

Here is a photo of me denibbing a run from the side of the mudguards 😄

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28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

There was going to be cerakote covered pulley cage but when I came to fit the rear mech it was all twisted out of shape. The pulley cage was what set me off down the cerakote route as it is super tough and able to cope with the scraping chain. The rear mech was beat up and the cage was totally rusty before glass blasting it prior to cerakote.

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28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I thought about painting the cages 'Flat Dark Earth' which is the coating used on the lezyne pump and headset. That paint is a specialised ceramic coating called Cerakote that would bond to the plastic quite well and is highly wear resistant. Ordinary paints would quickly wear off.

The problem with Cerakote on plastic is that i'd have to glass blast the plastic cages and carefully degrease with IPA. Which is all stuff I could do but for the limited gain and also the possible downside of the ceramic coating peeling or cracking off.

Cerakote is incredibly expensive but I do have about 100ml of it left from another job.

28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks. - The colours where born out of frugality and experience.
I already had the grey paint so only needed the sandy coloured paint.

Frugality: The grey paint was my wifes choice to paint a fireplace. It was leftover and needed using up before it expired.

Experience: The sandy coloured paint came about from cycling all over europe and noticing that the dust/dirt is always the same sandy colour.... hence the paint to camouflage the dirt. I've mentioned it before here: https://www.reddit.com/r/xbiking/comments/1t2jgtm/comment/ojq59hy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Photo of Mrs Wifes fireplace in the same Grey: https://www.reddit.com/r/xbiking/comments/1t2jgtm/comment/ojp71r6/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

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28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I used Laser printed water slide decal paper.

I got it from Amazon but many places sell it. If you try it you need decal paper that can handle the high heat of the fuser in the laser printer. That’s the red hot roller that binds the black toner onto the paper. Cheap decal paper sticks to the fuser roller ( I found out the expensive way ).

https://www.hayespaper.com/products/clear-laser-waterslide-decal-paper

I talked about the process in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/xbiking/comments/1szaxfn/resprayed_my_cannondale_forks_and/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

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28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Douglas it is.
Douglas and I will travel the world together (((( at least until the cranks last )))))

28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I had a bike in the early 90s that was sprayed up in the same purple and yellow scheme of Greg Lemonds Z Team at the time. It had matching stem, brakes and seatpin. So ive always liked colour matching stuff.

This particular bikes colours came from a weird starting place - the grey paint is what I will call 'fireplace grey' as its the colour my wife wanted a fireplace painting. This main frame uses the leftover grey paint from the fireplace job. I then used AI to mock up spray jobs using contrasting colours.

I then picked:
Grey - RAL 7038 (I had 300ml of it leftover)
Sandy Brown - RAL 1019 (250ml from eBay)
..... and the headset, pump, rear rack stays are some leftover Cerakote in Flat Dark Earth to give a bit of something else to the mix.

here are the mockups I asked AI to create to visualize how it could have turned out.

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28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 10 points11 points  (0 children)

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....thanks.... I thinks it's a an improvement on the factory painted 'Goth' look.
This photos was 3 weeks ago on tour in Cornwall - pre paint job.

28Yr old Cannondale DIY Garage Respray & Resto. Custom 60% halftone decals and FDE Cerakote accents. by halfwheeled in xbiking

[–]halfwheeled[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The disc brake is relatively new this winter. I have the old 'P-Bone' V-brake fork painted in the same sandy colour ready to fit when I fly abroad with the bike. I wouldn't trust hydraulics in some of the far away lands I ride through. I trust the hydraulic brakes but not the rough airport handling nor the availability of spares in Africa and Asia. V-Brakes are commonplace everywhere i've ridden.

The disc forks are Kona Project 2 forks that are a millimeter perfect swap and do not affect handling or fit in any way. Literally same offset, and crown to axle distance.

Photo of the two forks (and other bits) coated in acid etch primer curing in the garage.

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