Classic Steel Road Bikes
What do you think of Simon Smythe's restomod Chas Roberts?
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00:00I ride a lot of carbon bikes here in my day job at Cycling Weekly, but on a Sunday morning
00:15you're more likely to find me heading out to some far-flung chintzy cafe with my clubmates
00:20on a steel bike.
00:22Steel is real is a bit of a cliche now, but I just love the fact, the thought, that my
00:26bike was made by a local frame builder in a small workshop instead of popping out of
00:31a mould in a huge factory on the other side of the world.
00:35In my opinion, some of the best steel frames were made by Roberts in Croydon from the 1960s
00:40until 2015 when they closed their doors.
00:43So when a clubmate of mine said that he was wanting to get rid of his Roberts, I could
00:47just hardly get round to his house fast enough.
00:48I was knocking on the door virtually before he'd finished typing the WhatsApp message.
00:53My clubmate had the frame made to measure in 2001 out of Columbus Max tubing, which
00:57was the stiffest tubing there was at the time.
00:59It was his number one race bike, and when I first saw it, it was black but had a sort
01:05of a brown growth on it from sitting in his garage for years.
01:09It really needed rescuing pretty badly.
01:12So I took it to Colourtech in Dartford to be blasted and re-sprayed by Dave Crow, who
01:16actually used to spray Roberts frames for Roberts themselves before they closed.
01:20So I knew the frame was in really good hands, and he's a great sprayer.
01:24I really rate his work.
01:25And here it is.
01:28I'm really pleased with it.
01:33I asked Dave to copy a Trek Project One paint scheme that I really liked, and I think he's
01:39done such a good job of it, it's actually even nicer than the original Trek.
01:42He used automotive 2-pack acrylic enamel paint over a metallic base coat, and it just looks
01:47really stunning, especially in the daylight.
01:50And the cost to do the frame and the fork, which is a carbon Columbus fork, was £200.
01:56And I think that's a pretty fair price for giving a bike like this a new lease of life.
02:01There's nothing like the ride of a really good steel bike.
02:04The feel of steel is how the saying goes.
02:07I've heard it said that really steel is the benchmark for the way a bike should ride,
02:11and every other bike is trying to copy the ride of steel, but just making it lighter
02:15like carbon does, or making it stiffer like aluminium does.
02:18But really, steel is the ride.
02:21The workmanship is just such high quality.
02:24The fillet brazing is just amazing.
02:27One tube just flows into the other really seamlessly.
02:30It's really lovely work.
02:31It was a race frame, but it actually weighs just over two kilos, the frame itself, without
02:35the fork.
02:37And that seems like a hell of a heavy weight these days.
02:39It's like twice the weight of a carbon bike.
02:42But that was how it was at the time, and I think that really, the weight with this
02:46type of bike, it doesn't really matter so much.
02:49And with what I'm going to be doing on it, which is club runs and fast-paced riding,
02:54it's a cafe racer, it doesn't really matter that it's a bit heavier than a carbon bike.
02:58Yes, the frame is 20 years old, but I didn't want to build it up into some kind of museum
03:02piece out of retro components, NOS, that were painstakingly sourced on eBay or anything
03:07like that.
03:08I wanted it to be a modern bike that I could ride, and that meant a modern groupset with
03:13modern ratios.
03:14Okay, so Shimano, everybody knows that it's great functionally.
03:17It works brilliantly, but a frame like this really needs Campagnolo.
03:22So I've got a full rim brake mechanical Campagnolo Chorus groupset.
03:27Chorus is high-end, but it's not ridiculously expensive.
03:30It's a little bit more expensive than Shimano Ultegra.
03:33You're looking at about £1,250 for the whole groupset.
03:37But that's a whole £600 cheaper than record, for about 100 grams extra weight.
03:43So it makes a lot of sense.
03:45The other thing about Chorus is that it's aimed at keen amateurs rather than pros, which
03:49really suits my purposes perfectly.
03:51So I've got 52-36 up front, and I've gone for the 11-29 cassette, which is the closest
03:57ratio cassette you can get with Chorus, and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get up any
04:01hill in Surrey on a bottom gear of 36-29, which is a lot lower than this bike probably
04:07had originally 20 years ago.
04:10A Campagnolo groupset deserves Campagnolo wheels, and these are the Bora WTO45s.
04:16I've ridden them a couple of times recently on a couple of different test bikes, and they're
04:19just some of my favourite wheels at the moment.
04:21They are lightweight at just under 1,500 grams, they're stiff, they're aerodynamic, and they
04:27have an internal rim width of 19mm, which is wider than the type of wheels that that
04:33bike was designed for, but I'm pretty sure that they'll just about fit in.
04:37The clearance is going to be pretty tight, but in those days, tight clearance was what
04:42racing bikes were all about.
04:44The more fag paper the clearance, the faster your bike was.
04:47I've already got the tyres on these, they're the Vittoria Corsa Graphene 2.0s.
04:51They're really lovely, supple tyre, beautiful rolling, and Italian, which goes nicely with
04:57Campagnolo, so these are going to be my tyres.
05:01The finishing kit is by Vision, and it's all carbon, and it's very statement-y, and it's
05:06pretty expensive too, but this is a dream build after all.
05:11This is the handlebar I'm going to be using.
05:12This is the Vision Metron bar.
05:14It's very lightweight at 250 grams, it's very expensive at 350 pounds, and I think it's
05:21going to look great on this bike.
05:23The stem is another Vision stem, it's the Trimax Carbon.
05:26It's actually aluminium with a carbon skin.
05:28What I really like about it is it's got this little faceplate cover, which has a look of
05:33alien about it.
05:36This stem is for an inch and an eighth steerer, but an old bike like this has a one-inch steerer,
05:40so I've got this shim that I'm going to have to use in the stem to make sure it fits snugly
05:44around the head tube.
05:46The Vision Metron seatpost is another component from Vision's top-level range, and it's another
05:51money-no-objects component, which costs over 200 pounds.
05:56As for the saddle, I've gone for really what works for me, rather than something that's
06:00really expensive and showy, and it's this Selle Italia SLR Superflow, which has a nice
06:07shape, suits me, and just manganese rails, ordinary manganese rails.
06:12That's all I need.
06:13It works.
06:14I'm going to be wrapping the bars in this Fizik Microtex Classic bar tape, which has
06:20these nice little perforations that look quite authentic.
06:23I used to insist on white bar tape and a white saddle for all my race bikes, but in
06:28this case, I don't want to distract away from the really beautiful frame.
06:34Modern handmade steel bikes have to have a Krisking headset.
06:37They're said to last a lifetime, and this one actually is already pretty old.
06:41This Krisking one-inch no-thread set is probably about the same age as the bike.
06:45It's got to be 20 years old.
06:47This was the first type of headset which replaced the quill stem in the threaded headset, hence
06:53the no-thread set.
06:54You can still get them in lots of pretty colors as well, but black is nice for this, and it's
07:01the only one that my friend had anyway.
07:04This is the only old part on the bike apart from the rider.
07:09I'm going to use the new Wahoo Speedplay Zero pedals.
07:12I really like these.
07:13I like the look of them.
07:14I like the feel of the free float.
07:17I even like the sound of them clipping in and clipping out.
07:20I think these are going to really get me off to a good start with this bike.
07:23Okay, so now we're going to head to the workshop and start building it up, and hopefully it's
07:26going to be done in time for me to get a ride into the pub later.
07:50So, here it is, the Roberts Cafe Racer, and I'm really pleased with the way it turned
08:15out.
08:16It was just really nice to build.
08:18The good thing about external cabling is that it's just easy to get them in.
08:21You do the run.
08:22They pop out the other side.
08:24There's no messing around, and I actually really like the look of the cables.
08:28There's something about the curve of the cable that really goes so nicely, just actually
08:32sets off a steel frame really nicely.
08:35Why would you want to hide that?
08:37I know I chose every component for this bike for myself, so in theory, I knew what it was
08:40going to look like, but it really has surpassed all my expectations.
08:44I think it just looks amazing, and I literally can't stop staring at it.
08:48The other thing is, it's really light.
08:50It's much lighter than I thought it was going to be.
08:52Just under 8.2 kilos, which is just under 18 pounds in old money, and I think that's
08:56pretty impressive for a bike with a steel frame, especially a 20-year-old steel frame.
09:02So although the cables went in really nicely, we did have a couple of little snags.
09:06One of them was with the Campagnolo chain.
09:08You have to push in this little chain pin really carefully, otherwise it snaps, which
09:14is, yeah, that's what happened.
09:16So I haven't had time to go to a bike shop, and I've had to just put in a SRAM Eagle 12-speed
09:21power link just here, and you can see that it's there because it's rainbow-colored, so
09:26there's no hiding it.
09:27Just don't tell anybody.
09:29The bar tape.
09:30I went for this really nice, physic, perforated, retro-looking bar tape, but what I didn't
09:35realize was that it had the Physic logo on one side of it, and when you do the little
09:39clever loop that means you don't have to use the adhesive strip, the logo has popped
09:44out and you can see it.
09:45So that's something I'm going to have to change, unfortunately.
09:48So does it need any upgrades after this?
09:51I mean, I don't think so, really.
09:52I'm really happy with the way it is.
09:54I think probably the next thing I'm going to do is to put some little transparent stickers
09:58on the head tube here to stop the cable from rubbing the paint, and also one on the chain
10:03stay here, too.
10:06But other than that, if I win the lottery, I'll upgrade to Super Record, but let's stick
10:11with KORUS.
10:12I built this bike up as what we're calling a cafe racer, which means it's perfect for
10:17the club run.
10:18It's not for racing.
10:19That's what carbon bikes are for.
10:21It's just for enjoying the ride, but it's light and fast enough that it can turn a nifty
10:26pedal if it needs to.
10:28So I'm really looking forward to Sunday when I'm going to ride this bike for the first
10:31time with my club.
10:32Club run stopped for a long time during the pandemic.
10:35I have to say I lost a little bit of motivation, but something new and shiny like this is really
10:39going to get things together again for me, and I'm just really looking forward to it.
10:45So the overall cost of this build is somewhere around £4,500.
10:50Half of that is in the wheels, and unfortunately, they come off another bike that I tested,
10:56and they've got to go back.
10:57So I'm going to have to put in a cheaper set of training wheels.
11:01It looks like this Sunday could be the only opportunity I get to ride these really nice
11:05wheels, but that's life.
11:07If you want to ask me any questions about the frame or the build, leave me a comment
11:11and I'll answer.
11:12I hope you've enjoyed this video.
11:15Don't forget to like and subscribe.