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 you're
00:15more likely to find me heading out to some far-flung chintzy cafe with my clubmates on
00:20a steel bike. Steel is real is a bit of a cliche now, but I just love the fact, the thought, that
00:26my bike was made by a local frame builder in a small workshop instead of popping out
00:31of a mould in a huge factory on the other side of the world. In my opinion, some of the best
00:36steel frames were made by Roberts in Croydon from the 1960s until 2015 when they closed
00:41their doors. So when a clubmate of mine said that he was wanting to get rid of his Roberts,
00:46I could just hardly get round to his house fast enough. I was knocking on the door virtually
00:50before he'd finished typing the WhatsApp message. My clubmate had the frame made to measure in 2001
00:55out of Columbus Max Tubing, which was the stiffest tubing there was at the time. It was his number
01:00one race bike and when I first saw it, it was black but had a sort of a brown growth on it from sitting
01:07in his garage for years. It really needed rescuing pretty badly. So I took it to Colotec in Dartford
01:13to be blasted and re-sprayed by Dave Crowe, who actually used to spray Roberts frames for Roberts
01:18themselves before they closed. So I knew the frame was in really good hands and he's a great sprayer,
01:24I really raised his work and here it is. I'm really pleased with it.
01:33I asked Dave to copy a Trek Project One paint scheme that I really liked
01:38and I think he's done such a good job of it. It's actually even nicer than the original Trek.
01:42He used automotive two-pack acrylic enamel paint over a metallic base coat and it just looks really
01:48stunning especially in the daylight and the cost to do the frame and the fork which is a carbon
01:54Columbus fork was £200 and I think that's a pretty fair price for giving a bike like this a new lease
02:00of life. There's nothing like the ride of a really good steel bike. The feel of steel is how the saying
02:06goes. I've heard it said that really steel is the benchmark for the way a bike should ride and every other
02:11bike is trying to copy the ride of steel but just making it lighter like carbon does or making it stiffer
02:17like aluminium does but really steel is the ride. The workmanship is just such high quality that
02:24the the fillet raising is just amazing it just one tube just flows into the other really seamlessly
02:29it's it's it's really lovely work. It was a race frame but it actually weighs just over two kilos the
02:34frame itself without the fork and that seems like a hell of a heavy weight these days it's like twice the
02:40weight of a carbon bike but 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 and with what I'm going to be doing on it which is
02:51club runs and fast-paced riding it's a cafe racer it doesn't really matter that it's a bit heavier
02:57than a carbon bike. Yes the frame is 20 years old but I didn't want to build it up into some kind of
03:01museum piece out of retro components NOS that were painstakingly sourced on eBay or anything like that.
03:08I wanted it to be a modern bike that I could ride and that meant a modern group set with modern ratios.
03:14Okay so Shimano everybody knows that it's great functionally it works brilliantly but
03:18a frame like this really needs Campagnolo. So I've got a full rim brake mechanical Campagnolo
03:26chorus group set. Chorus is high-end but it's not ridiculously expensive it's a little bit more
03:31expensive than Shimano Altegra you're looking at about £1250 for the whole group set but that's a whole
03:38£600 cheaper than record for about 100 grams extra weight so it makes a lot of sense. The other
03:45thing about Chorus is that it's aimed at keen amateurs rather than pros which really suits my purposes
03:50perfectly. So I've got 5236 up front and I've gone for the 1129 cassette which is the closest ratio
03:57cassette you can get with Chorus and I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get up any hill in Surrey on a bottom
04:02gear of 3629 which is a lot lower than this bike probably had originally 20 years ago. A Campagnolo groupset
04:11deserves Campagnolo wheels and these are the Bora WTO 45s. I've ridden them a couple of times recently
04:17on a couple of different test bikes and they're just some of my favourite wheels at the moment. They are
04:22lightweight at just under 1500 grams, they're stiff, they're aerodynamic and they have an internal
04:28rim width of 19 millimetres which is wider than the type of wheels that that bike was designed for
04:34but I'm pretty sure that they'll just about fit in. The clearance is going to be pretty tight but
04:39in those days tight clearance was what racing bikes were all about. The more fag paper the clearance the
04:45faster your bike was. I've already got the tyres on these they're the Vittoria Corsa Graphene 2.0s
04:51they're a really lovely supple tyre, beautiful rolling and Italian which goes nicely with Campagnolo
04:58so these are going to be my tyres. The finishing kit is by Vision and it's all carbon and it's very
05:05statementy and it's pretty expensive too but this is a dream build after all. This is the handlebar I'm
05:11going to be using this is the Vision Metron bar it's very lightweight at 250 grams it's very expensive at
05:18350 pounds and I think it's going to look great on this bike. The stem is another Vision stem it's the
05:24TriMax Carbon it's actually aluminium with a carbon skin. What I really like about it is it's got this
05:30little face plate cover which has a kind of a look of alien about it. So this stem is for an inch and
05:37an eighth steerer but an old bike like this has a one inch steerer so I've got this shim that I'm going
05:42to have to use in the stem to make sure it fits snugly around the head tube. The Vision Metron
05:47seat post is another component from Vision's top level range and it's another money no object component
05:53which costs over 200 pounds. As for the saddle I've gone for really what works for me rather than
05:59something that's really expensive and showy and it's this Sally Italia SLR Superflow which has a nice
06:07shape suits me and just manganese rails ordinary manganese rails that that's all I need it just it
06:14works. I'm going to be wrapping the bars in this Physic Microtex classic bar tape which has these nice
06:20little perforations that look quite authentic. I used to insist on white bar tape and a white saddle
06:26for all my race bikes but in this case I don't want to distract away from the really beautiful frame.
06:33Modern handmade steel bikes have to have a Chris King headset they're said to last a lifetime and this
06:38one actually is already pretty old. This Chris King one inch no thread set is probably about the same
06:44age as the bike it's it's got to be 20 years old and this was the the first type of headset which
06:49replaced the quill stem and the threaded headset and hence no thread set. You can still get them
06:57in lots of pretty colors as well but black is nice for for this and it's the only one that my friend had
07:02anyway so this is the only the only old part on the bike apart from the rider. I'm going to use the
07:10new Wahoo Speedplay Zero pedals I really like these I like the look of them I like the feel of the the
07:16free float I even like the sound of them clipping in and clipping out and I think these are going to
07:21really get me off to a good start with this bike. Okay so now we're going to head to the workshop and
07:25start building it up and hopefully it's going to be done in time for me to get a ride into the pub later.
07:32We'll see you next time.
08:02So 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, the good thing about external cabling is that it's
08:20just easy to get them in, you do the run, they pop out the other side, there's no messing
08:25around.
08:26And I actually really like the look of the cables, there's something about the curve
08:29of a cable that really goes so nicely, actually sets off a steel frame really nicely, you
08:34know, why 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, it's much lighter than I thought it was going to
08:51be, just 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, one
09:06of them was with the Campagnolo chain, you have to push in this little chain pin really
09:11carefully, otherwise it snaps, which is, 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 coloured,
09:26so there's no hiding it, just don't tell anybody.
09:29The bar tape, I went for this really nice, physic, perforated, retro looking bar tape,
09:35but what I didn't realise was that it had the physic logo on one side of it, and when
09:39you do the little clever loop, that means you don't have to use the adhesive strip, the
09:43logo has popped out 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? I mean, I don't think so really, I'm really
09:52happy with the way it is. I think probably the next thing I'm going to do is to put
09:56some little transparent stickers on the head tube here, to stop the cable from rubbing
10:00the paint, and also one on the chainstay here too.
10:06But other than that, if I win the lottery, I'll upgrade to Super Record, but let's stick
10:11with Chorus.
10:12I built this bike up as what we're calling a cafe racer, which means it's perfect for the
10:17club run. It's not for racing, that's what carbon bikes are for. It's just for enjoying
10:22the ride, but it's light and fast enough that it can turn a nifty pedal if it needs to.
10:28So I'm really looking forward to Sunday when I'm going to ride this bike for the first time
10:31with my club. Club run stopped for a long time during the pandemic. I have to say I lost
10:35a little bit of motivation, but something new and shiny like this is really going to get
10:41things together again for me, and I'm just really looking forward to it.
10:44So the overall cost of this build is somewhere around £4,500. Half of that is in the wheels,
10:52and unfortunately they come off another bike that I tested, and they've got to go back.
10:57So I'm going to have to put in a cheaper set of training wheels. It looks like this Sunday
11:02could be the only opportunity I get to ride these really nice wheels, but that's life.
11:07If you want to ask me any questions about the frame or the build, leave me a comment and
11:11I'll answer. I hope you've enjoyed this video. Don't forget to like and subscribe.
11:16See you.