A couple of photos of my Alfie Webb. For those who have never heard of Alf, he is one of life’s great characters, an ex-policeman with an ever present smile who now teaches bike mechanics in the flatlands of Lincolnshire.

Known as ‘Spalding’, it was built by me from new using one of Alf’s own-brand all-aluminium 21″ compact road frames. I opted for the shallower rake aluminium fork rather than Alf’s own quick steering carbon fork as this is a year-round road-going bike. The two are held together by a 1 1/8″ Cane Creek headset.

Big thanks to Easton and Brooks who respectively provided the carbon EC70 seatpost with a useful layback and classic B17 Narrow saddle, helping accommodate my bad back. Handlebars are Zoom alloy 44mm constant radius bend on a 130mm ITM Spyder stem. Originally I built Spalding with a Alf Webb alloy seatpost and Selle Italia saddle but the replacement combination just sits me back a little more comfortably.

Stopping comes courtesy of Ambrosio dual pivot calipers and Sun Race levers should they be required in addition to leg pressure.

I built the wheels up on high flange 32 hole Ambrosio hubs using double butted Sapim spokes crossing 3 times onto Mavic Open Sport rims, which give a little extra comfort. Tyres are excellent and cheap Schwalbe Blizzard Sports.

Someone had given me an unwanted but really rather lovely old 170mm Shimano 600 double crankset a year before I started building Spalding and, with shorter chainring bolts it’s made a super 42 single set that drives a KMO Narrow chain onto a Miche 17 tooth sprocket. That gives gearing a shade under 66 inches, which, believe me, around here in Shropshire, is more than enough….

Ride safe

David