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New toy
 

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Nick Payne
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 2625
Location: Canberra, Australia

8/22/18 2:35 AM

New toy

I decided I would put myself together one lightweight bike, but not a road race machine:

<a href='https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPah7Kuuw7hr81iXQCV6u57fDU349kvcx3rfYv0qB3LejQ2dCJpBBGNKOP4M4Yr6w?key=LXFQd1g5RVpaX1J3Y3FxOWVSQnlId2g5aW1fTWhR&source=ctrlq.org'><img src='https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Zc-Z8q1ZjSc4fY6i2Pdw1fLy6M0mkdogt853j5shNA6NwJnM8psev2BecrlnKW1rAnWgMNNbH3Ki9Hx2AGaI_ABwA7wTmB4R4rbtdSg_FL17qfBtZ4iM1S4cU0gjxVIK721Y993kw=w1200' /></a>

Frame is an Open U.P.P.E.R. gravel frame, which can take 700x40 or 650Bx55 - I've presently got 700c wheels on it with Compass 700x35 tyres. The manufacturer claims 880g for the frame and 350g for the fork, though I didn't actually weigh it. By our digital bathroom scales, the built-up bike weighs about 8kg complete with pedals, bottle cages, bell, Garmin mount, and solid leather saddle. The rest of the parts are:

SRAM Red eTap hydraulic brakes, shifters, and derailleurs.
Syntace carbon bars on Ritchey stem.
Ritchey carbon seatpost with Berthoud Aravis saddle.
The wheels I built using Light Bicycle carbon rims, Sapim CX-Ray spokes, DT Swiss 240s rear and Hope RS4 front hubs.
Cranks are Middleburn RO2 with 94BCD spider and 42/29 chainrings on one of the Wheels Mfg screw-together 386EVO bottom brackets.
Cassette is an Ultegra 11-34. The WiFli FD is only rated by SRAM for a 32t cassette, but it clears the 34 without any problem, and there's easily enough adjustment left on the B-screw for it to clear a 36t cassette if needed.

The bike had its maiden ride this morning. The only problems I encountered were from forgetting that it wasn't SRAM mechanical, and that pressing the LH lever paddle doesn't shift the front derailleur unless you also press the RH paddle at the same time, and that upshift and downshift on the RD are handled by the LH and RH paddles respectively and not all by the RH paddle.

The eTap system interfaced really easily via Ant+ with my Garmin GPS. It took about two minutes to get it recognised and to configure a screen on the Garmin with the correct chainring and cassette sizes and with data fields for the gear selections and battery level.

Some more photos here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/opDBJEkMSzvsSd419

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Brian Nystrom
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5096
Location: Nashua, NH

8/22/18 7:22 AM

NICE!

Please let us know what you think of the frameset after you've put some miles on it. I'm particularly interested in the handling and compliance.

Are these the same rims you've used in the past?

How's the front shifting with the small rings?

The lens distortion makes your bars look HUGE, especially in the last photo!

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

8/22/18 8:30 AM

What is that chic saddle there? And how close is that tire to the FD.

Not that I needed another, but me too. I got a 2014 Redline Disc Conquest frameset NIB, unopened yesterday, until I opened it that is. But still stapled shut.

Not the carbon Pro, but NIB for 260 space bucks I caved for a cheapo compared to your sex machine there Nick.

A few things got boxes checked big time on it. Correct size, 70mm BB Drop, Post mounts for the brakes, Aluminum steer tube, headset in the box it turned out. BSA Threaded BB, 27.2 seatpost, and open drop outs for 9/10mm QR wheels which I have littering my garage in the center lock variety. ;) That is a lot of boxes to get checked. So dedicated beater ALL road incoming when I decide how to build it. ;) As much as I am not a big Aluminum fan, but another checked box is it will fit 45+ mm tires. And over 42mm tires I can't really feel the frame much anymore anyway.

Internet pic, I ride a 60CM in case that look like a small in the pic. ;)




Nick: I may go 650b on the Conquest with the WTB 47x650 Horizons, have a look.

http://www.gravelcyclist.com/bicycle-tech/review-wtb-horizon-road-plus-650b-tubeless-ready-tires/

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Jesus Saves
Joined: 16 Jun 2005
Posts: 1150
Location: South of Heaven

8/22/18 5:07 PM

Nice bike and the bookshelf collection is equally nice to look at.

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Nick Payne
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 2625
Location: Canberra, Australia

8/22/18 11:19 PM

@Brian: The frame handling felt fine on the initial ride yesterday, but there weren't any high speed sweeping descents to test what happens in that sort of situation. I'll be taking it up and down a couple of decent hills next week, so will find out then. With 35mm tyres inflated to 35psi front and 55psi rear, I don't think that frame compliance will be a large part of the comfort equation, but I'll report back what I find.

The Light Bicycle rims are the same model that I've used before. They seem to me to be well made, and I've had zero problems with the pair that I previously built up. I've only used the disc brake model, though they also offer the same rim with a brake track for use with rim brakes: <a href="https://www.lightbicycle.com/Carbon-700C-25mm-wide-road-rim-clincher-25mm-deep-U-shape-tubeless-compatible-with-basalt-braking-surface.html">RRU25C02</a>. They're also a lot cheaper than other rims I looked at - for example, the equivalent German-made Mcfk rim is about four times the price (though it is 50g lighter).

The front shifting seems fine with the small chainrings. The FD "braze-on" mount is fixed to the frame with 5mm roundhead allen bolts rather than rivets, so that it can be removed if using a 1x drivechain. To have the FD cage more closely align to the chainring, I loosened the bolts and rotated the mount slightly so that the FD cage followed the large chainring more closely. Don't know if this actually made any difference, but I figured it couldn't hurt.

Part of the apparent size of the bars is due to the camera angle, but those Syntace Racelite 2 carbon bars do have a deeper drop than the Syntace Racelite aluminium bars that I have on a couple of other bikes.

@Sparky: The saddle is a <a href="http://www.gillesberthoud.fr/_en/boutique/fiche.php?CodeArticle=201GB2ARA">Berthoud Aravis</a>. You can get the leather in various finishes, including this one which they call "Cork". They also make the Aspin saddle, which is exactly the same shape but has steel rather than Ti rails and is slightly cheaper and heavier. I have the Aspin on another bike and it's been extremely comfortable once broken in, and the quality of Berthoud saddles seems to me to be better than what you get from Brooks these days. Another nice thing about the Berthoud saddles is that the rear of the frame has a couple of threaded inserts for directly attaching a Rixen & Kaul klickfix saddlebag mount. There's quite a good YT video showing the making of the saddles, which are made with a nice mixture of modern CNC machining and hand craftsmanship: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0OeHK6sVEw">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0OeHK6sVEw</a>.

With the 35mm tyres, there's about 6mm clearance between the rear tyre and the battery on the eTap FD, so the max size tyre that would fit would be somewhere in the low 40s - but any 700c tyre larger than that would be getting pretty close to the seat tube as well. With 650B wheels, a considerably larger tyre than that could be fitted as the bead seat radius of a 650B rim is 19mm less.

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Nick Payne
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 2625
Location: Canberra, Australia

1/21/19 8:37 PM

Well, we're in the middle of our annual week of cycling in the Victorian Alps, and I have to say that the bike is absolutely fantastic on high speed winding descents. The handling is great, the grip of the Compass tyres is fantastic, and the fat tyres at 40/60psi front/rear really stay glued to the road in uneven corners. These are mountains that I've been up and down many times, and I reckon I can both descend faster and feel safer than on any other bike I've ridden here over the past 30+ years. With a bike weight of ~8kg it doesn't go uphill too badly either...

The tyres are Compass Bon Jon Pass ultralight, which measure 36mm wide on these rims while weighing less than 300g. I'm running them tubeless with 50ml of Orange Seal in each tyre.

Edit: we spent last Sunday riding our annual alpine brevet in the mountains as the culmination of our week's riding - a 200km brevet with about 4000m of climbing. The first half of the ride it rained, and on the wet winding descents I overtook dozens and dozens of riders trying to keep their bikes with narrow racing tyres rubber side down. Even in the dry later on I still had a substantial cornering advantage on the descents over riders on narrow tyres, and was still overtaking most of them. I can only recall two riders in the entire 200km passing me on a descent, and that was on one of the few fairly straight sections where my 65kg couldn't compete with a heavier rider - and I had my 42-11 big gear wound right out...


Last edited by Nick Payne on 1/29/19 1:28 AM; edited 1 time in total

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

1/22/19 10:08 AM

Good update!

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Nick Payne
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 2625
Location: Canberra, Australia

2/8/19 1:36 PM

After I registered my Open frame with them, the Opencycle people send me a newsletter every so often. I thought this one was quite amusing - Geoff Kabush winning an MTB race on his Open one weekend and coming 2nd in the Canadian cyclocross champs on the same bike the following weekend:

https://opencycle.com/updates/a-most-versatile-bikerider

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Matthew Currie
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 800
Location: Vermont

2/8/19 8:50 PM


quote:
Nice bike and the bookshelf collection is equally nice to look at.


A bit late now but I once had a wish to be another Krenov. Alas, I don't think I'm either neat or patient enough.

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