njee20

Yes, Wayne said no chance this year, and I already had them, so no point waiting!

I was just pleased I managed to get any element of the level crossing into shot and didn’t drop my phone! 🤪

Indeed it is. With the 30c tyres it’s certainly a nice comfy ride! I’ve never ridden wider than 25s on the road, they look enormous! 8.25kg in new money! I still always think of bike weights in pounds; although component weights in grams. No idea why. Hopefully a bit more to come off with the other groupset plus a lighter stem, and potentially bars too, as I’m not sure about the shape on these. Took it out for a quick spin on my short lunch loop. Definitely needs a longer stem, and I’ll move the shifters down the bars when I change them, they’re in an oddly high position, but it felt great, and was my quickest time for a while on the loop, clearly ‘new bike syndrome’ adding a bit! there’s a total dearth of interesting railways around here, a quick moving picture of Barns Green level crossing on the Arun Valley line was the best I could manage!

Sorry, image heavy post! New bike day! Finally got my ‘cycle to work’ bike. Turns out it’s quite a convoluted process with lots of back and forth on vouchers and what not, but hey, it’s here! It’s very blue! It’ll now be going on a bit of a diet as I swap parts about! As delivered: Not an overly impressive weight: id already built up some new wheels for it, using Chinese carbon rims and some cheap hubs. Even with 30c tyres (up from the stock 28c) there was a chunk of weight to come off here: Old wheels with tyres/tubes: 1495/1317g: Replacements are 1121g and 1007g, and they’re blue! A saddle swap to something a bit less bulky also saved a chunk! A tried and tested Specialized Toupe makes it onto a 4th bike! Chainset swap off an older bike, I want to swap all the gearing too, but I need a new BB tool to get into the frame to route the wiring for the electronic gears. First world problems if ever they existed! Only 33g saved from the chainset (maybe slightly more once I cleaned it!), but I don’t really like the black finish on the stock one, so I’ll swap them regardless! So still with the mechanical gears, but now over 1.5lbs lighter. I need to find my steerer tube cutting guide, could probably impale myself on that! Will likely swap to a longer stem too, but may as well take it for a bit of a shakedown as it is! Off to the Alps in 10 days, so really ought just get a few miles in and check it’s alright!

It was Halfords lacquer I had a problem with; been fine previously, but didn’t work with the laser printed decals I’d switched to. look forward to seeing your green TEAs once restored to their glory! I think one of your first projects I read was the old BP grey TEA with the long yellow and green stripe!

I’ve built 5 of the EV15 FB turnouts, they’ve got 200 chairs each! No sign of those coming in the new format either sadly!

Yeah… that looks awful. i saw the painted sample at Gaugemaster and it looked far better. How do they manage it?!

Thanks James, that’s awesome! I’m still traumatised from varnishing a set of printed wagons; only to watch it eat the decals in front of my eyes, whilst helpfully varnishing the resulting mush!

Lovely job as ever! When you're doing your 'paint on wipe off' (said like Mr Miyagi) how much do you thin the paint? Or is it 'neat'? I keep thinking I'll give your methods a go!

Yeah, I get it totally, just for us it seems a bit of a no-man’s land. I wonder if it will attract some of the OO gauge crowd who wouldn’t go to N though. Yeah, that seems likely. I have looked for one; because I’m sure I have seen one previously, but my Google-fu is weak today.

Mmm, now that is very interesting! Being a man with a 3D printer (or 6) I could even muster some stuff for a 66 to pull. 1:120 just feels a bit too close to N. 1:100, splitting the difference more would feel more useful. I realise though that 1:120 sits better between 1:87 and 1:160.

This is the only one where the orange looks even vaguely acceptable, and the blue does look too dark. Their last GBRf 66 was purple, is it that hard?! Definitely waiting until I see it. I darent count the Dapol models let down by stupid and wholly unavoidable livery errors. It’s shambolic.

Great job, well done! With the chain off give the cranks a good spin - you’ll quickly see if the BB needs replacing. They tend to develop lateral play too, so if there’s no lateral movement in the cranks (rock from the pedal end to check) then it’s probably alright.

I think to a degree there's a perverse logic that it helped Lewis. He'd clearly written the race off, and then by the end was obviously absolutely buzzing, a true race of redemption. Had he stayed near the front he'd have potentially got 3rd, but may not have challenged for the win.

Yeah you’ll not get a disc wheel with radial spokes, hence not having them on gravel wheelsets. The rotational force at the hub is just too much. Very common still on rim braked wheels though. I’ve got 20h radially laced wheels on two road bikes. One also has radially laced drive side rear spokes. I’ve literally just finished building up some new road wheels for the road bike I don’t yet have, 24h disc hubs, but those are laced 2-cross. Nice and light though!

Awesome, just signed up. Well done for sorting this. Happy to be supporting the forum, with the added benefit of no ads!

Please don’t ever model the whole station, you’ll put me to shame as it is 😉 I agree Nuneaton would be good, I wondered about it myself!

Superb, David! Looks great. I've yet to find a ballast I'm really happy with for the same location, for me the real standout is the pinkish hue, which I understand is because it's granite. Polak do some great looking shades, but don't actually seem to be available. They have a UK website, but my order was cancelled and refunded with no further communication! Obviously a bit late to use a different base product, and you'll manage to accomplish a great recreation of it I'm sure! Similarly do you need the trackside lamps along so much of the track? They seem to just be adjacent to pointwork, may save you replacing some as they head for the carpet! I'm sure you've got plenty of reference material, but my album of photos I took from a visit to Rugby last year are here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/46244709@N04/albums/72157719938594776 I'm no photographer, and kept getting distracted by trains (without having the camera set up for them!), but perhaps a bit more focused on the general environment than many photos.

Yep, those go to the motor. Everything else is the same on the dummy - so just unscrew the PCB and check that if necessary. It should be really clear though. That only leaves the pickup wires.

Apologies, I completely missed that they were Fulcrums, assumed it was just an OEM hub. Is that the right one though? Your video is for the Racing 5, that freehub body is for the Racing 0 and 3. The one for the 5 and 7 is £55. Looks like the axle width may be the driver though. If you can get it refurbished then great, it’s a very long time since I serviced Fulcrum wheels, I honestly can’t remember how rebuildable they are. From that photo there’s a cartridge bearing in the nose of the freehub body though, which is a good start. Bearings can definitely be a DIY job given you’ve already got as far as disassembling the hub. IMO there’s no need to go mad on bearings, get something with 2RS suffix (two rubber seals, rather than metal shields). The problem with cartridge bearings on bikes is that they never rotate particularly fast, and then sit for prolonged periods, which lets corrosion set in. I’ve never found ‘branded’ bearings like SKF or FAG to last materially longer, that said I’d also avoid the cheapest. Simply Bearings is a good source. Avoid jet washing the bike, or at least avoid pointing it straight at the hubs.

No worries, it is a bit confusing. The whole thing is the hub. That comprises the hub shell (the bit the spokes attach to) and the freehub body (the bit the cassette attaches to, which you’ve photographed above), plus the axle, bearings etc. Parts are not interchangeable, so you don’t need a new hub (that would need you to completely rebuild the wheel), you just need new bearings to cure the rumbling when you spin the axle, and given how bad they sound, plus the wobbling cassette I’d say that a new freehub body is very likely needed too. But it has to be that exact freehub body, hence you need to go to a dealer and get one, it’ll like be a Cube part. On all but a handful of hubs the freehub body is a sealed unit, you just replace the whole thing. So the bearings in the hub, plus a new free hub body is my diagnosis!

That part is the freehub body, and they’re hub specific. What hub is it? Just looks like a basic OEM one. A Cube dealer (if it’s the Cube) will be able to order a replacement. Shouldn’t be that expensive. You also desperately need to replace the bearings in the hub (that’s the rumbling noise when you turn the axle), looks like they’re just cartridge bearings, again, pretty trivial cost. There’s probably two in the hub body, plus the freehub body. Shouldn’t be more than £10/bearing.

Red/black just go to each pickup, there should be a long and a short one of each to reach the front and back pickups. Grey and orange to the motor, routed through the grooves in the sides of the chassis. Nothing unusual at all.

Well they didn’t, they explicitly said that they were both powered in all the literature. It appears the first anyone knew of it was when people started questioning it upon delivery!

Lovely job! The interior finishes it off really nicely.