Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Ritchey Breakaway project, part 1

My new project is steel Ritchey Breakaway road frame, that I will build up as a lightweight credit card tourer.
Though Tom Ritchey himself uses a Breakaway for lightweight touring, my requirements are somewhat different, so I made a few changes.

I'm not a fan of carbon fibre, so I built a Reynolds 531 fork with a modified Pacenti crown.
I want to be able to use this bike with fat tyres and/or mudguards, and this fork has plenty of clearance, plus eyelets on the dropouts.
To make the 1" fork fit in the frame, I'll be using a set of Wheels Manufacturing headtube reducers. I considered brazing sleeves into the headtube, but this would prevent a future owner from fitting a 1-1/8" fork.

Clearance between the back tyre and the seatstay bridge is minimal, so I cut the bridge out, and brazed in a new one 6mm higher. These old Campagnolo single pivot brakes are a better fit around mudguards than dual-pivots.
I brazed a bidon boss into the bottom of the bridge to attach the mudguard.
The new bridge is at the maximum reach of a Campagnolo short reach caliper.






Mudguards need a front mount too, so I brazed in a chainstay bridge with a threaded boss.


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