I realized I haven’t posted much news about the Tweed build. The bike is now fully rideable. Hub and brakes are set up and the fenders are installed. I’ve also got the front and rear racks installed. I’m really pleased with how the build has come together. Installing metal fenders was really a pain in the ass, but they look great and the coverage is fantastic (although, I haven’t gotten a chance to really test them in the rain, just damp pavement).
I plan on doing a series of posts about the build and my overall impressions/review of it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give some of my opinions of it early.
The frame rides great, better than my Surly Long Haul Trucker, likely because of the Tange Prestige tubing as opposed to the 4130 that Surly uses. There is some significant wheel flop with a rear load, but it’s not bad when my weight is on the bars and in fact, it seems to track better than the LHT.
The Alfine hub is pretty amazing. I love shifting whenever, even while stopped. The shifting is really smooth and the hub feels great while riding, even though it weighs a ton, I don’t notice it much, if at all. It’s also really quiet, which I like.
Disc brakes work well so far, although I believe they require some additional adjustment. The rear brake works pretty well, and locks up the wheel if I want it to. The front brake is a little mushy and doesn’t have as much stopping power as I would expect, although it does make me stop. I’m going to see if cable stretch has played a part, and pull out any slack that might be in the cable and readjust.
In all, I have a really classy-looking bike that works great. Next steps are to install lighting and improve the front fender line, at which point I will be at the 1.0 version of this build (right now I’d say I’m at 0.98!).
New Bike Day is the best day.
Hey Ben,
Just stumbled across your blog amongst search results for “Steelwool Tweed”, great stuff!
I have one request if you don’t mind – please post pics of your Tweed! I’ve been riding one for a couple years and am just about to take it to Cambodia and Thailand for a month. I’m also curious to hear your thoughts on the Alfine hub. I’ve been playing with the idea of an internally geared hub for a while now.
Happy trials,
Ted
Hi, Ted.
I just posted a slideshow of pics from just after the build. I’ll craft another post with the complete build details later.
I like the Alfine a lot. It has some problems that I suspect are user-error (a friend and I built the bike ourselves) that I’m certain will be fixed when I get some maintenance done by a pro on the hub, but those issues are very minor and the hub has worked out great.
The range is pretty wide and has served me well in Seattle. However I did take the bike on a recreational ride out in the Sammamish Valley and the foothills and the gearing was not low enough in that situation. If I was climbing a lot of hills I would want a smaller chainring (I’m rocking a 42t chainring with a 20t Alfine cog on the hub), or a hub with a lower gear, like a Rohloff. The hub is generally very quiet, almost silent, but the gears do slip occasionally as a result of the aforementioned user error =) I suspect that set-up by a pro, and regreased that the hub would be whisper quiet all the time.
I’m using the JTek Alfine barend shifter which also works great. I wanted drop bars on my commuter, but didn’t want the fugly and pricey Versa brifters. I haven’t been disappointed and would recommend the JTek shifter if you wanted a barend shifter for your Alfine.
Let me know if you have any other questions, and thanks for reading. =)
Cheers,
Ben