Los Alguacil (The Sheriff) Mk III

Spain is known for Gaudi with his organic looking architecture, for it's delicious paella and possibly Pedro Ximenez sherry which can give chocolate dipping sauce plenty of zing if you are susceptible to this kind of vice.

But do the spanish make good road bikes? We'll soon see!

BH bikes where used by Liberty Serguros-Wurth which became Astana-Wurth in May 2006 when the team manager, Manolo Saiz, was arrested being accused of blood doping practices. Alexander Vinokourov can be seen riding the BH G3 in the this clip.

The BH G3 was used in 2008 by the AG2r la Mondiale team prior to receiving the new updated BH G4. The team continued to use the bikes for the 2009 season.

The BH G5 is currently being used by Xacobeo-Galicia which is a Spanish continental team which sometimes attains a wildcard entry into the Vuelta de Espana but isn't successful enough to get a berth in the Tour de France.

Anyway enough of the history lesson here is the frame I found on eBay (for a bargain!) ready for the 2010 build season (read 'winter') and hopefully to be fully tweaked and primed for the 2011 Alpine Classic.

We will be running a new Sweet Parts Vote on the right hand of the Re(wind)cycle blog to help me choose parts for this new steed. Please let us know which are the premium parts and which should be avoided like the plague!

The Sheriff Mk II at last!

At long last the Sheriff Mk II is finished and here are some photos.

The bike is a 1984 steel Francesco Moser running the new Campagnolo Athena 11 speed groupset, Velocity Aerohead wheelset and topped off with a Brooks B17 saddle. The groupset shifts smoothly and swiftly, initially I wan't sure about the carbon wrapped levers and was hoping Campy would release a alloy version although I think the resulting look is quite nice. The Moser isn't light weighing in at 10.1kg fully built however sprints and climbs beautifully.

The build was finished just in time for the Audax Alpine Classic 2010 run in gorgeous Bright over the Australia Day weekend in late January. The highlight of the day was plummeting down the descent from the top of Falls Creek with the Moser handling the fast corners with ease.

Yo Eddy Merckx!?

Yo Eddy. Eddy Merckx. It's Eddy month.

More pictures of the '87 Merckx. Cousin is indecisive on the colour scheme; metallic light green, metallic blue, or the original pink with a very heavy metallic flake have been bandied around. Chrome highlights with paint has also been discussed, though we think Pro Plating might not be keen to deal with the finicky areas around the lugs.

So, what colour do you think? Post you ideas here.

Cousin is a bit of a photog; some lovely pictures below.

Tasty pantograph seat stays

I love the image below - could it be the original build / paint sticker from the factory?

87 Merckx!

A quick teaser... More later.

Old dog, new clothes

You may remember this from last year - a '92 Fat City Cycles, Yo Eddy!, Team Fat Chance.

A lovely colour, but a bit battered from good use over the years. It also had a stuck seatpost, with a little surface rust down the seat tube.

In order to ensure the rust-cancer wasn't eating the frame from the inside out, we decided that a full bare metal respray would be the go.

The interesting thing about Fat City Cycles is that, once all the tubes were assembled, all welding breather holes in tubes were sealed up; the theory being that no moisture could enter the tubes and rust the bike from the inside out. Unfortunately, moisture does what it does, and finds it way into the tubes. It then doesn't have a way out, and, wouldn't you know it, the bike rusts from the inside out.

Thankfully, the frame was structurally good. We didn't get any bare metal pics, but the process is roughly:

1. strip to bare metal (chemical bath)
2. hit any surface rust with 'kill rust'
3. sand with 320 grit paper, to give the primer something to 'key' to
4. high fill / primer
5. wet sand with 1200 grit paper
6. reprime, resand with 1200
7. apply blue / green base coats
8. clear over base coat, allow to dry
9. apply decals, lightly sand with 500 grit
10. re-clear

If you were being ultra-fastidious, you could then rub back the clear around the decals, to remove the 'edge' on the stickers. We did this for the Concorde, but we (read 'I') were too lazy to do it this time around.

With thanks to Rody at Groovy Cycle Works for the decals, and as usual Troy at MCR for the paint.

Still trying to find brake bosses so that I can assemble this old girl and hit the trails!!


New clothes!