Soma Rush Winter Bike Refurb
I thought I might as well give this a page all to it’s itself before I get around to updating my bikepages site… back in July I stripped down my knackered old Soma Rush fixed gear winter bike (post here) to ship it off for a ‘refresh’ ready for another few years of winter training abuse. Argos Cycles in Bristol (nothing to do with the catalogue chainstore!) did a wicked job of refurbishing the frame and turned it around in super quick time (see here) but since then I’ve been too busy to actually get around to building it back up…. Summer kind of came and went however in a two-week burst earlier this month and with it’s rapid departure I found the motivation to get this thing back on the road.
With a bunch of new parts plus the rather high spec wheels that used to be on my Condor Pista before it became my dedicated TT bike it rides like a new bike, as well as looking like one. The biggest change I suppose is that the old Super Record crank has gone, to be replaced with an off the self Stronglight Impact road chainset. It’s not intended for single ring/track use but in reality it’s perfect – it has no tabs on the inside of the spider so with just the outer ring there are no chainstay clearance issues, using it with a Stronglight 107mm bottom bracket gives as near as dammit perfect chainline with a 120mm spaced rear end and track hub, and perhaps most important on a training bike – it’s as cheap as an aging tart, but better looking. Mine came from Spa Cycles for £44 with 46T outer ring – perfect. Just as an aside the old Super Record crank isn’t in the bin, despite some 25yrs of service (it came to me second or third hand, or fourth…) it has now gone on to a new home on someone else’s fixie.
Anyway, here’s the pics, almost looks too nice to hammer again this winter (n.b I haven’t fitted the mudguards yet because it’s my least favourite job of a build… ). I won’t bore you any more with details but if you’re thinking about building something similar drop me a line and I’ll do my best to help you out ;o)
oh and by the way – if you came here from a search engine looking for a review on the Rush… here’s mine, it’s ace, buy one.
There is a slightly more objective review over on Fixed Gear Gallery however…
happy pedalling,
M
[...] been refurbished and has a special page all to itself over there on the right… it’s here as well. Just in time really with the brief two weeks of summer we saw recently having been [...]
[...] on my cycle computers back by one hour I have at last got around to fitting the mudguards to my Rush winter bike {standby for a really dull discourse on [...]
[...] survival (well, nearly) against a raging beats… especially challenging if you’re on a fixed gear bike which I invariably am at this time of [...]
[...] it was suitably bleak down at the UK’s most southerly spot this morning. That’s my Rush winter bike in the photo, black and white so you can’t see how grimy it is from all the bad weather [...]
It’s exactly the kind of bike i was looking for. although with maybe more agressive tire or studded tire.. we get a lot of snow in Quebec(canada). Could you give us some spec about this bike?
hello Marc, haha, I know all about Quebec winters, I lived in Montreal for 6 years… I reckon if you wanted studded or knobby tyres you would need some more frame clearance than this has, a Surly Crosschek or Steamroller might work better… loads of tyre clearance on those. Anyway, drop me a line if you want to know more about the build of this, not muc to it really at all….
cheers
m
[...] a lady :o) So with that in mind I’ll come straight to the point… sadly my trusty Soma Rush frame cracked, a small fracture extending from the seat-tube slot. Nothing to do with me eating too [...]
Mike I am considering building a fixed gear bike around the Soma Rush frame. Do you have any advice on components that work well with this frame. Also if you were to build another one would you still use the Soma Rush frame?
If you don’t mind please respond to my email directly.
Thanks
Bruce