Christine's New Bike
Christine has been taking more of an interest in riding her own bike recently (normally we just ride the tandem together). Yesterday she also accepted a job which is a short bike ride away on the Burke-Gilman trail. I had extensive plans for modifying her old frame (so extensive that in the end perhaps only the seat tube, down tube,and chainstays would have remained), but then I saw the Soma Mixte at Free Range Cycles and realized that it would a better option.
I wanted to build her new bike around a Nexus 8sp hub, and the Soma has horizontal dropouts which made that easy. The 50cm frame is perhaps on the upper edge of what would fit, but it works well (much better than her old 13″ Novara Randonee). Oddly the next size down for the Soma Mixte is 42cm, with nothing in between.
I built the bicycle up with 650B wheels (it is designed for 700C wheels). 650B wheels fit easily when you use the 75mm reach Tektro R556 brakes. The rear brake only reaches if you have the wheel towards the front of the very long horizontal dropout, but it wasn’t hard to find a chainring/cog combination which made that work. When built up with these wheels and brakes there is plenty of room for wide tires (I used 38mm wide Mitsuboshi Trimlines) and full fenders. The fenders were easy to mount on this bicycle because Soma included threaded bosses on both the seatstay and chainstay bridge.
The bike will gain a couple of accessories in the next couple of months, but it is very rideable today. They are a front porteur rack (we’re getting a Pelican bag from Swift Industries for it) and a Hebie Chain Glider to enclose the chain.
It was hard for me not to think of the frame as a project and immediately start modifying it. At some point I expect that it will come under the torch. At that time I’ll make the following modifications:
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Move the chainstay bridge back about one centimeter. The fender is mounted with a very long spacer that is sure to loosen up.
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Move the chainstay cable housing stop forward about 15cm. The Nexus hub requires the cable housing stop to be quite a bit forward from the normal location. This will eliminate the ugly zipties that I’m using now.
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Maybe switch to V-brakes.
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Maybe build a new lower trail fork.
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Remove the downtube shifter bosses and replace them with a single cable housing stop.
We took the bike on it’s inaugural ride last weekend, riding down to Magnuson Park and back. Christine reports that it handles nicely and she really likes the smooth shifting of the Nexus hub.
Component list for the bike nerds among us:
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Frame/Fork: Soma Buena-Vista Mixte
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Headset: BBB 1 1/8″ threadless
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Handlebars: Jitensha City (made by Nitto)
- Grips: Ergon GC1, with lavender tape on the rest of the bar
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Stem: Origin-8, 9cm,17 degree
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Shifter: Shimano Alfine 8sp
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Brake Levers: Tektro Eclipse
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Cranks: Shimano 105,165mm, 130mm BCD, 38t chainring
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Pedals: MKS RMX (aka Rivendell Sneaker)
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Front wheel: Shimano DH-3N70 hub, DT 14/15ga spokes, Velocity Synergy rim
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Rear wheel: Shimano SG-8R36 8sp internal hub, DT 14/15ga spokes, Velo-Orange PBP rim
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Tires: Mitsuboshi Trimline 38-584 (650B x 38mm)
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Seatpost: Nitto
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Saddle: Serfas Curva
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Fenders: Berthoud 650B x 50mm
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Brakes: Tektro R556
- Bottom Bracket: Shimano UN72, 113mm
Fantastic bike, it looks really nice. Congratulations on Christine’’s new job too.
this is a great looking bike.
wouldnt it be easier to build a platform rear rack, rather then a fork and a front rack?
http://vanillabicycles.com/frames/commuter/3/
Sure, but I like building forks and racks.
Dyno lighting on the front rack at some point?
That is a nice frame. Did you choose it over any other comparably priced mixte options (okay, the only one I can think of is the Handsome She-Devil http://www.handsomecycles.com/index.php?id=10 ) or buy it because it was available locally?
The Nexus cable routing sure is a pain in the ass, especially if like me you hate the idea of running full-length housing.
For a long time on my Kogswell I had a stub of housing a few inches long at an angle between the chainstay cable stop and reaction arm. Eventually I realized that it wasn”t actually doing anything: if it’’s short enough to not totally bind the cable, it’’s also not long enough to keep the cable run the same length.
I found that I had to adjust the cable anyway every time I touched the wheel, so I just stopped using housing there at all! The cable runs through the BB guide straight into the hub.
Sturmey Archer makes clamp-on chainstay cable stops, but it seems like they might all be designed to clamp too close tot he dropout for our purposes.
Any advice on sizing the buena vista? My partner is 5”6″ and I”m between the 50 and 54.
Jimmy — Yup, there will be dyno lighting front and rear. I”m waiting for an IQ Cyo that I”ve ordered to arrive. It will live under the rack (which I”ve started on…and it will be a bit more artistic than my normal racks).
David — Christine is 5”1″ and this is the 50cm frame. For 5”6″ I think the 54 would be right, if not on the small end. Size based on the virtual top tube length and the type of handlebars that you”ll be using.
Fred — For another bike I made a special bolt on part which ran housing the full length of the chainstay, but allowed the cable to exposed on the downtube. That worked well. There is a photo of it here:
http://alexandchristine.smugmug.com/Bicycles/Bicycles/Soma-Mixte/11485257_TSETx#808071532_Br7Fy
and here:
http://alexandchristine.smugmug.com/Bicycles/Projects/Nexus-Cable-Stop/11024831_Zrjw7#771133978_8xw3E
Sorry about the lighting, I took that with a flash on a late night point83 ride. I”ll probably make another one for Christine’’s bike until it is ready for powder coat, and then I”ll move the stop.
Christian — It was the right price, available frame only, and had all of the right brazeons. I always prefer to buy locally when I can, and having one of these built up to test ride at Free Range Cycles just made the decision that much easier. The Handsome looks good, but I like to inspect bikes in person when possible. You might have noticed that I”m picky.
I saw that first picture but thought it was just a Honjo-style fender stay clip — I didn”t notice the fillet-brazed noodle!
You should be careful about making sure that the teeth on the anti-rotation washers ares well-seated in the dropouts. I would swap them L-R so that the tooth was on the inside, but that might interfere with the dropout adjusters on this frame.
Yeah, they are oriented as they are to allow the dropout adjusters to work. The right dropout adjuster hole wasn”t drilled quite straight, so the adjuster ends up in the upper half of the slot instead of the middle. They are well seated (better than it looks in that photo).
Where did you find the handlebars? I”ve been looking for something like those for a while.
They are from Jitensha Cycles in California.
That’’s a nice bike – at first I was a little surprised that it wasn”t outfitted with a dynohub as well, but then things became clear! There was a Buena Vista frameset at the LBS near my old apartment, and had I seen it in time, I would have bought it and built up a very similar bike for my wife as well.
Nice!
If you don”t mind, may I ask what Christine’’s PBH and height are? I”m planning to build a Buena Vista for my fiancee, and I”m gathering data to try to decide what size frame to buy for her.
Thanks!
About those grips. I believe you mean “GP1.” The GC1s have only been recently released.