Building a New Bike

This year I have had a slight nagging urge whether to go for an "N+1". This is the perennial dilemma for an enthusiastic cyclist apparently - do I want another bike. Note its want not need. This want could be for a different type of bike or just for something "better".

In my case I have 3 bikes - a cheap (free) aluminium MTB in shopping guise (slicks, mudguards etc), my Giant Defy which is the Winter and commuting bike and my Focus Cayo which is my Summer and "best" bike. Three is realistically the most I can justify and I hove no desire to be a mountain biker - so its a town bike, Winter bike and Summer bike. So the N+1 would be a N-1+1 leaving me 3 bikes. The -1+1 part would be the Focus - the Giant is a good bike, has some upgrades to make it better than it was when I got it and seems to take all that I throw at it year in year out (over 10000 miles so far) without complaining.

The plan would therefore be to replace the Focus. However to replace the Focus like-for-like would be about £1500 or so, so I'd need to look at something around £2500 to be a worth while step up, and even then I'd need to be careful that the newer machine was actually "better enough" to justify to myself the spend. The potential new bike would be funded by the sale of the Focus and some of my 2013 Performance Bonus. Despite this I am still careful with money so while I was looking I was not actually looking that hard and was quite happy with the Focus.

Unfortunately I then saw a thread on the Bikeradar forums called The Scott CR1 SL Thread. A few pages in was a link to this:

Actually it was not quite this as the image shows the 2012 Scott CR1 Pro (not SL) but looking more carefully this was a £1300 frame/fork for £500. I dithered and thought about it but fortunately they sold out really quickly. This was good for 2 reasons - 1 - it showed that it must be a good deal and - 2- it saved me spending any money.

However unfortunately they came back in stock and they also added the Pro model for £450 as shown above. Reading the specification the difference was the type of Carbon fibre and the bottom bracket type (pressfit on the SL and threaded on the Pro) - everything else was pretty well the same. Frame/fork weight was quoted as 950/390g. I tried to find the equivalent weight of my Focus but couldn't. A Google search of Scott CR1 Pro bikes (assembled) shows they varied between £2000-3500 depending on other components fitted. In summary this was a serious bargain, and could actually mean that I could move nearly all the Focus components to this frame and build a seriously good bike for probably ~£600 (I knew that I'd need some other parts like a seat post, new cables etc.) but by doing this I could get close to a £2500 bike for £600. Many of the parts on my Focus are pretty reasonable - its got Shimano RS80 C24 wheels, a mostly Shimano 105 5700 drive train, 105 5700 brakes so its not too bad. If I got the Pro I could move my FSA chainset across (whereas with the SL I'd probably need a new chainset).

So after some further pondering I bit the bullet and ordered a Pro in 54cm. Great service from Westbrook Cycles (who I have not used before) - ordered on a Saturday - arrived 10am Tuesday with about 3 texts to keep me informed of progress.

On opening the box and lifting the frame out my first thought was - wow! It was really light. The box was probably 3 times the weight of the frame. In the box was frame (with derailier hanger, , bottle cage bolts, seat post clamp and some self adhesive patches to prevent cable rub on the frame), the fork and the Ritchey headset. No instructions included either for the frame or the headset. I didn't do anything more that evening other than wonder how I might assemble the headset.

Headset Assembly
In fact the headset was the bit that worried me the most. I have never actually cut a steerer and pressed in headset bearings before. I understood the process and theory but had never put it into practice, and to try for the first time on a £1300 frame and fork was not something I was keen on. I saw a number of potential pitfalls, the following 3 being the worst case:

• getting steerer length wrong
• cutting the steerer not square
• pressing the bearings in wrongly and damaging the frame

Cutting the Steerer Length Wrong
For the steerer length challenge I could measure and check lots of times, so this was a lower risk. I could also make the first build with a longer steerer length so I could have a go at one length and have scope to have a second go to get to the right length. Risk - LOW


Cutting the Steerer not Square
For cutting the steerer not square I know from using a hacksaw that however hard I try I always seem to drift off and ideally I'd like to use a cutting guide that I don't have, like this:

Cyclus Fork Steerer Cutting Guide

At around £60 for this tool this was very expensive seeing as I might never use it again. Given some time and access to some machine tools (big drill or lathe and and saw) this is not too difficult to make. However without this: Risk - HIGH

Headset Bearing Pressing
For pressing the bearings in wrongly - the bearings I knew would only go in with a tool. This type of tool at around £35:

Cyclus Headset Press

An alternative is something like this from eBay for about £4:




This tool I could make myself as I had some studding and washers.

I would also need some sort of Crown race fitting tool at around £25:

Cyclus Crown Race Fitting Tool

If I got fitting the bearings wrong the risk of damage to the frame was high, so: Risk - HIGH

Therefore I was looking at about £60-80 worth of tools for a possible 1 off job and I was nervous of all 3 major operations.

Therefore for the first time I rang a couple of Local shops to see what it would cost. If it was over £50 then I'd look to do it myself, if less I would have it done.

Firstly I tried Red Kite - price was very reasonable at £12 but they couldn't have a look until September - so 6-7 weeks away - I was not in a great hurry but I wanted it sooner than that! They aimed to have 2.5 mechanics and only had 1 apparently hence the problem

Secondly I tried Cult Racing - a little further away but their web page did identify a fully warranted job. I rang them and was asked to ring back as the mechanic was out on the club ride. Ringing back later the response was "it's £12 and bring it round after 4 when we're less busy and we'll do it". So that's what I did.

So the current state is I have my Scott with the head set fitted and steerer cut (with a temporary steerer fitted) and its now awaiting me to start swapping bits over from my Focus.

Bike Servicing - One Years Worth of Grime

I am not anal about bike cleaning but I like them to be reasonably clean. The main benefit is to avoid getting too dirty if you have to do some work on them, especially getting a puncture out on the road.

However once a year they get a very thorough clean and service - this involves removing as many components as required, a careful T-Cut to the frame to bring the paint back up to a shiny state, degrease the chain, cassette and crank set, clean both the dérailleurs and any other work required. It's generally 3-4 hours work from start to finish, the time mainly being driven by any un-anticipated. On the focus this year it was that the Bottom Bracket had again failed - one of the bearings sounding like it was full of grit. I mentioned this in an earlier post back in June 2012. It's a FSA BB-6000 Gossamer Mega EXO, and at over £30 its expensive to keep changing every year or so. I mention this specifically because I had to change the BB from the Giant this year and it makes an interesting comparison. Everything else on the bike seemed OK - the stiff front shifter operation that I have also mentioned before is still present and I'll comment further about this in a later post.

Any way it all looked shiny and new so here is a picture of it. Its not a great picture as I used my phone

I seem to have managed to now do the cleaning in the warm house and not in the cold garage. Its in my "Park Tool Home Mechanic Repair Stand" which has been a great purchase. Its this one:

 
Its good -not professional grade by any means but for the home mechanic its great - so much easier than grovelling on the floor and trying to support the bike. Its not good if you need to put some effort in like remove BBs for example but for everything else its great - highly recommended and about £60 from Amazon at the moment.

Not only have I been able to clean my bikes in the house but I have also been keeping the Focus nice and warm and dry in the dining room - my garage does get a bit damp and a 2013 project is to re-roof it. 

The Focus was cleaned and put away around the end of October and won't be ridden again until February or March now.

The Giant has a much harder life as its basically ridden every week of the year (snow & ice excepted) so it is always much dirtier. This has also now been serviced fully over the past 2 weeks - it was in a very bad state after several hundred winter miles, despite being hosed and wiped off every week or so.

One of the problems is that to stop the chain getting too bad I oiled it weekly - the theory is that oil is easy to remove whereas rust isn't. However the down side of lost of oil is also that it can get dirt stuck in in it and make a nice grinding paste. I only use  a light oil (3-in-1) so that is a bit of a mitigator. If you look on forums or ask advice there are as many chain cleaning and lubrication processes as bikes, so I have stuck with what works for me. On the Focus - mostly dry/summer riding the chain lasts a good 3-4000 miles, whilst for the Giant the winter kills it and if I am lucky I might just about get 2000 miles. For either bike I use KMC 10spd chains - they seem good value and reasonably reliable apart from the one that almost failed when I was in Sheffield. On the Giant the current chains is at 0.75% stretch having done about 1700 miles - so once the worst of the winter weather is over I'll change it.

The cassette is looking a bit distressed now as well given that it did about 5000 miles on the Focus initially and is now at about 7000 having been moved to the Giant when I converted it to 10 speed in Jan 2012. I'll change it at the same time as the chain. The only dilemma is what range to put on it. It's currently 12-27, but given that I don't do challenging sportives on my Giant I don't really need that low a gear that the 27 gives, so I have been thinking about fitting a 12-25 - this will give me one "less" gear than I have at present and I think I can just about manage that around where I live - I'll just have to MTFU. What it will give is a nice set of close ratios.

I'll probably change the rear dérailleur as well - its currently got the GS spec (medium/long cage) model that was originally fitted to the Focus and that I changed it as it didn't look right. If I do this I think I'll get a 5700 series 105 rear unit for the Focus and move the existing 5600 105 rear mech from the Focus to the Giant.

During the clean of the Giant I found that the Bottom Bracket was very noisy - clearly it was on the way out so I removed it on the first weekend to see exactly what it was and changed it the following weekend. The unit removed was this:

I replaced it with a Shimano unit:

This cost about £20 from Wiggle compared to the £35 for the FSA model. Not only that the original Truvativ unit lasted just under 4 years, has been fitted to a bike that has been ridden most weeks of the year and been through 3 Winters, and done 15000km (over 9000 miles). I have no complaints.

For other Giant Defy Owners the size was 68-110mm. Its not quite an exact match from the size of the original (68-108), but matching them up by eye the extra 2mm seems to be on the non-drive side. I have not ridden the bike yet, but there was no need to change the indexing of the front shifter. Lets hope all is well.

However I had some minor issues when changing the part. I have the "proper" tool but the depth that the splines can purchase in the BB is quite small so it was difficult to get leverage on the spanner without the tool slipping out. The solution was found in my "odds 'n' sods" box as seen here:

I have used the threaded part of a brass tap hose pipe fitting - the allen bolt fits within the inside diameter of the fitting and screws into the end of the axle whilst the overall diameter fits over the end of the tool holding it firmly in place allowing suitable leverage to be applied. I have put the brass fitting into my "special bike tools" box for future use I felt pretty pleased with the solution.

Just for info the tool was from Halfords (Bikehut Professional Bottom Bracket Tool part No 969790-0): 

Its about £9. Other cycle tool vendors are available. I have been happy with it  - I have used it 2 or 3 times now. It certainly took a lot of force to get the bearing out of the Giant this time around

Update 4-June-2012

Weather was better so took the opportunity for a ride on the Monday.

The wind was blowing to the West so I made a bit of an effort on the "Leg Sapper" segment and got to 8th position with a PR and a time of 2:19 against the previous best of 2:28, equivalent to 1mph faster. This moved me from about 19th to 8th. I was pleased with this.

Took in a climb of Rose Hill - it felt painful but got another PR of 3:37 vs. 3:41 from March earlier this year and moving me from 20th to 18th.

After Rose Hill took my normal route round to Tardebigge as the intention was to have a ride of Unicorn Hill and Prospect Hill in Redditch to see if I could eat into Dave's times. I was not really sure where exactly I was going and spent a long time looping back on myself to get to the town centre. Finally I got there and came upon Unicorn Hill rather quickly. I recognised it from the Halfords Tour Series on the TV a few weeks ago and having had a look at the map the day before, but it came up a bit quick and I fumbled the gears to drop to the small ring. It was not too bad and I was treating it as a bit of a sighter ride for a better attempt later. I then went down Prospect Hill (its actually a One Way road) and went all the way to the traffic lights at the bottom and turned around to come back up as I was not sure exactly where it started from. Again I treated it as a bit of a sighter ride and while didn't loaf I didn't give it the beans either. Swung left at the top and rode in what I though was the direction of Beoley.

It all went a bit wrong here as Redditch seems to be lots of areas (housing and industrial) only linked by busy (bike unfriendly) dual carriageways. The long and the short of it was a long looping ride round Redditch before finally recognising something I'd seen before and getting to Beoley. I went home via Icknield Street, but again with no real segment hunting aim. 

More importantly was that on Unicorn Hill I was only 3 seconds behind Dave at 28 (vs 25) seconds and only 1 place in 15th position. That 3 secs should be easy especially if I can approach it better next time. The other reason for trying Unicorn Hill is that it is a direct comparison with some Pro cyclists. The top 7 times were all set during the Tour Series Race and the KOM is Dean Downing who set a time of 13secs - over twice as fast as my time - and he rode up at 28.6mph! That's why they're Pros I guess.

On Prospect Hill on the 1st attempt I was in a strong 4th place at 1:07 although a long time behind Dave's KOM time of  0:49. That will need some real effort.

There were also quite a few other segments in Redditch that I rode without realising and now I know where they are I'll definitely have a go for them. The only problem is trying to get back out of Redditch!

Total ride distance was 56miles in 3:19:18 giving an average of 16.8mph and the total climbing was 2989ft. I probably could have made a slight improvement if I'd known where I was going in Redditch but my legs did feel quite tired for some reason

As an observation the horrible noises from the Focus FSA Mega EXO BB have gone at the moment - I haven't done anything. Hopefully a replacement is on the way from Wiggle so we'll see what happens. I'll be riding ~80 miles next weekend on the Pedal for Parkinsons ride so I hope it is OK.

Update 10.00pm: Dave's been out to have another go at the Unicorn Hill segment and gained 8 seconds - not so sure I can catch that, but I am flattered that he thought I'd pass his previous time and needed/wanted to post a faster time!
Also went out with my wife this evening after dinner and rode (her on the BSO and me on my Mongoose) another 9 miles. I am only 21 miles from reaching the 1/2 way point of the 2012 mileage target, and hopefully will run this off tomorrow.

End of May Summary and Mega EXO Moans

Update 1 June 2012

After the Wheel Heroes ride last Sunday I continued to take advantage of the good weather and rode to work on both Tuesday and Thursday.

I was initially tired starting out on Tuesday morning and made it in just over an hour. On the way home managed some reasonably good times and got a PR on the Hampton in Arden Hill Climb. Each ride I seem to be able to edge a second or so.

On the Thursday ride I had a target of a new segment that I'd spotted on one of Mike Harrison's rides - Hampton Hill which runs up past Solihull Grammar School. It is just a short segment - KOM was held by Scott Wharton at 0:56 and my previous best was 1:06. The segment is about 3 miles from home and I was warmed up by the start and really went for it. The outcome was the KOM at 0:53 so a good result. I also got 2nd best time on cornets end/back lane. There are now 9 segments on the commute in.

This KOM got me back up to 5 segments - better than nothing!

For May got almost 600 miles and an above target which is good, but the weather for the long Bank Holiday weekend looks uninspiring though.

An activity over the next week is to assess the state of the BB on my Focus. I've returned the unit to Wiggle as its less than a year old (and only about 3000 miles). Hopefully I'll get a replacement although as this is the 2nd failed unit it appears that this is about how long they last. It's a FSA BB-6000 Gossamer Mega EXO Bottom Bracket - and gets mixed reviews regarding durability from the Wiggle customers that have bought one on the past.

I think when the rest of the chain set needs replacement I'd be unwilling to replace it with another FAS (or even renew the chain rings if the BB itself lasts about a year and costs £40 a time to replace