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.

Building a New Bike - Part 2 - The Build

In a previous post I discussed the new Scott CR1 Pro frame I had bought with the objective of moving the components across from my Focus to the Scott. I have now completed this successfully. This post is a report of the whole process.

I'll document some more details in another post - this is mainly just photos showing it going together. For example in other posts I have commented on the high shift load for the Shimano 5700 front dérailleur and this will be covered in the next post (here).

Firstly of course firstly I needed to get the frame:

It came within a few days well packed

The frame and fork unpacked

The Frame with the protection still in place

Frame and fork

Frame and fork

As I wrote in the first post Cult Cycles fitted the headset and cut the fork for me. I then went on holiday for a week so the frame sat in the loft. I knew I needed some additional parts so I ordered these from Wiggle at the end of the holiday for delivery in the week I came back.

The first main activity was to strip all the parts off the Focus and clean them thoroughly. I also weighed them reasonably carefully (see here). However the cheap digital scales:

I used seem a bit inconsistent and I don't fully trust them. It's easy to re-weigh the same parts and get different results. The resolution is also on 0.01kg so not great discrimination for some of the lighter parts.

It took 2-3 evenings to strip the parts from the Focus and clean them, before I started on the build of Scott. Here's the build at a very early stage:

The frame in my Park Work Stand with seat tube fitted to given some strength to the seat tube. The stem is a temporary part to hold the fork in place

Before any parts fitted (with the recycling bag in the background)

With the correct stem, handlebars and shifters fitted. Also front and rear brake calipers and front and rear dérailleurs and chainset. The cable outers are still connected to the shifters to give an indication of length.

Front on view

The wheels are now fitted

Almost finished. Chain fitted. All cables installed. Gears indexed. Brakes adjusted. Bar tape fitted

I fitted an in-line cable adjuster for the front deraillieur given the issues I had with the front mech on the Focus

Cable outer length might need a little optimisation

The drive train

The massive seat stay/seat tube interface

Detail of the front of the bike

Finished

The massive bottom bracket area

Total build time - about 6 hours over 2 evenings and a Saturday morning.

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