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