Rough Diamond - New Pics

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Location
Rockhampton Australia
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Here's my Australian built 54 Malvern Star 3 Star. The Malvern Star range consisted of different quality bikes. This level of quality/components was reflected by the number of "stars" - A One Star was your average utility bike, the 2 Star usually had a better build quality, maybe with nicer lugs, paint and components etc, and the 3 Star was the top of the range road bike (although many of them were used for track and road racing), while the 4 Star and 5 Star were the companies premier racing bikes (road and track). I'm also lucky enough to have a 5 Star frame in my size that I'm saving for a future build.

I found this one in a junkyard a couple of years ago, and have just gotten around to doing something with it. The frame had about 4 coats of house paint on it and a number of dents and scrapes. I decided to leave all the dents and scars unrepaired, stripped it to bare metal and sprayed it with red oxide primer.

The rear hub is a NOS Sachs Komet Super, the front is a NOS Sachs Orbit V , and they are laced to a set of used Mavic Open Pro 700c rims. I scrounged through my parts bins for the rest of the components. Tires are Schwalbe Cream Delta Cruisers. The BB is a sealed Shimano, and the cranks are Shimano 600. Bars are cut down Soma Noah's Arc, and the saddle is a San Marco Rolls.

Gearing is 42:18 which I have found to be a nice "urban" ratio, and still allows me to go on slightly longer rides without spinning too much.

Here's some pics
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Re: Rough Diamond

nice , love the head tube on that ! very cool !
 
Re: Rough Diamond

.... nice and clean!

May I suggest a silver seatpost, a smaller (not that heavy looking) seat (maybe a black brooks swallow or swift), just black leather band for grips and some fine creme (like the tires) lines around the lugs? That would really set it off!
 
Re: Rough Diamond

Thanks for all the kind comments. This bike is a blast to ride, and have been doing an average of 20 miles a day on it for the past couple of weeks

Crank!Basti: I agree with your styling thoughts, and intend to replace the seat post next time I go to the bike shop. Although the grips look a bit out of place, they are "ergo" and are easier on my palms and wrists on longer rides. I would love to put a Brooks on this bike, and probably will later on, but as it sits now, it only owes me around $200, so I'm not in a hurry to drop another $150 on a new saddle.

Before my morning ride today, I was giving it a check over and noticed the tires :cry: . This has only happened since I fitted them to these rims 2 weeks ago. They are 18 months old and have done a lot of miles, but were previously fitted to wider rims (approx 25mm). The Mavics are much narrower, causing the tires to "balloon" a bit more....maybe this has something to do with it, maybe they've reached their use by date? The maximum pressure for these tires is 65psi, and I was running 55-60psi (checked with a number of different gauges), so I don't think it was caused from over-inflation. Any thoughts?

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Michelin City 700 x 32. I'm liking the black tired look.
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I love this bike a lot! In my opinion the cream tires did it for me though. If you ever wanna sell drop me a line. That frame is kool.
 
That's just too cool! Very cool frame, and nice job.
(I have to say, though, that I liked it better with creme tires, too... :wink: )
 
another vote for those creme tires - i saw those at my LBS and wondered if they would be ok on smaller rims... time will tell, i suppose. right now im running NOS michelin all white tires on my road bike.
 
My guess would be that those tires spent an inordinately long time in a shipping container with a bag of silica, or something of that nature. The black ones look ok to me.
 
slick said:
I love this bike a lot! In my opinion the cream tires did it for me though. If you ever wanna sell drop me a line. That frame is kool.

I'd probably part with this one slick, The shipping would be a killer though!

I will be definately putting another set of cream tires on it, just gotta wait til the importer gets a new shipment into the country.
 
herr_rudolf said:
I like this bike better with the cream tires...

I love that seat though. Is it a Rolls? It's the choice I would have made. Those skinny Brooks are worth a small fortune. I'd love to have one but I always thought a Rolls would be a classy 2nd choice.

Yeah, it's a Rolls, herr_rudolf. I had it my parts stash, and they are an awesome seat to use.....I just can't justify the amount of money a skinny Brooks would add to the cost of this bike.
 
I didn't realize you lived in Australia. :oops: I'll have Russell Crowe put it on his private jet and bring it to me the next time he's doing a movie over here to save me on shipping! :D I do love that bike though! :(
 
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