When I started this ‘NYC City Bike’ project in January, I never imagined that it would take so long to finish. But as of two weeks ago, the frame was completed, stripped/powdered and built up with a ton of newish parts.
We ran into complications from day one due to a distinct lack of frame building foresight/experience on my part.
On its most basic level, this project was about making the best NYC City Bike possible. It would be single-speed (NYC is really flat), have fenders and disc brakes for wet weather performance. I already had a Surly Steamroller frame and wasn’t going to have a custom frame built to lock up on the street so I decided to modify the frame and shoehorn a disc brake into it.
What I didn’t realize at the time, was that frames designed for disc brakes are engineered to have a space allowance for the rotor. This meant that I could push the rear axle so far into the drop-outs before the disc rotor made contact with the inner chainstay. Crap, but while the Steamroller had mercifully long drop-outs, I was only left with about 20mm of fore/aft adjustment. Another issue was that I was running a dishless rear wheel and had improperly installed the Montano Velo Dixie unit, (I placed the rotor on the outside of the lockring as opposed to behind it) and the disc caliper was barely able to clear the spokes on the rear wheel*. Thanks to the talents of Seth Rosko, we were able to successfully weld adjustable disc tabs onto the frame and successfully mount and run the rear brake. It currently runs a half-link to keep the wheelbase as short as possible without rotor/chainstay contact. Seth Rosko was also kind enough to tack on a couple of guides and fender mounts.
* A disc hub’s non-driveside flange is pushed away from the rotor mount so that the caliper body of the brake does not make contact with the spokes. If I had properly installed the rotor, it would have sat inward about 5mm and made contact with the spokes. A lucky mistake!
Special Thanks:
Seth Rosko for all the fabrication work.
Lance @ Squarebuilt for the powdercoating.
Alan Tansey for the wonderful photos.
PHOTOS:

Driveside shot. The rear fender mounts were placed higher on the seatstays so as to not conflict with the disc brake caliper. I chopped the fender down so that I wouldn’t have to fuss with it during a flat change. I chopped and bent the rear fender support stays into an arc to make the fit.

Non-driveside shot. The Race Face cranks have a big hollow axle and are pretty stiff. The disc rotors are both 160mm.

The Avid Speed Dial’s are among my favorite levers and have been kicking around the parts box since day one. The bars are as comfortable as they are from outer space.

The custom Rosko fork. Seth did a fantastic job here. The cable routes cleanly around the fender.

The non-driveside dropout. Again, fantastic work by Rosko. You can’t really tell in this shot, there is a 2-3″ spacer pushing the fender stays outward to avoid the disc caliper.

Driveside crank shot. I’m a big fan of these cranks and even the ring (but not the art, it looks like a broken lava lamp.) Plastic pedals have come a long way too, another favorite product for city riding.

Driveside freewheel shot. The rear axle is as far forward as it can go and you can see the half-link in the bottom right corner.

Tailend of the bike. This shot shows exactly how close the brake caliper is the spokes of the rear wheel. As I said before, the Montano Velo engineers designed the Dixie to sandwich the rotor but I accidentally installed it on the outside. Proper installation would have moved the caliper into the wheel’s spokes and ruined the whole project.

The full shot of the non-driveside tailend. A great example of Rosko’s work. He tacked on the fender mount, the support brace and the sliding disc tab. He used the sliding disc tab so that I could position the caliper optimally regardless of the axle position.
Parts Spec:
Frame: Surly Steamroller, modified and refinished.
Fork: Custom Rosko fork, built around the stock fork’s geometry but with disc tabs.
Headset: Cane Creek S-3.
Stem: Thompson X-4.
Handlebar: FSA Metropolis 31.8 (while I love how these feel, it took me a while to stop looking at them because they’re damn spaceman funky.)
Brake Levers: Avid Speed Dial Ti.
Grips: Black Ourys.
Brakes: Avid BB7 MTB disc brakes (the r.brake has its inside adjustment knob removed to clear the spokes on the r.wheel.)
Wheelset: ELVS Velocity Deep V laced 3x to Formula/Velocity hubs. Front is a standard disc hub and the rear is fixed/free.
Tires: Nothing special, I think I have a Rubino on the back.
Seat Post: Thompson.
Saddle: Specialized Alias 143.
Pedals: Odyssey Twisted PC.
Crankset/BB: RaceFace Decadence 130bcd. These are pretty rad and I covered the lightening bolts on the crank arms.
Ring: RaceFace Decadence 47t 1/8 ring. Despite the silly etched lightening bolts, this ring is a super high quality piece. If you get a chance, take a look at all the CNC relief work that went into the backside of it. Very rad.
Freewheel: Shimano 16t 1/8. (I actually would have been totally fine with 3/32 but then I would have had to toss the ring.)
Lights: Some Knog units that perpetually need new batteries. Feh.
Fenders: SKS Chromoplastics that I modded to fit the bike.
Skewers: Pitlock locking skewer on the front wheel.
Thanks for looking!







































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