This bicycle has been updated - click here for the newest photos

The Zip has changed again! This is my MB-0 as of July '06. Drivetrain is still a Dura Ace 7410 crankset with 7402 front and rear (8 speed) derailleurs. The front derailleur is a braze-on, so I bought an adaptor for it. The hubs are 7700 series, and the cassette is an eight-speed spiderless Shimano. The BB is a 68/110mm XT UN72. I tried using the 103mm BB-7410 but it didn't have enough clearance so the left crankarm abraded the chainstay paintwork under load. Shifting is now done with DA 7402 downtube shifters mounted on Paul Thumbies. I prefer the friction mode, as it's smoother and quieter. It took me a week to practice, and now I've settled into friction shifting quite happily.

Hubs are decent 36-holers laced to X517 rims. Tyres are Bontrager Comfort B's which I'm trying to run to the ground before swapping them with 1.3 Vredesteins (any other recommendations?)

The stem is a Dura Ace-Nitto, 100mm, which I unearthed in the back of an old shop. Lucky me, but it's a little too low so I'm looking to swap it with a taller Nitto. The bar is a Jitensha-Nitto flat, and it's way comfortable for medium-length rides.

Brakes and levers are recent finds. CODA-Dia Compe levers and XTR M900 canti brakes. The Shimano pads are very bad for the rims, so I'm going to swap them out for Koolstop salmons.

The Brooks Professional with chrome rails is slowly wearing in, and I'm still looking for the right seatpost for it.

Frame No. 2531, original fork and Logic headset were bought on 17 September 2005 from a Singaporean collector. He had bought it from a Bridgestone dealer who had been keeping it for a number of years. The fork was resprayed for some reason, but the original decals were masked off, so you can see two faint patches of colour mismatch. After building it up, I realised that the seatpost would not stay still. The clamp was very slightly oval and would not hold the post. I also noticed that the slot at the rear was not factory cut, but instead hacksawed. Instead of a nice thick slot culminating in a circular hole, there was just a jagged handcut line. I took the frame to a shop and had the seattube reamed out from the original 26.6, to take a 27.2 post. It is now round, and holds the post just fine. I then filed open the slot and also filed out the circle at the bottom, so it looks pretty much like a regular frame. I bought a bottle of Tusk paint and touched up the bare metal. I found it strange though, that a production frame was missed on this step. Any ideas? The Zip is pretty uncommon in Singapore, and heads turn everywhere I take it. People say the welds are nice, but personally, I don't find them outstanding. They do the job, and I'm hoping the whole thing doesn't come apart too soon, before I've had the chance to enjoy it.

So here it is and I hope it brings you as much joy to look at.

Whenever I'm taking a break, I like to just stare at the bike and enjoy it. Hey, it's therapeutic.

- Alf

Singapore

ajchern at gmail o'com