Here it is, at last!
I picked up the bike last night from the LBS and spoke to the mechanic who built it up. His take:
- Overall, it was easy to build
- No major issues, nothing was mis-aligned, BB fit was perfect
- Frame quality seems to be good with clean internals
- It didn’t feel all that different from building up major brand bikes
A few other notes:
- The bike was built with Ultegra 8170 Di2 groupset, Elitewheels Edge Ultralight 45s, Kocevlo integrated bars, GP5000 tires, RideNow TPU tubes
- Measured weight: 7.4 kg without pedals (7.65 kg with pedals) – I didn’t go full weight weenie, so there’s probably still room to take that down, but it’s not a priority for me
- I put on 32s and you can see from the pics that there’s plenty of tire clearance, probably room for more than the stated max clearance of 38
- The downtube internal storage is a bit finicky to close – there’s not a solid click to close, and I need to be careful to get everything aligned to close it, otherwise it comes off pretty easily. Once it’s closed correctly, it feels solid. I’ll have to take it for a few rides to see if it’s problematic
- This is one of those frames with a soft top tube where you can press it down with your thumb – the mechanic said that it’s no different from some of the other lightweight frames that he has built, but you shouldn’t sit on the top tube at the stop light or tryna look cool
- The mechanic pointed out that there is a bit of play in the rear wheel – if you push on the wheel from the side, you can feel a bit of looseness; he tightened up everything but it’s still there, he said it’s probably something internal to the hub, it shouldn’t impact the ride, but I’m going to follow up with Elitewheels on this
- I took it for a short spin last night to bed the brakes and there was no seat tube slippage, although it was only a 30 minute spin over smooth surfaces. (I did end up with a flat… I’m not very heavy and rarely flat, I think I’ve flatted maybe 3 times over 15 years, so I guess it’s Mazel Tov!)
The weather here has been crap (typhoon just came through, another incoming), so I may not be able to ride much on the new steed. Once I do, I’ll come back with some initial ride impressions (and au naturel pics).
Cheers.
