Deja Vu all over again! My first road bike was a Schwinn Varsity that I paid $72 in 1964 dollars for (if I recall correctly) from money saved from odd jobs for my neighbor. I later sold it to my little brother for $50 and he resold it for $100. My first serious girlfriend also had a Varsity and once disappeared from sight on a long climb (I had since upgraded to a Mercier) and, as I finally saw her pushing it up the hill, stated. "you push this tank!" I will always hold the Varsity in highest regards as it was responsible for my 50 plus years love of cycling.

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Dean Wilson
http://www.anaerobiczone.com
Bicycle Protection Indoors & Out

Thanks for the comments --- not sure what was meant about 2 and 5 above.

#2 ---- what front tube ---- the head tube?

#5 ---- all of the brake levers are turned inward towards the bars

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

#2, I should have been more specific, but yes, both head tube and down tube should have eliptical leading edges. Round leading edges are not good. I think the leading edge being eliptical is actually more important than the trailing edge being faired in.

#5, by turning the brake lever sideways like it appears in the head on photo, it catches more air and creates more drag than if it was pointing straight down. By pointing straight down, it essentially fairs in the upturned end of the handle bar that aerodynamically, is behind it. The way you have it creates more drag I believe (and it would be hard to brake effectively like that)

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

#2 Ah leading edge ----- yeah good idea. I do think the Cervelo tubes are not round front, but more important than trailing, I hadnt heard that.
#5 The thing is, when I'm in the aero position, my hands completely block that bar end brake lever. I agree though that out of position (or riderless) the current config would be slower.

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

Hey Jeremy. Thanks for the reference earlier.

What stem post did you use? I've been wanting to change mine out.

Drilling the frame was no big deal. Soft pipe steel basically. Drilled a small hole where I wanted it then a bigger hole at a steep angle. The frame I used had been taken off so many sweet jumps that the top tube and down tube were bent. I had to heat up the frame to orange with my oxy-acetylene torch and bend it back. Had to do the same with the fork.

If I ever do another one, I'm going to bend it into a fat bike.

I used a 140mm 1 1/8" threadless stem ------ I didnt use one of those stem adapters because I wanted the stem to be as low as possible. I bought a 1" threadless headset but the cups dont fit into the frame. 1" cups are 30.2mm and Varsity cups are 30.7mm. So then I kept the Varsity cups but just used the topcap from the 1" headset, this seems to work fine.

What's not mentioned is that I bought another Varsity fork ---- one from like a 25" monster frame so it had a ton of steering tube, cut off the threaded portion.

Fat bike would be cool, I was thinking of making one into a cyclocross bike. In fact I was thinking it'd be cool to have a Varsity TT, Road, MTN and Cross bike all painted similarly.

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

Check this out.

http://www.amazon.com/...dapter/dp/B000VT550K

Yea ----- but other than being kinda heavy, these cranks work great ----- plus I already invested time into making the chainring covers.

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

True. But the pedal choices kinda suck.

With a round leading edge, the air spills out the side of the circle quite a distance. The wake (turbulent zone) of the tube is wide and trails a long way. It essentially negates whatever trailing edge fanciness there might be. By using an eliptical leading edge, the wake is narrow and not very long. That means that the fairing behind the tube actually becomes effective.

This is similar to torroidal wheels. The bike tire makes an almost circular leading edge. The fairing behind the rim is not very important. However, a torroidal shape, where the fairing bulges outwards, to grab the wake, reduces drag. With modern wider wheels, the leading edge of the tire isn't quite as circular. I've thought that an ideal tri tire would have lots of tread in the middle, and very little on the sides (we hardly ever corner with any courage). That way, the tire could be a lot closer to eliptical a the leading (and trailing) edges.

Anyway, maybe next winter, fair in the leading edge of the head tube, down tube and seat tube. Or you could save a ton of time (and possibly money) and just get a P5 :-).. If you got a part time job instead of labouring over your 40lb monster, you could probably get the P5 in no time at all. :-)

Enjoy your build. I'm actually quite jealous.

And speaking of frames, since Gerard has left Cervelo, maybe he could update his own site about making carbon (beam) bikes and he could post on ST.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"

I was refilling water in a parking lot, trying to keep my billion-dollar bike upright, when this lady rolled in on a $100 POS BSO. She hopped off, put the kickstand down, and then walked around stretching out her legs while drinking out of her bottle. Made me think - A kickstand would add almost no drag and would weigh nothing if made out of carbon fiber. We should get them back.

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----------------------------------------------------------
Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

You could get a Kickstand kick starter going for high end carbon fiber kickstands. Call them T-STANDS.

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Find out what it is in life that you don't do well, then don't
do that thing.

I like this guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kb8UO_rAFM

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----------------------------------------------------------
Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

You cannot ride that bike in anything other than fluoro speedos & a micro singlet!

HAHA Funny.

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Want: 58cm Cervelo Soloist. PM me if you have one to sell

Vintage Cervelo: A Resource

Not necessarily intended to be funny. I have lots of personal experience doing projects that cost more to make and end up less quality than if I'd just bought the damned thing in the first place.

For example, I bought my crashed carbon Merida off the insurance company for $200 so I could get a bunch of worn out parts and the chance to play with carbon fibre repair :-)
My son now has a slightly used, repaired bike to ride. With out time at minimum wage it would have been cheaper to hit eBay or similar. It was a blast getting to do carbon repair and as an engineer I loved it. Still, it's not perfect, not up to my usual standards and the repair is noticeable if you know where to look. It does ride as well as it ever did however, so I guess that's a win.

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TriDork

"Happiness is a myth. All you can hope for is to get laid once in a while, drunk once in a while and to eat chocolate every day"