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Some on here will be aware that back in March, just at the start of Lockdown 1.0, I had a small off that resulted in big consequences.
A little slow speed tumble over the bars resulted in 3 ambulances, inc the Hazardous Area Rescue Team (HART) having to rescue me from Delamere Forest - a period of immobilisation in the Countess of Chester followed and in the end it became apparent that I'd broken 4 vertebrae and progress would be slow to recover.
Anyway, fast forward 8 months and I'm actually in great shape - I've gone from being a guy with a broken back to just a guy with a bad back, which sounds like a moan but it honestly isn't! I can ride again and have been doing lots of cafe rides with Mrs Velocipede, lot of physio ( with an ex Wolves and Wigan Warriors physio, who knows how to inflict pain and recovery in equal measure!) and plenty of countryside walks (5 miles is doable)
Over the months, I've been re-evaluating my riding and trying to work out just what sort of cyclist I'll be post "recovery" - that's meant a full clear-out of my stable, and then a few iterations afterwards too - and a dawning realisation that what i want to do, and what I'm enjoying the most, is pottering about, cafe rides and fresh air. I really don't care about smashing it anymore - whether that's racing my mates or chasing segments - fresh air and nice experiences will do me fine.
So, throughout it all I've been dreaming about the "best bike for the job" of pottering and coming up with interesting/exciting plans.....
So, about 10 weeks ago I took the plunge, and ordered a Shand Bahookie with Rohloff, belt drive and 650B+ wheels....and I should take delivery next week.....
As a taster, here's the frame build pics - hopefully full build pics next week and I've timed a week off to coincide with it so I should be able to put some ride reviews up then too!
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Good stuff, hope you get many good miles on the new bike when it's finished, i hear you about reviewing what you do/did, it's nice to do stuff, but not to the detriment of your health and wellbeing.
Brilliant. Hope you really enjoy it. 😊👍
Great stuff, I know from experience recovery can be a bummer with sometimes no light at the end of the tunnel. Great to hear your back and what a treat to yourself. Well done and enjoy.
Looks great - glad to hear the recovery is going well.
Looks lovely mate.
Personally I've always been a views and fresh air kind of rider. Suits me down to the ground.
Excellent. Folks at Shand build lovely bikes 🙂
You're going to be pleased with that, I think. I have one of the same, except mine is in 'Drove' spec. Great bike for riding anything, anywhere, short blast or long haul.
Even with 29-inch wheels and drop bars it's quite a playful ride, so yours should be even more fun!
Folks at Shand build lovely bikes
Very friendly and helpful, too.
Love the colour, you don’t see many bright yellow bikes nowadays.
On a recent recovery after a medical crisis I wish you very very best.
The build looks fantastic by the way, happy trails
Those few seconds that can your change your life and outlook entirely. Glad it's worked out so positively for you. Had a similar thing happen. A yellow bike that can handle all the pottering thrown at it. What could be better?!
Thanks to everyone for the positive comments - I'm absolutely itching to get my hands on it! Hopefully here in a couple of days, when photos will follow.
@fudge9202 - exactly - it's a big purchase but sod it, you only live once - it'll get plenty of use and clearing out the garage has realised (almost) the full cost anyway, so I simply couldn't not do it!!
@lowey - it's a new experience for me, and I'm loving it!
@b230ftw - it's actually called "Curry Yellow" so it's got a bit of a "curry" edge to the yellow, rather than being a plain "bright yellow" - I'll post some pics of it outside when it arrives and hopefully that will make more sense then - the graphics are grey too, rather than black but that doesn't show too well in the photos so far either! More to follow!
@montylikesbeer - thanks very much!
@birdage - that's exactly what I thought!
Great bike and great story. Thanks for making me smile
@weeksy - my pleasure!
Hopefully a few more pics and some ride stories to follow next when it gets here!
That's going to be lush, you deserve it.
Oooh nice. Reminds me of TrailquestGraham(?) who spent some time experimenting to get the ideal Rohloff/ belt drive combo a few years back, which was really interesting to read.
What kind of dropouts will the frame have?
Is the down tube a different type of steel to the rest of the frame? Looks a different colour to the rest of the tubes.
I'm sure it will be an ace bike!
@Newretrotom If my eyes arent decieving me its one of columbus' specific 29er downtube being used, for some reason it has a slight black finish despite being the same steel as other tubes.
Great uplifting thread, glad you're just about mended.
Broken back to a bad back, totally understand that. I came off second best in a cyclist v car interaction and now have 6 vertebrae bolted together. Uncomfortable all the time but nothing I can't deal with. I ordered a Fairlight Secan but had to cancel it when covid sent my job into a tailspin. Wish I hadn't as I've managed to keep working so far even though it's still dicey. So I put a deposit down for another one, hopefully mine in February. Good news is the new orange paint job looks fabulous in the pics. Should really suit my new riding style of being off the road where possible, taking it easy, taking in the views and generally loving being out there.
All the best for your recovery and enjoy the new toy!
@Wait4me - sounds like a nice treat too - I can’t wait to treat mine to the local trails next week - apparently it was collected by the courier today 😁👍
Is the down tube a different type of steel to the rest of the frame? Looks a different colour to the rest of the tubes.
When the tubes are drawn at the factory, they have a mill scale on them, a dirty black residue. Before shipping, Columbus run the tubes through a centreless grinder/polisher to clean them up a bit. That downtube has a bend in it which prevents it getting cleaned up (won't run through the polisher) so it's shipped with the mill scale. Otherwise the material is the same. The ends get mechanically cleaned for welding and the whole frame is media blasted before paint so the difference in finish doesn't mean anything.
Very nice mate.
Sounds like you've been on a bit of a journey since that crash and glad to see you've come through it into a better place.
I've been thinking similar thoughts in many ways after a far less serious slow speed otb crash a couple of months back. By that I mean reevaluating what I really like about riding off road, so your post was particularly interesting.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing her built up.👍
OK so it's on the way, but Shand have kindly sent me these shots they've done for Social Media/promo....to say I'm excited is an understatement!
Luckily, I have a week off next week so it will be getting muddy on the day it arrives - it'll end up with a slightly different cockpit (Thomson post and Brooks C17 waiting for it, along with some nice stainless cages)....so more pics will follow "in the wild" next week!
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Lovely looking bike that.
Awesome & looks like room for some decent size rubber in there too
That's lovely
That is lovely looking .
That looks great, Mike!
That’s lovely
That does look great.
I'm a bit out of touch with things... Is the Rohloff the same unit as they made 10+ years ago (Speedhub 14?), or have they developed them?
I had a similar Pipedream years ago... loved the Rohloff.
Oh my what a pretty bike. Do enjoy and continue to heal.
That looks brilliant and very well suited to some bimbles about in the hills.
Hope you enjoy it, nothing beats that new bike feeling.
to say I'm happy would be an understatement!
It arrived on Monday me and I did 27 miles on it in the afternoon, followed by another 25 muddy miles on Tuesday - not had chance to get out on it since but have fettled the setup a little bit - now has my Brooks C17, Thomson post and a set of Nitto Bullmoose bars (heavy but I find the hand position on these incredibly comfy, and they look cool too!)
Will be out on it again tomorrow and the w/e - yay!
(More pics to follow at the weekend!)
So, I'm two months in and loving the Bahookie - and as I'm recovering more and N+1 has never been such a small number on this house, I decided to embark on a project to build another Shand, only this time not new (I couldn't afford another new one!)
So, I found a Tumshie fatbike frame on Facebook and picked it up for a good price - and have built it with largely s/h parts - only thing that was really tricky to get hold of was the EBB - but Rideworks put one together for me and it was really easy to set up - even though I've gone for budget and used parts, the cost built up but still a fraction of new cost so I'm not complaining!
It's built singlespeed to keep costs down and make sure I can't ride too fast!!
Shand Tumshie frame/fork
Cane Creek headset
Hope Fatnso hubs on Fatlabs rims w Surly Nate tyres
Hope stem
On one bars
Brand X seatpost
Raceface Aeffect cranks and ring
Rideworks EBB
28 ring, 20t cog
Brooks C17 saddle
Cheapo Clarks M2 brakes - actually seem to work v well for an extremely low price (>£50/pair on ebay)
It's only had a shakedown ride round the block so far but hopefully will get a proper ride tomorrow - only thing I'm not happy about is the cable routing for the dropper - I already had the external dropper and the frame has a port for an internal one - had to use stick on guides for now - will look to "upgrade" at some point
Looks nice sat next to it's younger, slightly slimmer 650b brother!
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