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Re: Interesting Aliexpress finds! - good deals, interesting stuff, new products etc!
I wish I was building a bike right now. So many good options on the cheap! LolJust build another one. Think about all the savings! It's like printing money! 
April 26, 2024, 11:33:51 AM |
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Re: Carbonda fm936 Thoughts
New to the forum, but lurking a long time  Here's some pictures of my Ican S3 Posting in the FM936 thread, because the S3 isn't available anymore and as the front triangle and geometry are equal to the FM936 I wanted to express my love for this bike here Eventually bit the bullet last year based on the experiences here on Chinertown as well as the 150+ replies thread on MTB-news.de I built mine with a XC/DC use in mind. 130mm fork (previously a Lyrik, now a 2023 Pike Ultimate). Suspension is where I've spent the money, the rest is fairly budget-minded or sourced from closeouts. This thing rips! I also own a 2021 Specialized enduro as well as a gravel bike. So it's been built to fill the gap between the two. And I wanted a bike that could still handle the descents; and it does just that. Enduro confidence on a short travel bike. The build: Rockshox deluxe ultimate shock Rockshox Pike Ultimate 130mm Aluminum Wheels from slowbuild.de (=Newmen rims) and DT-swiss 350 hubs Rimpact insert in the rear wheel Wicked Will tires (Tubeless) SLX crank with inpeak powermeter Deckas 30t chainring KS Lev integra dropper Fabric Scoop flat saddle Deore 11-speed shifting (recently changed to a ZTTO cassette) Deore disc brakes KMX X11-gold chain Race Face Atlas stem Brand-X carbon bar ESI Chunky Time Atac MX6 pedals   April 29, 2024, 04:23:34 AM |
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Build Log - Carbonda hard tail for daughter's birthday.
Well, my wonderful child has just turned 12, and having 2 parents over 6' - she has been growing like a weed. She currently rides a Polygon Cleo 2 in XS that she got for her 8th birthday which has rapidly become too small for her. After joining this forum, lurking and looking at AliExpress I thought it would be a good opportunity to use the collective knowledge of the forums and build my daughter a lightweight Chinese carbon bike! My goal is pretty simple - I want to build a 29er bike that will last a good few years, and I want to to be as light (or lighter) than her current bike (XS frame, 27.5" wheels), I want it to be comfortable and capable on suburban streets, but I also want her to be able to to come riding with me on the MTB trails. So I have started making purchases, and should hopefully have it ready to ride in a month or so. Frame I have gone with the Carbonda FM1306a. I had sent an email to Wing last year enquiring about one of these frames for myself - but heard nothing back - that is when I found out that the emails had most likely ended up in my junk mail! Wing has been an absolute dream to deal with, super quick with replies, very detailed and helpful. The frame ended up costing a bit more than I had hoped (US$230 shipping is a hard pill to swallow), and I also paid extra for the chameleon paint scheme as my daughter had requested it. Fork I was lucky to snap up a second hand RockShox SID off Facebook marketplace for AU$450. It was un-used, and taken off a 2024 Giant Anthem Advanced 29 3. Wheels I bought some EliteWheels off AliExpress - I will add more details later. Brakes ZTTO MTB Team Brakes in Silver and Gold. I will update this post over the coming days with more information - been stuck busy at work... May 02, 2024, 02:30:15 AM |
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Re: Titan Hardtail 2024
I couldn't finishing get everything put onto the bike on my break and had to finish it off at the end of the day. Really happy with how the bike came out. It weights about 10.4kg in total so not unhappy with that. Sub 10kg would be possible by replacing saddle, grips and bars for carbon. In fact, I intend to get carbon bars anyway but not yet. I will also replace as many bolts with Ti as possible. I just want the bike to be as corrosion resistant as possible since I am committing this to be my last bike for some time (he says!) The fork steerer could be trimmed a smidge. I rode the bike home and back to work today. Only about 30 miles total. I have to say everything feels great. The frame is solid and the 34.9mm ISP is not as unforgiving as I had expected it to be! I have not ridden non-lefty suspension fork for years and its odd - my balance feels slightly off. On the second ride, I didn't have the feeling nearly as much as the first ride. The geometry was meant to be an exact copy of the Cannondale Flash but i am running a 100mm stem instead of 110mm and the axle to crown on the Flash was a little shorter than this bike so my position feels a bit different but certainly not uncomfortable. As with all builds, I need to make a few tweeks. Saddle nose needs to come up a degree or two and the saddle needs to come back a tiny bit too. I think I could also trim another 10mm off the ISP so that I have adjustment. I cut it perfectly and with the seatpost topped bottomed out my position is correct but it means I can only increase the saddle height from here and cannot lower it at all. I will also get a carbon rigid fork at some point. I don't ride off road nearly as much as I should and when I do, even on rigid forks, i'm alright. Plus it'll lightly the bike up a chunk for commuting and nipping around the New Forest. I've not had good luck with bike frames. 5 of my last 6 have cracked or snapped so I am hoping for better news here. I suppose there is always a gamble when buying something which will be hard to warrant, purely based on distances involved. However, my experience with Titan have been great and hopefully the only thing that goes wrong with this bike will be due to an accident instead of workmanship. May 03, 2024, 02:56:01 AM |
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Re: Bona Ti
annnnnnnd done! Cant wait to good weather to try it out May 05, 2024, 07:08:29 PM |
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Re: Build Log - Carbonda hard tail for daughter's birthday.
Wing has just emailed through a image of the frame, the paint job looks fantastic and I can't wait to see it in the flesh! For an idea of the timeline: First email to Wing - 26/04 Payment made - 27/04 A couple of technical questions in emails between then. Photos of frame sent - 11/05 I will let you all know when the frame arrives with me and ready to build! May 10, 2024, 11:04:47 PM |
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Re: Interesting Aliexpress finds! - good deals, interesting stuff, new products etc!
Can anyone recommend some high quality, light, with solid side entry carbon bottle cages? Need some for MTB. These impressed me enough that I'm using them on my road and gravel bikes: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805834827357.html I wouldn't use them on a downhill bike with 1 liter bottles in them, but an XC bike with standard 650ml or even 750ml bottles should be fine. Anyone have any experience with the ZTTO P3 BOOST hubs? They're 6 pawl with 72 points of engagement. Weight is just OK, but the price is good. I will confess that the main reason I am interested is because they have a lime green option. I have these hubs on my mountain bike (boost) and commuter bike (non-boost) and I also had the non-boost version on my gravel wheels until I had to swap them out to run a 12 speed road cassette. Though heavy, they're super easy to build into a wheel, well finished, and the bearings run smooth. I confess that I don't have a real long-term review of them - only about 600 miles of use on the set that used to be on the gravel bike and only about 200 miles on each of my mountain bike and commuter bike sets - but hubs don't really change over time, the bearings just wear out and the ones on the P3 hubs are completely standard and easy to source. The freehub has reasonably high engagement, I haven't wished for more on the mountain bike, and it's a bog-standard pawl system so no worries about ratchets slipping or anything. I don't know if they can offer "magical reliability" but I'm pretty sure they can be counted on to last for enough miles. May 11, 2024, 11:16:31 AM |
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Re: Deerobust/Goldix wheel build 50/55mm 1319g
Hey Sebastian, thanks for the notes and kind feedback! Quote If this really is your first ever wheelbuild then you chose something with quite the steep learning curve I've rebuilt 2 wheels in the past to replace carbon rims broken in racing incidents. Not sure if that counts! Definitely was my first time speccing out a full build and calculating spoke lengths, I think half the fun was playing around with spreadsheets and fantasizing about different builds. I definitely agree with you that the decisions to go for 21-spokes and internal nipples are the most disagreeable and impractical choices I made. I've already had to strip my rear wheel to re-tension and true after the first 100k, and the front wheel will be next soon. No doubt a PITA, one I knowingly signed up for. I appreciate your notes on spoke hole sizes as well, good to hear a more experienced perspective on this idea. I also appreciate your notes on the 2:1 lacing; The decision to go for the 21-spoke build felt like a risk. At the back of my mind I still worry that I am subjecting the rear rim to bad stresses via the radially laced spokes on the disc-side. Will it be worth the 29 grams, and indeterminable, marginal CdA that I saved? Only time will tell, I suppose. Quote Ever since disc brakes, both side's spokes had to move inboard and the difference in spoke angle and tension isn't as bad as it used to be. So the advantage of 2:1 isn't really as big as it used to be. Something I noticed is that on the rear wheel, I have pretty much dead-even spoke tension across both sides. In my mind this seems desirable, no? Obviously since I'm new to this, I could be overlooking something or overstating the importance of this. On that note, something I do not like about these hubs is that on the front wheel, the radially-laced side achieve significantly higher tension than the crossed spokes. The idea that a minority of the spokes on a wheel are at a higher tension than the majority does not sit well with me, especially on a design that is supposed to "balance" spoke tensions. In retrospect, I agree that an asymmetric rim is probably the better way to do it, the asymmetric rims on my ICAN Aero 35s does a much better job balancing spoke tensions on the front wheel. Anyways, I definitely learned a lot from the experience of building these wheels. I think next I'll build up some gravel wheels, and stick to a more traditional build May 16, 2024, 10:41:30 AM |
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Re: Cheap Chinese Gravel frames under USD 500
I also tend more to aluminum. Any brands or frame models to recommend? They don’t seem popular on alibaba Tsunami GR02, thats a good aluminum frame. May 18, 2024, 06:59:53 AM |
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Sensah Phi review - great shifters for repurposing old Shimano parts
Some impressions here on Sensah Phi. Nothing on the forum here yet (and nothing much on the internet generally) so some thoughts below. I've been rebuilding my spare/trainer bike so it's been a good opportunity to try some Aliexpress parts. I had a Shimano 5600 RD and a couple of different FDs about so I thought I'd try Sensah Phi to bring it all together with a variety of other budget 10 speed parts. As a small-handed rider, I was looking forward to repurposing Shimano's 10 speed parts without having to resort to their shifters. I've always hated the ergonomics of both the 7800/6600/5600 levers (cable out the side) and the 7900/6700/5700 so the idea of having modern ergonomic shifters that worked with older parts was appealing. The TL;DR is that these shifters pretty much do what they say on the tin. It's a version of the Sensah shifters that works with the Shimano 1.4 actuation ratio (basically everything 8/9/10 speed except Tiagra 4700 / GRX 400) I had two different front derailleurs on hand to try - 5800 (11-speed 105) and 3500 (9-speed Sora). First I tried the 5800 but it didn't feel quite right to begin with. Noting that the Sensah Phi shifter seems to be a very similar design to the 7900/6700/5700 FD (see below), I decided to try the 9 speed Sora FD - this had a better feeling right from the get-go. I'm not sure if the FD cable pull is the same as other Sensah levers.  Thoughts: Rear shifting Excellent - works nicely, easy enough to good feel to make sure you're not shifting the wrong way, action is light, no issues at all. Feels at least as good as mechanical SRAM used to. Front shifting Meh to reasonable. The actual shifting performance is okay, but it's just a weird design. The front shifter has 4 spots (so 3 clicks) - assuming it's meant to be like Shimano, there should be two spots for each ring. The difference with Shimano is, particularly for going from big ring back to small ring - you can either to the light press just to trim (one position), or do a normal press to go down to the inner ring. With the Sensah shifter you can only move down one position at a time, so you basically have to do two small taps to drop down to the inner ring. It works fine, but it's just weird. Is there any documentation or guide to what the positions of the FD are meant to be - is it meant to be like Shimano? Shifter ergonomics Great, basically the same as current Shimano mechanical. Heaps better than old Shimano levers. Adjustable brake reach is nice for me with small hands. Hoods fit nice and tight. End result  Chinese parts on this build: Sensah Phi shifters - as above Senicx PR3 cranks - needed a 1mm spacer on the NDS (not supplied) when used with a Shimano BBR-60 BSA threaded BB. Seller sent a 165mm instead of the 170mm I ordered. Shifting on the chainrings seems nice though and it's always good to have cranks that are easy to put a power meter on. YBN 10 speed chain - seems to work just fine - put it through the ultrasonic cleaner and am using Squirt drip wax on it. Sensah 10 speed cassette, 11-28 - would like to go more but that's the max the 5600 derailleur will allow. Works just fine. OG-Evkin bar tape - basically a copy of Lizard Skins, not quite as good as the real deal but not far off. The key test will be longevity though. West Biking SPD-SL pedals - surprisingly good given the price ($14 USD). Haven't tried the included cleats but action with genuine Shimano cleats feels much like Shimano. Had to disassemble to grease the axle (was totally dry) and as a result movement was very slow on unboxing but now it's greased (and the grease has had a chance to move itself around) it's been fine. Velobuild VBR-016 - bought this back in 2014 and it was my main bike from 2014-2020. Obviously it's been surpassed by many other Chinese frames since but it's still a nice bike, well constructed and easy to work with (threaded BB, easy to find headset bearings). Tyre clearance is typical of the time, 25mm at the rear is the absolute maximum. The pictured version on the site are the original finished pics of my frame. May 19, 2024, 06:29:08 AM |
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