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.