# Varonha Frameworks 853



## avecReynolds531 (24 Mar 2020)

This was a happy labour of love, over a few years of planning, saving and finding the right parts: a special birthday gift for my wife. 

It's part fillet brazed, part lugged Reynolds 853 - some of the detailing is just beautiful (the stainless steel cut out from the head badge is silver soldered to the seat tube, the fork crown & low curve, that seat cluster with sleeve & stainless steel top eyes).

...26 inch wheels, a 26/40 double chain set running 10 speed Campagnolo. Velo Orange Grand Cru calipers stop the bike fantastically well. With Berthoud saddle & stainless steel mudguards, plus some Nitto finishing kit.

Our many thanks & appreciation to Winston Vaz for the exquisite frame, Mario Vaz for the custom paint, JRA providing a very light wheelset and Herbert Cycles for the great build.

...couldn't have asked for more with the end result; how well proportioned the bike turned out (it looks in real life as if it's been shrunk) & how well it performs.


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## Spiderweb (24 Mar 2020)

Wow!
Beautiful❤


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## raleighnut (24 Mar 2020)

Very Nice


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## tom73 (24 Mar 2020)




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## avecReynolds531 (25 Mar 2020)

Thanks for the kind comments - much appreciated. 
The bike becomes a way of life & it's tough to think that people are losing their livelihoods just now.


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## dave r (25 Mar 2020)

Thats lovely


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## Gunk (25 Mar 2020)

That is stunning, I love the finish and detailing, almost too nice to ride.


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## avecReynolds531 (26 Mar 2020)

Thanks Gunk, much appreciated. 

It's slowly dawned that the only indicator of the scale of this bike is the bottle cage in the first photo.


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## Sillyoldman (26 Mar 2020)

Wowee what a beauty


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## avecReynolds531 (27 Mar 2020)

Thanks Sillyoldman, much appreciated.

A further photo of the bike: fork crown design - initials hand cut from stainless steel.


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## Drago (27 Mar 2020)

That's lovely. It's the tasteful target right on the bullseye.


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## avecReynolds531 (28 Mar 2020)

Thanks Drago, much appreciated.


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## Tom B (31 Mar 2020)

I'm not normally into this sort of this, but that's beautiful.


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## SkipdiverJohn (31 Mar 2020)

I do like those fork blades. The way the curve is concentrated at the bottom end makes them look proper old school.  That's what you call real attention to detail, and it looks in-period with the fillet brazing. More modern steel forks tend to have a bigger radius curve over more of the blade.


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## avecReynolds531 (31 Mar 2020)

Thanks Tom B and Skipdiver John - much appreciated.

The idea was for a light fast bike with an old school feel: horizontal top tube, 26 inch wheels, metal mudguards, a front centre that would mean no toe overlap (after the headache of small road bike frames and 700c had caused fright & road rash), and a fork with a flat topped crown with that low curve.

I had seen a lot of old French roadster bikes from time over there. A family member still had their 1940s Peugeot mixte - like a work of art.
There was something about the forks on those old bikes.

We knew Winston had extensive experience of building small frames previously with Roberts & had complete confidence in the choices of dimensions, tubing, and geometry. I got the wheels and mudguards first, and the frame clearances were built around them. We were pretty stunned seeing the finished fork for the first time- it seemed exactly the idea we had in our heads. A nice piece of history; it was Bill Hurlow's fork raker that shaped the fork.

There's an excellent Varonha thread over at LFGSS - https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/255909/

A few frame photos before painting:





























...My wife loves the bike so we couldn't have asked for anything more...


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## SkipdiverJohn (31 Mar 2020)

avecReynolds531 said:


> The idea was for a light fast bike with an old school feel: horizontal top tube, 26 inch wheels, metal mudguards, a front centre that would mean no toe overlap (after the headache of small road bike frames and 700c had caused fright & road rash), and a fork with a flat topped crown with that low curve.



I'd noticed the head angle looked fairly slack - and assumed toe clearance was the reason. Agree about 700c wheels on small frames, they are just a bad idea. The geometry is usually a right dog with the seat angle often steep enough to pass for a TT bike as a bodge to keep the top tube fairly short.

When I was a kid I had a Raleigh racer with 26" x 1 1/4" wheels on a 19 1/2" frame and it rode well and was properly proportioned. The larger frames had 27" wheels, because there was room for them. These days though, if you buy anything mass produced that's not an MTB, it comes with 700c wheels of one sort or another. That's fine for adult male sizes, but the bike industry is putting 700's on frames being sold to petite 5 foot females, which just doesn't work very well. i scrapped such a small Apollo hybrid at the weekend, keeping the wheels and other parts to go on my large mens frames. The ISO 590 size once common on 3-speed roadsters was and is a very flexible size. I don't know why they aren't still specified in place of 700c on smaller frames. You get much better geometry and more nimble handling.


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## avecReynolds531 (31 Mar 2020)

SkipdiverJohn said:


> I'd noticed the head angle looked fairly slack - and assumed toe clearance was the reason. Agree about 700c wheels on small frames, they are just a bad idea. The geometry is usually a right dog with the seat angle often steep enough to pass for a TT bike as a bodge to keep the top tube fairly short.
> 
> When I was a kid I had a Raleigh racer with 26" x 1 1/4" wheels on a 19 1/2" frame and it rode well and was properly proportioned. The larger frames had 27" wheels, because there was room for them. These days though, if you buy anything mass produced that's not an MTB, it comes with 700c wheels of one sort or another. That's fine for adult male sizes, but the bike industry is putting 700's on frames being sold to petite 5 foot females, which just doesn't work very well. i scrapped such a small Apollo hybrid at the weekend, keeping the wheels and other parts to go on my large mens frames. The ISO 590 size once common on 3-speed roadsters was and is a very flexible size. I don't know why they aren't still specified in place of 700c on smaller frames. You get much better geometry and more nimble handling.


Totally agree - I had a Raleigh Arena racer that had an 18" frame with 24" wheels - all ok for proportion. 
Having a toe overlap tumble isn't great for anyone, yet, as you said, the bike industry tends to try to keep to 700c for frame sizes that aren't right for that. 
I've heard it said that toe overlap isn't important & you soon get used to moving your feet out of the way... not for everyone though.


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## SkipdiverJohn (31 Mar 2020)

avecReynolds531 said:


> Totally agree - I had a Raleigh Arena racer that had an 18" frame with 24" wheels - all ok for proportion.



Funny, mine was an Arena too. Good bike, absolutely bomb-proof. Wish it hadn't got to small for me. Loads of youngsters had them yet now they are pretty rare bikes.
Toe overlap isn't good news, and is definitely best avoided. You especially wouldn't want it on a fixed gear. The only bike I own that has a slight bit of overlap, if I'm wearing big workmen's boots anyway, is my rod braked 26" Raleigh roadster of all things! It's only marginal, but the steel mudguards are bulky and the top tube on the Raleigh Sports frame used on the 26" versions, is quite short. Geometry is spot-on though. Surprisingly nimble for a 40-pounder with a full chaincase! Not fast, but rides very nicely. For such simple machines, there is a lot more nuanced detail to good bike design than non-cyclists realise.


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