Beige Grey? Chrome?

Borrowed from the LFGSS

Here is the colour in RAL

Well, here is the final colour choice after a fair amount of deliberation. And a look at this thread about the RAL colour schemes from the ever awesome LFGSS or London Fixed Gear and Single Speed forum has various powder coat frames and forks at available at Armourtex. I have a half baked idea about chrome plating the forks and maybe I will in the future, but for now I'm sticking with flat colour.

Unless I can find a good chromer I suppose. Hmmmm. And they would do it for a good price? Hmmmm.

Anyway, the idea to move away from blue/black was to make it have a vintage feel and really ping off the brown/honey colours I'll probably end up with from Brooks line (saddle and tape). And even though the bike shown above has a Charge saddle is does enough to sell the colour to me. And it feels old Surly colours like Curry Squit or Beetroot poo. This blue malarky feels a little too sensible for my liking.

Chrome forks? Wonder who sells them as the cheapest I've seen to chrome them has been £120.

And this will definitely mean swapping my headset for a silver one. *sigh* 

More research it seems.

THB

The Only Mistake?

 

Got my Avid Shorty 4 brakes today. A massive d'oh moment as they're black not silver. Must pay attention more when ordering stuff. Also got a Fire Eye Stem. It's massive.

Now upgraded to Shorty 6's and they arrived in spiffing silver. However, my love for a cantilever bike build my be shortlived as I'm reading a few people having bad experiences with these brakes. 

If they're full of fail, I'll swap to a V Brake and see what happens.

In the meantime, they do look very swish.

Back In Black

Wasn't amazed at the colour choice for the Long Haul Trucker, so I had a quandry. Wait for the 2011 models and hope for a change or take the frame up to armourtex and have it resprayed.

In the past Surly have done some nice colours for the LHT, however the stock colour for 2010 is Blue or Black.

Now, I've never liked black bikes. They're too commuter-ish. And although the blue is nice, my MTB is blue and I fancy a different colour.

Still, I wrote to Surly:

Hey there,

I'm very much into building up a LHT but not too enamoured by the colours, so I thought I'd ask what the 2011 colour scheme might be if there's a colour change.

No worries if not, I'll just get the frame resprayed.

And they replied (probably wondering why I'd spelt colour wrong):

The 2011 LHT will look just like the 2010 – black and blue all over (again).

No color change is in the works. Warm up the powder coater.

Thanks,

Eric Sovern

Surly Bikes

So, seems like I may be off to Armourtex. Now, what colour shall I go for?

I've bought the frame

Finally ordered a 58cm 700c Surly Long Haul Trucker frame and will build it up very slowly (mainly due to space restrictions in a London flat). I shall endeavour to tell a story of all the parts I buy and the trials of putting it all together. All the workings out and maybe co-erced decisions made by anyone following this blog.

I'm being helped along the way by 2 friends who both work in bike shops. One for general advice on putting together a new bike (I've made 2 rat bikes in the past which are both excellent, but I doubt I want to whack in my new headset with a hammer etc :) and another who'll be showing me how to build the wheels.

Once the bike is complete then I can start telling the stories of the actual rides. Which hopefully will include a nice trip to Norway or maybe Northern Spain.

Until then, I hope you can benefit from my journey of putting it all together.

THB