Velobuild GF-002

[coffeebreak]

Nice one! What frame size is this one?

I got size 56. Didn't measure if it's actually 56 though in place of sizing sticker I have an evil cat.

[lazywalrus]

My build is finally complete.
Might be of interest to some as it's a full Aliexpress/China build: GF-002, Elite wheels, Sensah SRX groupset, Juin Tech F1 brakes.

I’ve been interested in building up an open mould frame for a while, so with the price of new bikes and the second hand market getting a bit crazy (at least when I started ordering) this seemed like a good time to try.

Positives:


• Production & shipping was way faster than I expected, I think just over 2 weeks from payment including custom paint job. I could have built the bike much sooner had my separate BB not got lost in customs.
• The frame feels great, seems to ride like any premium carbon gravel frame, and the custom paint looks rad.
• The overall finishing seems good, with no paint in threads, bearing races pretty clean etc.
• I couldn’t see any obvious voids or terrible wrinkles in the carbon - but will report back if it snaps in half jumping off a curb.
• I’m quite impressed but he SRX groupset, shifting is crisp and levers feel decent.
• Elite wheels seem fantastic on the short rides I’ve done so far. Tubeless ready tyres popped right on with a track pump.
• The Juin Tech brakes, now set up and bedded in are solid. Not quite hydro feeling, but much much better than BB7s I've previously used. They could probably be made better if my cabling wasn't such a mess too, or just external routing.

Negatives

• Threading compressionless housing through the bars+ stem + frame is ridiculously difficult. Compressionless housing is too stiff to get round the corners and it gets wedged in hidden corners of the bars. I’d estimate I’ve spent over 8 hours trying to get it set up right here, although that’s largely because I screwed up the first run. I’m also running 1x here, doing a mechanical 2x setup + compressionless housing would be extremely difficult.
• Seat clamp: the front bolt can’t be accessed with an Allen key unless you have a cut-out saddle, so fine-tuning the angle is a bit of a pain
• The bottom bracket pressed in worryingly easy. I could tighten the press-fit tool by hand, without a wrench. It’s not creaking yet, but I’m expecting that I might have to add Loctite retainer in the future. This is a Rotor BB not a VB one.
• Minor gripes: Wasn’t supplied enough bolts for all the bosses, the seat post doesn't slide that far down so I had to cut a lot off it to get it to the right height, where the cables exit the frame and attach to the brakes/derailleur causes quite sharp angles.

The headset

• I got the separate bar and stem as I wanted the option to swap out the bars to attach aerobars for really long distance rides. I also wasn’t 100% on the geometry, I just matched it to my road bike. In retrospect with the integrated cables swapping the bars out is something I’m going to try and avoid.
• I got the updated headset that Chris has mentioned in previous threads, this seems to resolve the issues others were having of not being able to preload the bearing. However, it definitely has not been perfect. I’ve battled it slipping and coming loose, not being able to preload sufficiently for several days now.
• Possibly the issue lies in the way is presses the C clip/dustcover into the bearing, it looks uneven and I’m assuming this then causes it to slip slightly under hard braking. If I’m careful with aligning the C pointed exactly straight ahead, arrange the cables to sit evenly spaced, and add a little carbon paste on the stem it seems to work.
• I’ve also got a 1-2mm gap like coffeebreak mentioned above. I think I’ll just cover it with silicon as removing the dust cover is an ordeal.
  I think long-term the solution is probably still to go with the FSA headset.

Overall, very happy with it so far - but haven't put enough miles on it to give it a proper review.
Total cost about $2.7k AUD/$1.8kUSD.

[coffeebreak]

Negatives

• Threading compressionless housing through the bars+ stem + frame is ridiculously difficult. Compressionless housing is too stiff to get round the corners and it gets wedged in hidden corners of the bars. I’d estimate I’ve spent over 8 hours trying to get it set up right here, although that’s largely because I screwed up the first run. I’m also running 1x here, doing a mechanical 2x setup + compressionless housing would be extremely difficult.
• Seat clamp: the front bolt can’t be accessed with an Allen key unless you have a cut-out saddle, so fine-tuning the angle is a bit of a pain
• The bottom bracket pressed in worryingly easy. I could tighten the press-fit tool by hand, without a wrench. It’s not creaking yet, but I’m expecting that I might have to add Loctite retainer in the future. This is a Rotor BB not a VB one.
• Minor gripes: Wasn’t supplied enough bolts for all the bosses, the seat post doesn't slide that far down so I had to cut a lot off it to get it to the right height, where the cables exit the frame and attach to the brakes/derailleur causes quite sharp angles.

I'm relieved I'm not the only one who had these problems. Just 8 hours for routing though? I spent probably 4 days lol. I probably routed and pulled out cables and routed again about 20 times and in the end couldn't get compressionless housing work. It was frustrating to say the least. I also filed all the edges of the stem and handlebar where ever the cables were rubbing.

Same for the saddle bolt. It was almost impossible to tighten it.

But, all is well that ends well. Your build looks cool, I wish you many happy miles on it!

Edit - that seat post is ridiculously tall. Mine is pushed way below lowest marker. That's the only way I could make it work. Strange, I never had such issue on any bike.

[lazywalrus]

I'm relieved I'm not the only one who had these problems. Just 8 hours for routing though? I spent probably 4 days lol. I probably routed and pulled out cables and routed again about 20 times and in the end couldn't get compressionless housing work. It was frustrating to say the least. I also filed all the edges of the stem and handlebar where ever the cables were rubbing.

Same for the saddle bolt. It was almost impossible to tighten it.

But, all is well that ends well. Your build looks cool, I wish you many happy miles on it!

Edit - that seat post is ridiculously tall. Mine is pushed way below lowest marker. That's the only way I could make it work. Strange, I never had such issue on any bike.

Haha yes you’re definitely not alone. That was 8 hours spread across multiple days after I had to give up several times, traumatic.
I also filed the sharp edges a bit, only after they had removed a lot of housing coating though.

I assume VB uses the same seat post for all frame sizes, so maybe it’s the right length for really large frames? Odd though.
 
Yours looks fantastic too, happy riding

[coffeebreak]

Managed to put just about 400 miles on the build this past month thru snow, ice and just terrible weather all around. The bike held up well. I find the frame comfortable and yet reasonably stiff, as in the power transmission seems pretty efficient though, I am not a racer. My observation comes from comparison with Giant Revolt which feels rather sluggish.

Anyhoo, as last day of the year gift I put on ICAN aero 50mm wheels shod with Panaracer 32mm gk ss on the bike and it has made a big difference in the ride. Faster and lighter yet grippy where it counts. Also replaced funny looking bartape with old school black tape for cleaner looks.

Overall, quite happy so far.

[TeamO]

Hi guys,
I started building my own bike for the first time.

Frame: Velobuild GF002
Group: Sensah Empire 11s
Brakes: ZRace BR-005 (mechanical disc brakes)
Wheels: Elite Wheels Edge
Tires: Conti GrandPrix 5000 S TR (tubeless)
Shift cables/brake cables and housing: Jagwire Pro

Currently I am in the process of routing the housing in the handlebars. But this is much more difficult than I thought. It is so complicated that I think I will not manage to lay the housing cause there ist not enough space. Attached I have a few photos of the current state. I managed to get the housings of the brake cables in the handlebar, but I don't see a chance to get the housings for the shift cables in there as well.
Does anyone of you have a tip?

It is the separate handlebar and stem from the GF002.

[coffeebreak]

The routing on these bar/stems is pain in the arse. I spent so much time on it. In the end two things helped, lot of cursing and inserting shifter cables first and then brake cables. But that is still a LOT of work and frustration may ensue.

It was much later that I came across this simple trick and used on Fuji roadie to convert to semi icr -

[Gijs11]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on this forum, after many hours of reading.
I'm currently the owner of a grey-white-red GF-002 in size L.
It is setup with the Sram Rival AXS group set including powermeter.
I also used my AR56 lightbicycle wheelset with the grey Vittora tires.

Before I also had a GF-002 in matte black with a mechanical Sram Apex1 group set which I sold a couple of months ago.

I love the bikes, but on both I had/have some problems with the headset.
On the first matte black one I've used the integrated aero bar that was delivered with the old C-ring.
After filing the knobs of the C-ring and the spacers I eventually got rid of the headset play, and it stayed away.

But now on my new grey-white-red one I placed the separate stem with an FSA ACR compact bar.
So that I have the opportunity to place aerobars.

This bike already came with the newer C-ring without knobs but I can't get rid of the headset play.
Every time when I tighten it again then after some rough roads the play is coming back.
When I tighten the topcap I will get the play out and then I tighten the bolts of the stem to 5.5 Nm.
I also used Carbon paste.
But when riding over a rougher sections of road every time the play comes back.

Any ideas?
Greetings from The Netherlands

[coffeebreak]

Welcome, fellow GF002 owner! This is an issue that many have faced and tried to resolve in different ways with varying degrees of success. The C ring, spacers/headset and that aero cap from VB all add to the issue. For me, the top cap is glaring issue because it deform when you tighten the screw meaning the required torque to keep it tight is eaten by cap's flexy material. There is a thread dedicated to this issue and seems using FSA headset (no 55) solves the issue to some extent -

http://chinertown.com/index.php/topic,3683.0.html

[s3si1u]

Hello everyone,

This is my first post on this forum, after many hours of reading.
I'm currently the owner of a grey-white-red GF-002 in size L.
It is setup with the Sram Rival AXS group set including powermeter.
I also used my AR56 lightbicycle wheelset with the grey Vittora tires.

Before I also had a GF-002 in matte black with a mechanical Sram Apex1 group set which I sold a couple of months ago.

I love the bikes, but on both I had/have some problems with the headset.
On the first matte black one I've used the integrated aero bar that was delivered with the old C-ring.
After filing the knobs of the C-ring and the spacers I eventually got rid of the headset play, and it stayed away.

But now on my new grey-white-red one I placed the separate stem with an FSA ACR compact bar.
So that I have the opportunity to place aerobars.

This bike already came with the newer C-ring without knobs but I can't get rid of the headset play.
Every time when I tighten it again then after some rough roads the play is coming back.
When I tighten the topcap I will get the play out and then I tighten the bolts of the stem to 5.5 Nm.
I also used Carbon paste.
But when riding over a rougher sections of road every time the play comes back.

Any ideas?
Greetings from The Netherlands

On my 177 a combination of cutting the steerer tube a little bit more to just the perfect height removed the play when used with the new C ring. I eventually switched to a Cane Creek top cap with a tiny spacer under it and never had an issue again.
I now use a different stem/bar combo (The One) with its own compression ring and top cap that also preloads perfectly and doesn't come loose. That's always an option.
You can also try the FSA compression ring or headset, there's cheaper copies on AliExpress. Maybe a different stem or top cap would also help, the top cap that is provided seems to have a lot to do with it.

[Gijs11]

Thanks for the tips and the link to the topic!

I've already ordered a longer expansion plug, maybe that helps.
And I think i'm going to modify a normal round spacer and try to fasten it with the normal round topcap that was provided by velobuild. Because I also think the play is caused by the original flexible top cap that deforms when I torque it.

Will post an update if the problem is solved!

[bichler.bua]

Welcome, fellow GF002 owner! This is an issue that many have faced and tried to resolve in different ways with varying degrees of success. The C ring, spacers/headset and that aero cap from VB all add to the issue. For me, the top cap is glaring issue because it deform when you tighten the screw meaning the required torque to keep it tight is eaten by cap's flexy material. There is a thread dedicated to this issue and seems using FSA headset (no 55) solves the issue to some extent -

http://chinertown.com/index.php/topic,3683.0.html

Agree and like I commented on the above mentioned post: the top cap of the Velobuild stem is a major issue.

[hazzer19]

My workaround for the top cap that doesn't seem to be able to maintain rigidity in order to tighten things up is to first remove all play without the top cap (using the hole in a pedal wrench) and then fastening the top cap gently after. Since the top cap doesn't need to compress things once the play has been removed and stem has been tightened that should work, and it does for a while until it becomes loose again like others have been experiencing, however I think that it related to something else and I am likely going to add some spacers or cut the steerer a bit to see if I can stop the loosening of the headset that way.

[coffeebreak]

After this discussion started again, I loosened up the handlebar/stem from the fork steerer and lifted it up just so I can take a peek inside. I noticed that the spacers do hug steerer snuggly but just not tight enough. There is a very slight gap that exists.

I cut a piece of aluminum foil and inserted into the gap but that wasn't enough. Next - I cut up tin of canned fish into 3 long pieces to cover stacked height of the spacers and with great hassle and a cut on index finger managed to insert all three between spacers and steerer.
That seemed to stop the minute back and forth movement of spacers. Thankfully the spacers lock into each other so this extra pressure created by thin insert is still handled. Though only way I could do this was to assemble spacers first and then insert the metal strips. For good measure, I left around 1.5mm of the strips exposed and when all was done, bent that 1.5mm "lip" outwards to keep it sliding down the steerer into fork as it takes a beating on gravel.
Then, pushed down the handle/stem and tightened the top cap. I must say this is the tightest I have ever felt with virtually no internal movement.  If it gets loose again, I will insert one more strip for good measure and take photos. But I doubt that will happen. Fingers crossed.

[TeamO]

My build  is progressing piece by piece.

As the first wheelset I will use the ENT Elite Wheels with Conti 5000 in 28mm.

What very cheap wheelset and what tires would you recommend for gravel?
What maximum tire width fits (700c) in the frame?