Hi all,
New to this form, and joined as this thread has been pretty useful whilst I've been putting together my new 177. Unfortunately I have a had a few issues with it, and would be grateful for any comments or thoughts.
1. The main problem is that under braking, the steering seems to lock up. On inspection of the headset, it seems there is contact between the back of the fork crown and the head tube, and also the top headset bearing cap and the front of the top of the head tube. It's like the bearings have been set too far inside the head tube. Because the bearings don't contact on the flat faces, but on the chamfered inner and outer races, it's not possible to put a simple spacer in to lift them. Chris at VB has said he's sending me some new headset bearings, which are presumably taller/thicker, but this seems a bit of a bodge to fix poor moulding alignment.
2. The integrated one-piece stem/handlebar is ridiculously flexible. Admittedly it's hard to notice whilst riding, but even a small amount of force downwards on the hoods or drops gives >10mm movement. I'm not sure I trust these bars! It's probably due to the very thin aero middle section of the bars, the skinny stem which accomodates the cables, and possibly the short amount of contact with the steerer. And possibly the fact that they are cheaply made with too much focus on weight saving. I'm not impressed, but also can't quite face spending hundreds on something from a 'western' brand. I have the 100mm x 400mm set and could probably do with something a bit shorter, so will probably swap it before too long (if I keep the bike and can fix the problem above).
3. This one is probably my fault. I chose the bike size based on ETT, without really paying too much attention to the very low top tube and short head tube. I'm 5'8 and picked the Small (54cm ett). I have a lot of seatpost sticking out - about 15mm more than the minimum insertion. So whilst it's got more than the minimum insertion, it does look a bit odd and like I maybe should have got the Medium size and run a ~70mm stem.
Cheers,