Nobody likes a wet arse

With the worsening weather one aspect of the bike has caused a certain amount of consternation and that is when splashing through puddles you get a wet backside.  On my other bikes I either have a modest rear mudguard or a rack with enough "middle" to keep the water off your back.  With the very airy "Airy" rack  there's neither a beam nor infill so there's no option but to fit a mudguard.  Getting mudguards intended for my application seems to be difficult - either they don't come in a suitable size or the design suffers from a fundamental flaw for my intended use.

All was not lost though as I happened to have a spare SKS front guard intended for a for a narrow 26" MTB wheel.  After drilling out the rivets holding the original mounting hardware it could be slid into place and marked up.  I chopped it down to about half the original length and was able to use an original bracket onto the bridge and add a set screw through a spare hole in the rack to secure it at the rear.  It all looks pretty neat really but I've yet to try it to see how much of the water it deflects but I have high hopes.

Braking improvements

The standard Tektro brake pads have cartridge-style pads but unlike most they are secured with a screw through the back of the pad rather than the more common approach of a pin going through the sides of the holder.  With the carbon forks there isn't much space so the screw head tends to rest against the blades of the folks which isn't ideal.  As a result I've taken the decision to swap to the other sort of pads but they only come in 70mm rather than 55mm lengths.  That geometric change makes it harder to use the "toe-in" trick to reduce the v-brake judder but it's still essential to get as much toe as possible.

In another change I've added some inline "sissy" brakes for convenience around town.  Doing that has made for some interesting cable-routing, with one cable going over the bars and another under them.  If you try and route the cables in the natural way using one brake pushes the cable for the other one applying that brake when you didn't mean to.  The other change to the routing has been to change the hanger from a straight to angled version to give more clearance on the stem.  With the "over the bars" routing this looks a little odd but works well.

Computerfication

 

The more observant of you may have spotted in the previous photos that I've got bar tape and cycle computer fitted now.

 

I'm quite pleased with how the tape has worked out as it was a job that I was dreading.  I've used the Bontrager Gel Cork tape, which has the benefit of using silicone strips to grip rather than adhesive.  This means you've not got trails of tape backing getting in your way and you can unwrap the tape and have another go at it if you don't think you got it right.  The trick to fitting it seems to be to keep plenty of tension to it and to alter the amount of overlap depending on the curve radius.   I have to admit to having a laptop in the garage with me showing a video of a pro wrapping their bars and watching that like a hawk, with my finger on the pause button.

Overall I'm pretty happy with it but I'm undecided about how far I want it to extend over the flattened aero-section of the bars and I'm still not sure whether I prefer the diagonal end cut on the inside or the outside edge of the tape.  I think I prefer it on the outside but I'll wait till I've done a few more rides and redo it when I add the in-line brake levers.

One thing I've found with the Polar computers that I use is that the cadence sensors never have quite enough range to work in the intended position and I've found that the supplied magnets for the crank need to run a very small gap.  The sensor gap is a problem on a bike that gets squeezed into crowded vestibules on commuter trains and shuffled up and down 3 flights of cramped, hairpin-landing stairs as the smallest knock to the sensor is enough to jog it out of alignment.   So as on my other bikes I've instead used a 5*10mm rare-earth magnet which fits rather nicely onto the end of the pedal shaft.  You can just see it in the top right of the picture here, you can also see much larger sensor gap I can run between it and the downtube-mounted sensor.

You can also see in the quantity of muck that gets thrown up during the course of a single days commute along a damp towpath.  Speaking of which the combination of titanium frame, carbon forks and wide 700c tyres makes this quite the most comfortable of all my bikes along the towpath.

Commuterfication

With the sportive out of the way my thoughts turn to making the bike fully ready for commuting.  Top of that list is a rack, for which the most appealing choice is the titanium Tubus Airy.  It's a small rack so has limited heel clearance but that shouldn't be a problem for me as my pannier is set up with very offset clips to cope with the limited clearance on the Airnimal.  For once the rack weighs exactly what was claimed of it - 230g plus another 120g or so for the bolts and mounting arms.

Next up was a rear light.  On my other bikes I have the lamp+reflector integrated into the rack.  On the Airy it is a little harder to mount a light, so instead I've gone for a seatpost mounted one.  In this case a NiteRider CherryBomb.  At half a watt it is pretty bright, has a good beam spread (blinding direct on) and has a built in reflector.

Steeplechase Sportive

After a week of the country being battered by strong winds (up to 40mph gusts ) it was with some trepidation that we lined up at the start of the Steeplechase for the "Epic" 90 mile route.  Unlike the 77 mile "Flatout in the Fens" event I did earlier in the year this one had hills, so the combination of a new bike with only 10 miles on it, an extra few miles, no significant training runs, hills and wind meant that it was going to be a challenge.

The run to the first feed station was uneventful and we made excellent time - plenty fast enough for the "gold" time but of course we had a strengthening headwind to come.  If anything the stop came too soon and we weren't really ready to stop.  Indeed many people seemed to pass it by, a decision that I wonder how many would come to regret.

The run to the second stop seemed to take much longer than the first, with some more substantially hills and a 20 mile slog into the ever stronger wind. The bike was working well and I spent a long time hunkered into the drops to get out of the wind.  The run up to the feed stop was a long uphill run, which hurt and had me making use of my 34-28 gear combination.  Oh how people scoffed when they saw the ratios on my cassette but by the end of the day I would rely on that gear on the larger hills.

By the time we set off on the third leg the wind was at full strength and at times the crosswind was sufficient to make staying on the bike hard work.  When we didn't have a crosswind we had a headwind.  Our pace had slowed dramatically and for about 5 miles we were convinced that the feed station and a few minutes respite was just around the next corner and each time groaned to find that we were mistaken.  The bike was still working well but I was beginning to get a little back ache, which wasn't surprising after 60 miles on a new bike.  If I'd had a couple of weeks extra to get some training rides in I think I'd have been fine but it's been 20 years since I last rode drop bars and my muscles just aren't used to it.

For the final "sprint" home we were told that we would have a tail-wind, maybe it was the fatigue but it really didn't feel like a tail wind to me.  With about 15 miles to go I started dropping off Mark's wheel and he gradually disappeared off into the distance.  He was feeling a lot more sprightly than me at this point and was on the cusp of hitting the "silver" time so had a great target to aim for (which he achieved with 90 seconds to spare).  I on the other hand had no way of hitting that mark and was just struggling to finish and lost huge amounts of time crawling up even the smallest of hills.  In the end I finished in 6:18, almost 10 minutes behind Mark.  Next time I shall make him carry a rucksack containing 50KG of bricks to nullify his weight advantage over me!

So, opinions on the bike.  It's nice, my choice of gearing works well, the setup is good and the saddle is comfy.  I'm a happy bunny.

Fitting

A slightly delayed update but last week I popped into Triatheletes Edge in Cambridge to have them "fit" the bike to me.  The process started off with a very thorough measuring of me and a chat about riding style and intended use, then crunching all those numbers on the computer.  From that we got a printout of  the "ideal" frame geometry for me, which pleasingly is pretty close to what I have, and another couple of printouts featuring all the critical min/max/ideal positions for the various components. 

Armed with the magic numbers Rob shuffled the saddle up a bit (something I knew needed doing) and forward by a reasonable amount (the reverse of what I expected), the stem down by a bit, rotated the bars up and the hoods down and invited me to give it a go on the turbo trainer.  Initial thoughts were that it was very much more comfortable but that we needed to adjust the handlebar and hood rotation a bit more.  Another couple of tweeks there and we were done.

The whole process took somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes but only cost 25 quid.  A very worthwhile investment indeed.

First run out

A truly horrible day for it with winds gusting to 40mph and rain lashing down but sooner or later the bike was going to have to get wet. It's a long time since I last rode drop bars so with the wind buffeting me around I was morer than a bit wobbly.
First impressions is that carbon forks are great, nice and compliant. The brakes need some adjusting as they shudder terribly but that is probably just a case of adjusting the amount of toe-in. It is too early to draw concrete conclusions about the frame but I think I like it rather a lot.

Finished

So here it is, all finished bar some setup and bar tape.

Total weight 8934g (no pedals), 9190g with pedals.  Road tyres and lighter wheels rather than the ruggedly practical ones I have fitted would bring that down by 750g but I like robust and comfortable so no way I am changing.  There are a few grams to save here and there though: the seat post stretches most of the way down the seat tube, chopping that down would save at least 50g; I may need a longer stem and I'll likely replace the current one with a full carbon one saving 20g; the fork will need chopping down, which along with the consequent spacer removal may save 10-20g.  Against that I will need a light and reflector but all in all I'm pretty happy.

Mystery bosses

Whilst sorting out the derailleur cables I noticed a couple of bosses underneath the downtube.  The observant of you will have noticed it in in the picture in my previous post, for the less observant here it is:

Now I'm a bit stumped as to what they're for.  The spacing looks about right for a bottle but that would be an insane place to mount a bottle.  Some sort of cable-guide mounting also crossed my mind but if that were their purpose I think they would be mounted further up the tube.  I guess they could also be used to mount a pump on but again I'm not sure that's what you'd use them for. 

Until I find a use for them I've plugged the holes to stop muck getting in there by using some bottle-cage bolts that I had kicking around.  All suggestions as to what the bosses are for greatfully received.

A big pile of post

The postman arrived laden with essential supplies.  Tyres and tubes went on easily enough - I'm struggling to see a downside to folding tyres other than them needing a little convincing to revert to (and stay in) a circular form so that you can fit them.  Having gone for the wider tyres it is indeed the case that the wheel can only go on the front before the tyre has been pumped up.  Looking at it I think I'd have had to go two sizes down rather than just the one size that I was considering.

The cable adjuster barrels and the bottom bracket guide also arrived so the adjusters screwed straight in whilst the guide screwed in.  It didn't come with a screw so I was lucky enough to find a suitable M5 set-screw although it did need cutting down a shade to clear the BB casing inside the tube.

 After taking the accompanying picture I swapped to a crossed cable routing so as to make things a little easier at the front end.  Of concern though was that the cable to the front derailleur was going to rub against the frame as it turned up towards the mech.  After some head scratching and some trawling of the internet for a solution I twigged that I could chop the outer off a bit of spare cable and just leave the teflon liner behind.  This I could then thread through the cable guide and up around the frame.  Extracting the liner from the outer was easier said than done but it seems to do the trick.

Next up for cable routing was to switch over the seatpost clamp to one with the brake hanger integrated.  It seems to be that you have to have this slightly offset in order for the cable to run smoothly.

Gears

Front and rear derailleurs bolt on, so nothing really to report there other to observe how much easier it is to set the front-mech height on circular gears than it is on the eliptical ones that my mountain bike has.

Shifters fitted to the bars and the wheels temporarily fitted we have something that looks very rideable indeed.

It was at this point that I started to notice a few things that were going to hold me up.  The first was that the cable holders on the downtube are designed to take adjusters rather than ferrules, so that was one thing to order.  Further along at the bottom bracket I twigged that I would need a cable guide to run the cables back to the derailleurs.  Then finally that I would need a rear brake hanger mounted on the seat-post, so my super-lightweight seat-post clamp wasn't going to work.  All easy things to obtain, none of them expensive and not things that I can get too annoyed about overlooking but frustrating all the same. Unable to complete the cable routing I could at least trim the outers and secure them to the bars with electrical tape.

Headset, forks and bars

For some reason I neglected to take any photos of the work in progress but here's the end result

Since I'm not building bikes every day it seemed very wasteful to buy a headset fitting tool and with Dan away I couldn't borrow his hydraulic press.  So after a bit of measuring I decided that I should be able to use a temperature differential to ease the headset in.  What that meant was using a heat gun to warm up the headtube and surrounding area until it was as hot to the touch as you'd want to hold.  Then I used some circuit freezing spray to chill the headset down till it was covered in frost, which takes but a few second blast. I waited a minute or so for conduction to take effect and ensure that the whole headset bearing was icy cold whilst I gave the frame a final blast with the heat gun. I'd love to say that the heat had expanded the frame and the cold shrunk the bearing sufficiently that it just dropped in but of course that wasn't the case - a little bit of pretty gentle pursuasion with a rubber mallet was needed for both top and bottom portions.

With that done I fitted the forks and temporarily assembled the stack with a complete set of spacers and the brake hanger.  Later when I know what the fit is like I will remove some of the spacers and cut down the steerer but for now I want to leave it as unmolested as possible.

Bottom bracket

Having spent some time reading up on all the sizes and types of bottom bracket I was a little nervous that the one I had might be the wrong width - the thread I was pretty certain was correct though.  I'd previously bought the correct ISIS-style tool and watched a couple of installation videos on youtube.  It is amazing how much simpler things are when you can watch someone do it and explain the steps rather than deciphering tiny pictures scattered amongst instructions in 14 different languages. 

So a bit of anti-sieze on all the threads and in popped the cups, non-drive first, then drive-side (remembering the reverse thread) and easily nipped up with the tool.

The cranks are only held in place by the allen bolt so they were very easy to pop in and torque up to the correct tension.  It seems to spin pleasingly so another job ticked off the list.

Starting the build

Like a big kid at Christmas I couldn't wait to get assembling things.  First thing was to put the frame on the assembly stand and put together the saddle clamp as there were a number of small, easily lost parts on that.  You can't really see it well in the photo but the clamp features a pair of slithers of titantium across the tops of the rails with a pair of bolts running through a shaft in the seat-post up into them.  It's a fiddly thing to get on but once it is there the adjustment it allows is rather good.  With the saddle resting loosely in place it starts to look like a bike.

 

Next up was the rear brakes.  The way these are done on this frame is with bosses into which the shafts screw.  On one side I simply nipped up the shaft but on the other there was clearly an obstruction as it was stopping some 4mm from "home".  Nothing serious, just a bit of muck in the threads so out came an M10 tap and I cleaned up the thread of the boss before screwing it in home.  So here it is, complete with protective plastic hose.  The threads into the shaft also got a clean-up with a tap as inevitably the anodising process leaves some residue in the threads and better to clean it out with a tap than have it gum up the bolt and risk damaging the thread.

Woohoo, it has arrived and the winner of the customs sweepstake is no charges!  Here's a sneaky peek at the very shiny frame.

Whilst I haven't really put anything together yet purching on top of it and holding onto the bars I am pretty certain that I am going to need a longer stem than the 90mm I bought as that feels very cramped indeed compared to my normal riding position.

Customs and practice

So the frame has reached UK customs, so cause for minor celebration there as it means I can look forward to starting the build proper very soon indeed.  Between now and then I've got to play the "how long will customs stare at it before releasing it" game, which goes hand in hand with the "how much are they going to stiff me for" lottery.

Tyres

I've been pondering tyre choice for some time.  I want enough width to protect the rims and enough pressure to be fast.  Both the folder and the MTB (when running road tyres) run at 6-7bar on 1.5" tyres.  In the 700c size few tyres seem to go up that high unless you go much narrower. 

The Mavic wheels have a 15mm inside width which Sheldon Brown advises is OK for up to 32mm width but goes on to say that wider is probably OK too so perhaps 35 and 38mm will be OK too.  That is probably not a bad thing as it means the tyre will fit between the brakes on the front wheel - something I worried about in my earlier post.

I've liked the Schwalbe tyres I have elsewhere so I think the obvious choice with my likely usage mode is the Marathon Racer, which goes to 6.5bar in 35-622(700x35c).  The next size up is 40-622 but that only goes to 6bar and is rather strangely classified as being a narrower 700x38C - what's a chap to make of that.

First bit of assembly

The cassette (11-28 SRAM PG-1070) arrived in the post so that was in theory an easy "build" job to check off the list.  My son decided to help, which meant that the big stack of gears and spacers were quickly taken off the plastic stack and spread all over the table.  A few minutes of reorganising ensued with the cassette ending up on the wheel and the lock-nut done up finger tight.  At this point it became apparent that something wasn't right as there was quite a lot of movement on gears that tightening up the lock-nut wasn't going to cure.  There followed a worried search for a missing spacer in the kitchen where we all the parts of the cassette had been disassembled until I had a light-bulb moment and remembered that a spacer came with the wheels. I had previously assumed that 8+9 speed cassettes were narrower so needed the spacer, however it appears that it is actually they that are the wider ones and that the spacer is actually for the 10-speeds.

Next up was the forks.  I had previously tried fitting the brakes but had stalled when I realised the paint needed cleaning out of the threads.  A quick run down with the appropriate tap and they went on very easily.  I do suspect though that the blocks are going to impede easy removal of the wheel, should I go for a chunky tyre profile.

Weighty wheels

The wheels arrived whilst I was away for a couple of days so today was the first opportunity to put them on the scales.  In theory the Aksiums should come in at 1850g, in reality they are 2000g and arrived without any skewers.  Quite why manufacturers get away with telling porkies like that I don't know.  I think this is an excuse to buy some titanium skewers to try and reclaim some of that weight :)

Front mech

Snaffled a second-hand SRAM Force front mech from ebay.

Total spent to date £1271, Total weight to date 6476g

Wheels

It was a toss up between Mavic Aksium, Fulcrum 5 and Shimano RS20 but in the end I went with the Aksium just to be different to everyone else with the Fulcrums.

Chain

Found a SRAM PC-1071 Chain going cheap on ebay.  The 1071 has hollow pins, which will of course get filled with muck but hohum.

Shifters

So I ordered a set or SRAM Rival shifters from the cheapest place I could find (£20 cheaper than anywhere else I could find and a huge £140 cheaper than list price), what turned up were not SRAM Rival shifters though.   For some reason they had substituded SRAM Force levers at no extra charge.  Result.   This does rather force my hand to spend the extra fiver to get the matching force derailleur.

Forks arrived

Lordy full carbon forks are light.  Even though at 478g they come in 25g heavier than advertised that is with a full 300mm long steerer, a decent quantity of which will come off.  Anyhow they are lovely and they seemingly weigh less than nothing.

Gears

Sram Rival shift levers ordered.  Cost £209, weight 320g.
Medium/Long cage Rival  rear derrailleur ordered.  Cost £55, weight 190g

Annoyingly some nice wheels went on ebay for slightly more than I was prepared to pay for them but I have little need of them yet so I shall be patient.

Weight to date 4285g
Cost to date £1111

Some component clarity

I think I am now settled on SRAM shifters, purely for the additional multi-shift capability (3 steps) over and above the Shimano (2 steps).  Having crunched some numbers the cassette that best fits my needs is going to be 12-27 which will necessitate a medium/long cage on the rear mech.  That compbination of 3-step shifts and reasonable ranged cassette should mean that if I get caught having to stop at traffic lights when I am on the big ring two full pumps will get me from a cruising gear down to something I can pull away in.  Alternatively if it is stop-start round town I can just drop down onto the small ring and dance around the top end of the cassette.

On the practicalities side I have discovered that Tubus do a rather nice lightweight titanium rack called the Airy.  The price is pretty eye-watering though so I may have to make do with a cheaper and much heavier alloy rack.

Brake calipers

Tektro CR720 cost £33 weight 270g. Well they turned up today and with fitting hardware, link cable and saddle they are 310g.

Cost to date £847. Weight so far 3775g

Crankset

Second hand FSA Carbon pro purchase price £55, weight 550g

Total now spent £814, claimed weight of parts purchased 3445g

Forks

Next to the pile is some full carbon forks.  465g

Total now spent £759, claimed weight of parts purchased 2895g

Decisions

Ordering in some full carbon forks should be an easy decision as there are very few carbon v-brake forks available and fewer still that have carbon steerers.

A much harder choice is the one of groupsets.  2011 year 105 stuff is easily good enough but part of me says that if I am building myself a bike for the next 15 years shouldn't I spend a little extra on ultegra.  Then my wallet kicks in and says that SRAM Rival is a very good system that is much cheaper, albeit lacking the double-downshift that the shimano kit has.  Then considerations of longevity and ease of replacement push me back towards shimano kit.

If I can get some good FSA cranks second hand then that would push me towards the ultegra shifters.

Now time for some carbon

Next up I've ordered a carbon stem at 150g and carbon bars at 260g.

First parts ordered

The first of many, expensive parts got ordered today.
Titanium cyclocross frame: 1510g

Along with that is a titanium seatpost and seatpost clamp at 200g and 10g respectively.