TanTan TT-X38 Build

[Ludo]

I don’t get how you can have that more than one time. I would have thought that any “play” would have been taken out the first time you brake, then the rotor would rest against the “stop” and from there on, wouldn’t move again on the next braking. It had to be seriously lose to “vibrate” back in a more forward position to regain some play.

[Sebastian]

It doesn't vibrate. It doesn't move on its own. You can't move it by hand.
And like I said, there is no play during normal riding obviously. Once the rotor has moved against a stop on the hub it won't move under normal riding conditions and normal braking force. I can however get it to move back and forth if I pull the brake and move my wheel back and forth on the ground with enough force. It is not a functional issue, I believe. But I still find it weird, coming from 6 bolt rotors on my gravel bike where this is impossible, obviously.

[Ludo]

Ok i better understand. The center lock is purely a marketing and competitive choice: tooling to make center lock is more expensive, wiping some of the cheaper competition.
It’s however a lot easier to drill 6 indexed holes precisely than it is to machine à complicated pattern…
After being away from biking for 20y, I found some of shenanigans from the big companies to be really pathetic and it was part of the drive for me to built my own bike with Chinese components

[bichler.bua]

I faced the disc brake mounts and now the brakes are perfectly free of rub. I bought this little tool from Icetoolz that I really was quite skeptical about. But it worked a treat. It's nowhere near to what workshops are using but it's way better than using sandpaper.

Intrerested in the Icetoolz Shuriken #E272 facing tool that you used: I understand how the screw mechanism would work for postmount.
How did you use the tool on the flatmount system, can you expand?

[Mic553]

The rotors are not loose by any means. They do not rattle or anything like that. It takes a considerable amount of force, rolling the bike back and forth whilst pulling the brake. If I do that and try hard, I can make the rotor move on the splines despite the lockring being torqued down. It obviously never happens during riding because braking force only ever occurs in one direction, unless you track stand or do trial riding.

The internet is virtually full of users reporting exactly that same problem. Just google it and you'll find plenty of examples with all sorts of rotor and wheel combinations in MTB and road cycling alike. And like I said, a representative of DT Swiss literally told a user on a German MTB forum to ignore it, saying that it wasn't a safety risk.

Also, I've checked on two other bikes of friends of mine only to find that their wheels have that same issue. One of them being an Elite Wheels Edge wheelset, the other one a gravel bike. Both said, they've never even realised that this was possible.

I had that once on my Reynolds Enduro Black Labels. But the only reason was the lockring got loose. It was how I noticed the lockring got loose.

My level of information is the rotors should actually hold from pressure friction and the teeth are just a redundancy, to stay save if the lockring gets loose. You might loose this redundancy accepting it.

Btw: On my Elite Edge front wheel I had initially difficulties fixing the rotor too. But all I had to do was to give it a little more torque than I would usually do. Later I found some long splinter coming off the thread. The issue came from an unclean thread in the hub and "recutting" it fixed it. I had no issues since then, running about 2000km/30000hm with it. No movement at all.

[Sebastian]

Intrerested in the Icetoolz Shuriken #E272 facing tool that you used: I understand how the screw mechanism would work for postmount.
How did you use the tool on the flatmount system, can you expand?

It’s really only a tool that scrapes the paint away and creates a paint free surface where the caliper sits. It’s way too blunt to do any actual milling and cutting. On my frame it was all that was needed to have the caliper sit evenly against the metal inserts in the fork and against the frame in the back. I’d say it’s worth it if you can get it cheap enough. It’s quicker and much more convenient than sandpaper. I don’t think it’s really any different with postmount. The bolts are just sitting further away from each other.

[bichler.bua]

It’s really only a tool that scrapes the paint away and creates a paint free surface where the caliper sits. It’s way too blunt to do any actual milling and cutting. On my frame it was all that was needed to have the caliper sit evenly against the metal inserts in the fork and against the frame in the back. I’d say it’s worth it if you can get it cheap enough. It’s quicker and much more convenient than sandpaper. I don’t think it’s really any different with postmount. The bolts are just sitting further away from each other.

I can see how you used it with the fork, screw in the screw and then turn the tool. But at the rear? There is no thread in the frame, so any bolt or adapter might misalign the tool?

[Sebastian]

I can see how you used it with the fork, screw in the screw and then turn the tool. But at the rear? There is no thread in the frame, so any bolt or adapter might misalign the tool?

I used a long screw, a nut and a washer. Worked well enough.

[Stoffel]

Does anyone have an update on the ride experience of this frame after some more mileage? Any issues, creaking or slippage to worry about?

I'm tempted to pull the trigger on purchasing this frame from the Sequel store for my first bike build.

[Sebastian]

Does anyone have an update on the ride experience of this frame after some more mileage? Any issues, creaking or slippage to worry about?

I'm tempted to pull the trigger on purchasing this frame from the Sequel store for my first bike build.

No issues for me except for the usual sharp edges inside the frame at cable entry and exit ports here and there. But I consider this normal for a frame in this price range. No issues with the BB threads. It's too early however for a verdict. The bike is sitting on the trainer most of the time ATM and I've literally done the first outdoor ride in weeks yesterday. I'm still dialing in my position on this frame. Not 100% happy with it yet so I need more time on it. What I can say is that it feels surprisingly comfy. But I do ride wider tires on this so I can't compare it like for like with the road bikes I had before.

The beefy BB area feels plenty stiff. More so than on my other bikes which is particularly noticeable (and visible) on the turbo. I like that. All in all, the bike feels good for sustained efforts and holding a high average speed. I also like the feeling when sprinting (though I suck at sprinting so my opinion might not be worth much). I like the feeling less when climbing which might be because I'm not yet 100% satisfied with my seated position. But also during standing efforts, the bike feels somehow slower on climbs. I feel it has to do with the bigger tire volume and the tires squishing more during standing efforts. I'm still experimenting with tire pressure. I'm at around 60psi up front and 65 in the back for 28c tires (measuring 31mm). But particularly when doing standing efforts, it feels a bit soft to me. I'm 82kg, so on the heavy side.

[Sebastian]

I have to correct myself. I realised today that the seatpost on my frame has indeed slipped by about 1cm. I put some textile grip tape on the seatpost. I hope this helps. I torqued the seatpost wedge to around 6nm.

[Sebastian]

Another small issue I found: The seatpost wedge will suffer from water ingress, almost by design since it's sitting on the top tube in front of the seatpost. The rubber cover does practically nothing to keep water out there. It just does not sit tight enough. IME most of the steel bolts that come on the hardware with frames like these are of a very low grade steel. So they rust - very quickly. The bolts in the seatpost wedge were rusty. And on my VB-R 218, the retaining bolts for the BB cover under the frame did rust very quickly as well. So it's best to use something to alleviate that problem. Grease, copper paste or something else. I've also put a layer of protective paint on bolts in the past (nail lacquer works well, I found).

[bremerradkurier]

Aren't you in Germany? Back in the 90s when I was there, I replaced a lot of frame hardware with off the shelf V4A stainless steel bolts and rust was no longer a problem.

[Sebastian]

Yes. Sure. But some of these bolts are rather specific in that they are very short. Or those tiny grub screws in the seatpost wedge and stem of the VB-R218 are not easily found in stainless steel. But replacing them is obviously your best option. I'll see if grease does the job. Otherwise I'll replace it somewhere down the line.

[repoman]

I think you are absolutely insane to be riding that fork. Scary.