Building a New Bike - Part 3 - Observations

I wrote about building a new bike here and here. These 2 posts are more of an overview but I found some interesting things on the way that I thought I'd share. These are in no particular order.

Carbon Steerer on Focus Cayo
My Focus Cayo had a carbon steerer, not aluminium as I had assumed

Frame Stiffness
The Scott frame stiffness seems higher than the Focus - this was with the crude "press foot against the crank" test. From this I could detect not frame movement. Compared to my Focus a very small amount was visible and for the (Aluminium) framed Giant the movement is very clear.

Bar Tape
I had forgotten how to wrap the bar tape around the shifters. A quick search on YouTube brought up this link - it was excellent and better than the ones I had watched before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=J6g3-55iVU0

To quote one of the comments: "ive watched 5 bar wrapping vids now. this one is the best. no nonsense Australians getting shit done" - spot on

Steerer Misaligned
On the first ride I realised the steerer was misaligned - irritating and felt really odd.




Front Dérailleur 105 5700 Shift Load
Front dérailleur shift load. I wrote 2 posts about this here and here. In fact these are the 2 most visited posts on this blog by far so I guess I am possibly not the only person with possible issues. Briefly whilst the outcome of fitting 5700 series components for the rear was an improvement of the 5600 shift quality and feel the front dérailleur was a disappointment with a much high shift effort than I expected. Despite much fettling I could not get it anywhere near as good as the shifting with a 5600 set up. A problem, but not associated with the 5700 shifters is that as the cables are hidden under the bar tape, there is no room for a cable barrel shifter. The Focus did have these fitted for both front and rear on the down tube but the Scott did not. So I bought one of these (in black):

For what they are they are expensive at around £7 but without it I would have failed to get any form of sensible adjustment on the front

Here it is fitted:

However I am pleased to report that after this fettling the front shifting is now as I would have expected - light, precise and smooth shifting. I cannot see what has changed compared to the Focus as the shifters are the same, and the basic cable routing is also the same and the front deraillieur is the same. I did make another change in that I replaced not only the inner cable (as last time) but also the outer cables as well - with a Shimano set. It really has made a difference and is what I would have hoped it would be from new.

Kool stop brake pads
I needed some new brake pads for the Giant, but chose to buy some new pads for the Scott and move the Focus pads to the Giant. The Focus had the original Shimano 105 5700 pads from last year. They had lasted very well but this is because they seem quite hard. After some perusing of internet forums (fora?). I bought some Kool Stop Dura 2 inserts (black)


 

First impressions are extremely positive - significantly improved braking performance and what seems to be good modulation. Time will tell how they last. Apparently Dura 2 are:

"The Dura2 insert is our newly designed road pad. The pad is thicker than our standard Dura type for longer life, has a 7.65 mm contact width for narrow rims and cut outs for reduced weight."

New Cables
I fitted full new cables (inners and outers) for both gears and brakes. It just goes to show that improved shifting and indexing can be achieved with new parts - whilst the inners were changed around 18 moths earlier the outers were the originals and were over 3 years old.

Ride feel
It does "feel" different - a non-engineering metric but it rides differently

Weight
The weight came out at about 400g less than the Focus. I was hoping for a little more. The bike is now (fully equipped) just a shade of 8kg. I am pretty happy with this.

Seat post
I thought I might need a new seat post - in the end I didn't as it was the same size as the Focus.

Cutting cable outers
I was going to buy a "proper" tool. But didn't. I very carefully cut all the outer cables using a small (junior) hacksaw with new blade. No problems for the brakes cables but I needed a lot more care to get a smooth finish for the gear cables which were made of wrapped separate wires. The finish came out OK in the end.

Torque Wrench
I had bought a 3/8" torque drive a while ago (torque wrench). I used it for some of the components. It is amazing how tight some screws actually need to be - much tighter than you would have thought.

Chain Length 
Despite fitting all the same drive train components the chain is about 1 link too long now - on the Focus it was exactly right. I am not going to make any changes now, and will resolve when the chain needs a change. As its too long in small-small which I don't use its not a problem for now.

Drive Train upgrades:

"Don't by upgrades, ride up grades"

I like to do a bit of bike tinkering - the good thing about my two bikes is that they are not excessively expensive in the scheme of things and I can afford a few upgrades now and then. What normally happens is that I get something new for the Focus and the original Focus parts move down to the Giant. As a result the Giant is a bit like Trigger's Broom - I have had the same bike for nearly 4 years, but the only original parts are: frame and forks; brakes; handle bars, seat post, saddle and cable outers. Everything has either been upgraded or replaced as it wore out (the most recent example of wearing out being the bottom bracket, see earlier).

Rear Dérailleur Upgrades

As a result of all these progressive upgrades the Giant ended up with the original 105 mid cage rear dérailleur from the Focus - a perfectly good piece of equipment and probably a lot better than many people have but my issue was that it never quite looked right, and this was why I had swapped it from the Focus in the first place. I was therefore hankering with changing it. 

I did this by buying a new 105 5701 rear dérailleur for the Focus and moving the 5600 dérailleur from the Focus to the Giant. This was relatively straightforward and did not really have any major implications. Although I expected the 2 dérailleurs to be basically the same geometry and differ in appearance actually the 5701 dérailleur is slightly different. The jockey wheels are further apart that the 5600 model and actually the jockey cage is about 1/2 way between the 5600 short and medium models. I guess this is what is needed to work with an 11-28 cassette range which the 5701 model supports "officially". However I never had any issues with a 5600 short cage working with an 11-28.

Here are some pictures, before and after for the Focus and after for the Giant (I used my phone so they are not great quality):

 Focus:

5600 - Small Front, Smallest Rear

5600 - Big Front, Smallest Rear

5700 - Small Front, Smallest Rear

5700 - Big Front, Smallest Rear

5700 - Big Front, Biggest Rear

With the 5700 deraillieur the chain looks a little short - this is because the chain is the same length as used for the 5600 model and this shows that he cage is longer, however I don't have a photo of the 5600 in Big/Big to provide a direct comparison.

Giant:

Giant - 5600 Short Cage, Big Front, Smallest Rear

Giant - 5600 Short Cage, Small Front, Smallest Rear

Giant - 5600 Short Cage, Big Front, Biggest Rear

Note I don't ride it in Big-Big! Given that I was going from a 27-25 tooth and taken off a long cage mech I took out a few links without measuring up, with hindsight I should have checked. However the chain is almost at the end of its life so I'll measure up a new chain in the coming month or so.

Giant - 5600 Short Cage, Small Front, Biggest Rear

Cassette Selection

I also knew that the rear cassette on the Giant (also originally from the Focus) was at over 6000 miles and that the gears I used most (3,4,5) were pretty worn (there was a noticable deterioration in shift quality and so needed replacing. Again not being a super powerful rider some of the gears were pretty pristine whilst others were pretty worn. However it does not seem possible to replace the individual gears and if possible it works out at a lot more cost than a new one - a symptom of our throwaway society I guess.

The choice of what to get was a much more difficult decision than the mech as there is a choice of 4 105 10 speed cassette ranges to choose from, namely:

11-25, 11-28, 12-25 and 12-27

The gears are:
11-25: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25 
11-28: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 24, 28
12-25: 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25
12-27: 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 27

I run an 11-28 on the Focus and a 12-27 on the Giant (originally from the Focus as well). I was not that keen on the 11-28 and really only wanted a 12-28 for the 28, not the 11 as I can't exploit the 11 tooth gear as I am not strong enough. Ideally I would have liked a 12-28.

The choice of a new cassette for the Giant was quite difficult. I use the Giant in the winter and throughout the year to commute so don't do very long or hilly rides. During the Winter of 2012/2013 I was managing with the 27 as the lowest gear quite satisfactorily and even managed some of the local climbs on the 25 when it wouldn't shift down to the 27 on one ride.

This suggested that on most rides I could manage with the 25 as the bottom gear. I also felt that a 12-25 would force me into a slightly higher gear and build a little more strength as it is too easy to bail out onto the 27 or 28 when it was there. I also was slightly keener on the 16 tooth the the 12-25 has that is missing on the 11-28 and this makes quite a jump for an distinctly average rider like me.

The alternative view was that if I rode a 11-28 on the Giant as well I then had a spare for the Focus and had the same gearing on both bikes meaning better consistency.

Any way after a lot of dithering I got a 12-25.  Cosmetically it looks a lot better (see pictures above). I have not yet ridden many miles on it yet but I have commuted to work on it and did not really notice any difference. I felt that I changed gear more often - partly because I found all the gears a little closer and also because I am not as bike fit at the moment as I have been. Only time will tell

In reality of course its not impossible to build a 12-28 or other combinations - although it would be quite expensive.  The biggest 3 gears are all on a unit carrier and all 4 cassette ranges have a 21 as the smallest gear on that carrier, and all use a 19 as the next gear, so given enough money and time one can build a cassette with ant combination of 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 19 and then select 1 of the 4 3 gear sets.

Shimano 105 Shifters Revisted

Caution - Work in Progress!! 

Further update here: Building new bike part 3 observations

A while ago I wrote a short piece about the experiences I had when I fitted Shimano 105 5700 series shifters to my bike to replace the 5600 series originally fitted.

The reason for the change/upgrade was that I really wanted to upgrade my other bike (Giant Defy 4) to 10 speed and whist I had the cassette, chain and dérailleurs for the bike I did not have any spare shifters. As these are by far the most expensive part of the drive train it took a long time to decide on the correct strategy to get 10 speed on both bikes for the least amount of money but best compromise seemed to be to upgrade the shifters on the Focus and move the original shifters to the Giant.

The Focus came with the 5600 series parts, but at the time I was looking into this the newer 5700 series had been around for about a year. Part of the decision was also that it appeared increasingly difficult to get the 5600 parts, although they were slightly cheaper. From what I could make out the most prominent differences between 5600 & 5700 parts were that the 5700 had the shifter cables running under the bar tape alongside the brake cables whilst the older 5600 has the shifter cables coming out of the side of the shifters.

Here is a picture of each:

5600

5700

More subtle differences are apparently a more ergonomic shifter design and different pull ratios for the brakes and front dérailleur, although seemingly not the rear dérailleur. Because of this it is seemingly necessary to run a full 5700 system with the new shifters.

The pull ratio change was difficult one to find out more about. Given the physical dimensions of the shifters and the basic geometry of the brake caliper it was hard to see how different it could be. A search of the internet was not particularly helpful either. All of them basically say what I have summarised above.

After much heart searching (and internet price comparisons) I bit the bullet and bought a pair of the 5700 shifters for the Focus. I did also decide to get a 5700 front mech as these are relatively cheap.

I waited until the bad weather around Christmas 2011 (when I had some spare holiday to use) and fitted the parts to the bikes. Given that it was winter I did not ride the Focus for several months but the Giant carried on being ridden. I didn't notice any change to the Giant compared to the Focus (after all it has the same parts fitted), although up-shifting on the rear is not always as crisp as I remembered - it will either not quite shift up a gear and need a slight extra nudge, or will shift up 2 gears when only one is requested. I think this is due to a little wear on the right shifter but also because the medium cage (GS) rear mech is not as stiff as the short cage. Any way I live with it as I think it's one of those jobs that could absorb hours without making it any better.

However on the Focus all was not quite as well. Firstly the upgrade was completed before Christmas so it was not ridden. Testing the bike in the work stand suggested that the front mech was quite stiff to shift up to the big ring and sprung back very "positively" when dropping onto the small ring. Its really hard to get a good feel in the workstand as your hands are not in the normal riding position. I had a fiddle but left it until I planned to ride it again when I would have a better view.

Because of the weather I did not ride the bike until early March and this really highlighted 2 things - the back brake was pretty well in-effective and the lever load for the front mech was very high.

The back brake issue is discussed here: Shimano 105 5700 mechanicals (as is the first draft of this review) and seemed to be related to a rusty brake cable. My view of the front brake performance comparison between the original (6600?) Ultegra and the new 5700 105 calipers is that if there is a difference its almost undetectable, and probably more affected by rim/brake pad combination than the pull ratio.

I have also looked more at the front mech load - it "feels" at least twice as hard to shift up a gear than the 5600 combination. With the cable disconnected and moving the mech by hand it does not feel excessively stiff, but via the shifter is harder than the older model. The cable routing around the bottom bracket is identical to the initial install, and learning the lesson from the rusty brake cable I have checked the cable - both for rust, cleanliness, smoothness of outer cable, cable radii etc and can see nothing wrong. I am sort of resigned to it. Most of the time where I live I can ride on the big ring most of the time so its not that I am making dozens of changes a ride.

Despite the disappointingly high front shifting load the rear shifting is excellent - much better than the 5600 (and I am still using a 5600 105 short cage rear mech) - up and down it never misses a shift, very slick and positive.

When I do another major service I will probably change both inner and outer front cables regardless and try that to see if it makes any difference. I am not sure if the cable run from under the bottom bracket affects it - I'll post a photo another time, but it's the same as before.

So - does the pull ratio change make a difference?

• Front brakes - no
• Rear brakes - no
• Rear mech - no
• Front mech - I can't tell but the shifting load is high

Hope this helps

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

Shimano 105 5700 Mechanicals

21 July 2012

Update April 2013 - see this additional post I made: Shimano 105 Shifters Revisted

On a more positive note I had been having some issues with the rear braking performance of my Focus since I upgraded the Shifters to Shimano 105 5700 series (from 5600 series) over the winter which I have almost resolved.

Basically I wanted to upgrade the Focus from the 8 speed 2300 components to 10 speed of some type and hence commonise more components between my Giant and Focus such as chains, cassettes etc. The key components that I needed were the 10 speed shifters for the Giant as the dérailleurs would be OK. After a lot of dithering, the route I took was to buy new shifters for the Focus and move the original Focus parts to the Giant. I also chose to buy the newer 105 5700 series parts rather than the previous 5600 series parts already on the Focus. The 5700 shifters are basically a newer version (11MY) of the original parts but with the key difference that all the cables are run under the handle bar tape compared to the 5600 series parts where the gear shifters exit the side of the shifters.

I had all the parts by October/November 2011 and did the swap over a series of days whilst I was on holiday over Christmas. The jobs were quite time consuming as I had to do the job twice (2 bikes) and there were a number of thing that I had not done before (swap Shimano STI shifters, re-tape handle bars etc). I did the Focus first, using the new components and was happy with the results - both seemingly in function and appearance, and then replicated on the Giant using the Focus parts. Again function and appearance were satisfactory. The thing I was most concerned about was doing a good job on the handlebar tape which would have a high aesthetic effect if not done right - fortunately there are lots of good guides on You-Tube and I was pleased with the outcome.

Given the bad and winter weather the Giant was the only bike I rode until about March. The first rides highlighted that the right shifter functions were not as good as I had hoped - poor rear braking and a stiff level to shift from the small to large front ring. The left shifter had no issues and the shifting and indexing were much improved over the previous parts. The stiff shifting I could live with as the small-big front ring shift is not a frequent operation, but the poor breaking was much more of a concern. There was some braking but it was poor and did very little to slow the bike. Initially I put it down to new pads and new wheels needing to bed in but the after more miles no improvement was seen. I also though that I had perhaps not fitted the outer brake cable properly under the bar tape so I removed the tape and checked and all seemed OK.

I had also read conflicting information that the pull ratios on the 5700 series were different the 5600 pull ratios and therefore you needed 5700 series brakes as well, whilst other people reported using the new shifters with no issues with the older brakes. What caused some confusion was that I could not really tell any difference with the front braking performance. I carried on as was but was nervous. What really made me investigate properly was that Noel had an accident before I went on holiday when a car pulled out of a drive on Fiery Hill (Barnt Green) and he hit it - luckily there seems to be nothing more than a lot of bruising/soft tissue damage but there was a lot of damage to the bike which is written off. This brought it home that the state of my bike was not suitable and I decided that I had to fix it. I decided that I would buy some 5700 105 brakes (good price and offers from Evans Cycles) and when I got them not only fit them but investigate fully to get the performance back to where it needed to be.

The brakes arrived and I fitted them, and basically rear braking was better but not by much. I then pulled out the brake cable completely and saw some trace of rust on the surface. This was a huge surprise - the cable was new when I replaced the shifters at Christmas and the bike does not get ridden in the wet very often. I pulled the cable out and replaced it with another new cable, but for the new cable I oiled it thoroughly as I pulled it through the outer. As a result of the new brakes with matching pull ratios and a smoothly operating cable the performance is now where it should be.

I am not sure how big a contribution the slightly rusty cable made but it seemed to be significantly better braking after the lubricated cable was fitted - I was personally surprised by how much. I am not sure if I then needed the new brakes as well but I have a optimised system and the bike stops much more quickly that it did and possibly a tiny bit better than before (but this may be psychosomatic rather than reality). The pads need a little more bedding in so there is more to come.

The lesson I have taken is that I need to check the cables more often and that cables at around £1.50are a cheap and simple potential performance upgrade rather than changing what they operate! I have no idea what caused the cable to rust - I have not seen it on any of the other bikes. The rear brake is internally routed so the only exposed cable is at the caliper, so it is a bit of a puzzle.

I also made a mistake in swapping the cable. I have removed the internally routed cable before and carefully taped some string to it so that I could pull the new cable back through with the string but for some reason despite fixing the string I then pulled the string fully through as well! It was then a very fiddly job to put the cable through. So the second lesson is - pay attention all the time.