Gas Cycle Nitrogen 6069 alloy budget road frameset

[jonathanf2]

First time poster. Found the new version of the frameset on Ali with the high seat stays and UDH. Got really excited and finding this thread gave me the confidence to send it. Ordered yesterday, with coupons about 240 euros. Shipping I'm told will take 20-45 days. Expecting roughly 80 euros tax.

Got the size L bike, geometry is almost exactly the same as my CAAD12 except for a slightly higher front end (566 mm stack vs 552 mm) and .1 or 0.2 degrees on the seat tube and head tube angles. Planning on building it up quite simple with parts I've already got to keep the cost down while testing. 1x11 Sram rival, cable discs, finishing kit I've got lying around. Should still be quite light without really trying. Will probably strip the frame again and paint the bike if I like the ride feel.

Congratulations! My frame took about a month to arrive. They sent mine on a boat, which was a first for me! I'm curious about the new geometry. If you're on Chinese social media (specifically Red Note), Gas Cycle is quite active on that platform and have a group chat for customers to talk directly with them. They said the new design is stiffer, though my version is already stiff. They also made specific accommodations for Di2 while adding UDH. The older version was closer to Tarmac geometry, but also had a taller head tube.

After riding my SPCycle R088 and Gas Cycle frame back-to-back, I've grown to appreciate the extra height. I feel like the frame is quite stable, compared to my more twitchy R088. I bought the frame with low expectations, but surprisingly it's been a lot of fun. I've also been tempted to strip the bike and paint it, but I'm too lazy at this point! 

[cnishikigi1]

For those who have had the frame, is your building process smooth? I've seen people addressing cable routing hole and BB tolerance problems for their framesets on Chinese social media. Besides, this brand's customer service is nonexistent. Though for this price I wouldn't ask for too much as long as the frame itself is safe to ride.

[Woutervd]

I'm not on any social media, but cool to hear that they've got a decent presence at least somewhere. I imagine that customer service will be quite limited, although if something is really wrong with the frame I believe AliExpress will mediate. Anyway, indeed, for this price I'm not too fussed as long as the bike is structurally sound.

There's a lot about the frame I'm not too sure on from the listing on Ali, there's basically no information there outside of the geometry and claimed weight. It looks like everything about it is quite standard though. Your R088 seems to have a slightly shorter wheelbase and steeper head angle than the dropped stay model, so it should feel a bit more twitchy and responsive I guess.

My gravel bike is a bit taller than my CAAD12 and I really do like the extra height I get there. I got the CAAD12 second hand and its fully slammed with cut fork tube, which can also feel nice, but I for the riding I do mostly now it's a bit too racy really. This Gascycle frame on paper should have the same handling but slightly more upright, which honestly sounds perfect.

Getting quite hyped with ideas for the paintjob, which is probably not too good since also first-time frame painter, but for now I believe I should be able to pull off something nice. One way or another it will be a unique bike. ;p

[jonathanf2]

For those who have had the frame, is your building process smooth? I've seen people addressing cable routing hole and BB tolerance problems for their framesets on Chinese social media. Besides, this brand's customer service is nonexistent. Though for this price I wouldn't ask for too much as long as the frame itself is safe to ride.

My BB was fine. I'm just using a regular threaded Ultegra BBR60 bottom bracket. My cranks spins smoothly. The cable routing through the chain stay is a bit convoluted, it exits out the down tube and underneath the chain stays. Routing my rear brake hose had to be done top/bottom. It's a pain to try and route it bottom/top (from chain stay thru down tube). I'm not sure if the new version fixed that problem. My head tube bearing cup were actually very snug and looked perfectly round. Having built several bikes, it was still fairly easy to assemble.

Like I said, I had low expectations, but for the price it's a fun frame build. My goal was to build a poor man's Allez Sprint. Though with the new version, it's now a poor man's CAAD14! 

[Woutervd]

Congratulations! My frame took about a month to arrive. They sent mine on a boat, which was a first for me! I'm curious about the new geometry. If you're on Chinese social media (specifically Red Note), Gas Cycle is quite active on that platform and have a group chat for customers to talk directly with them. They said the new design is stiffer, though my version is already stiff. They also made specific accommodations for Di2 while adding UDH. The older version was closer to Tarmac geometry, but also had a taller head tube.

I checked out the posts on rednote and was actually very pleasantly surprised by the information provided in them. They really do seem like a passionate small frame manufacturer. Also, the O2 gravel bike looks very nice on there, much nicer than just on the Ali listings. I've already got a nice gravel bike, which fits 2.1 mtb tyres instead of 45 mm, but still kind of fancy the O2 now too.

[Merry]

OK, this is a different bike frame model from Gascycle and I didn't want to start a new thread for an already established brand, so apologies in advance for "necroing" this one.

While scrolling on Taobao, I found this VERY interesting budget rim brake alloy frameset from Gascycle that some of you folks may be interested in too. I am, cause I love CAADs, rim brakes and I've got spare parts to equip this frame - that I want to introduce my friends this summer to road cycling or for joyrides. Pictures attached from what I could gather in the reviews. It's not on Aliexpress yet, but new products are being added so this may come soon.

From what I can read and collect, this is a Gas Cycle Helium 6069 rim brake frameset model. The advertised weight is close with my CAAD10's real weight and could definitely be fantastic for a road racer / project bike (shown in attached pictures). I was not able to find if this includes the fork nor the weight - but from the reviews, I think it does. My estimate is around 350g - 400g? A reviewer said that their size 51 (which is actually a large, I believe) frameset came in at 1330g in total.

This comes in red, green and silver. The attached picture of a completed bike build in green from a reviewer says that their bike is equipped with a DI2 12 speed rim groupset and 1270g 38mm carbon wheels - weighing 7.15kg. This weight does not include the water bottle or the bike computer.

I'm interested in this frame myself, but I'll need to figure out how to get it here in Canada. May take a while... But if I get it in my hands, I'll update everyone.

[raisinberry777]

It's available on AliExpress too:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005009381560120.html

[Woutervd]

I've received the frame just before having to leave for a weekend trip to the Amstel Gold Race.

Bad news first. Top headset seat is oval so the bearing is hard to get in, and the seat is not flat, i.e. the bearing rocks a little. Also, there are some defects/cavities in the steerer tube around where it attached to the fork crown.

Good news then. With 28 mm tyres there's more than 10 mm clearance on all sides. I think you can almost fit a 42 or 45 in there. Fork weight 420.8 g uncut, frame weight 1420 g, both excluding any hardware. Headset, seat clamp, udh hanger, and they axles add about 250 g. The welds look quite decent and the raw alloy is really quite cool.

When I get back I can add some pictures. Sadly I do think the headset bearing problem makes it unrideable as of now. Let's see what the seller has to say about it.

[jonathanf2]

I've received the frame just before having to leave for a weekend trip to the Amstel Gold Race.

Bad news first. Top headset seat is oval so the bearing is hard to get in, and the seat is not flat, i.e. the bearing rocks a little. Also, there are some defects/cavities in the steerer tube around where it attached to the fork crown.

Good news then. With 28 mm tyres there's more than 10 mm clearance on all sides. I think you can almost fit a 42 or 45 in there. Fork weight 420.8 g uncut, frame weight 1420 g, both excluding any hardware. Headset, seat clamp, udh hanger, and they axles add about 250 g. The welds look quite decent and the raw alloy is really quite cool.

When I get back I can add some pictures. Sadly I do think the headset bearing problem makes it unrideable as of now. Let's see what the seller has to say about it.

That sucks about the head tube being oval. I'm surprised though considering it's just a round alloy tube. I'd think oval'ized head tubes to be more of a carbon frame issue. Did you try greasing up the bearing and seating it properly inside the head tube cups? On my frame the bearings were snug with no play once properly seated.

[Woutervd]

That sucks about the head tube being oval. I'm surprised though considering it's just a round alloy tube. I'd think oval'ized head tubes to be more of a carbon frame issue. Did you try greasing up the bearing and seating it properly inside the head tube cups? On my frame the bearings were snug with no play once properly seated.

Grabbed my calipers and measured the top bearing seat to be 51.5 / 52.5 mm across. It makes sense that the chamfered bearing seat then does not support the outer race properly either, hence the rocking. No real purpose to add any picture here to discuss this problem. Very weird though indeed. You would expect a CNC'd headtube to be less likely to warp.

I added some pictures of the defect in the fork, to get the forum's opinion. Looking at it again, it does not look very great, with defects in the same spot on both sides of the steerer tube where it attaches to the fork crown. One side is clearly much worse than the other, with a roughly ~1 mm deep fissure (not sure what word to use here).

EDIT: I don't think the fork is safe to ride. The crack/fissure is at least 1 mm deep, which is a significant fraction of the wall thickness of the steerer. Don't think any real QC at all went into this frameset.

It is kind of sad, the frameset looks great in every other way really. Think it could even fit a 650b x 47/50 mm tire lol. Just over 50 mm of clearance in the fork, tire stay clearance is limited by chainstay length for a 700c tire.

[ClSV]

Not saying it looks pretty, but I've seen big brand forks with similar.

As for the headset, if it's a IS52 bearing seat a proper bikeshop should be able to ream that correctly for you. Also here, you'd expect that to be done from the factory, but at least that would make it rideable.

Do you have some pictures of the frame?

[Woutervd]

Not saying it looks pretty, but I've seen big brand forks with similar.

As for the headset, if it's a IS52 bearing seat a proper bikeshop should be able to ream that correctly for you. Also here, you'd expect that to be done from the factory, but at least that would make it rideable.

Do you have some pictures of the frame?

The fissure in the fork is more like 2 mm deep than 1 mm, wall thickness of the steerer is 3 mm. There's some loose bits/fibers that I could scratch off if I wanted to. Steerer to crown transition, not the best place to have a failure as it's a guaranteed faceplant. I've held 3 other carbon forks and all of them didn't have a hole in the carbon (canyon ultimate, CAAD12, LightCarbon gravel bike). I'm not sure what I checks I would need to do to feel comfortable riding this fork.

As for reaming the bearing seat, guess it could be improved but I'm not sure if the extra 0.5 mm would still allow some play. The bottom bearing seat is completely fine. See attached pictures.

[ClSV]

Yeah tough to tell from pictures if it's safe or not. Have a local shop or carbon repair shop make a judgement in person if you want to be sure.

Technically, the bearing should be fully supported on the chamfer, and therefore the 52 inner diameter being slightly oversized shouldn't matter from a functional point of view. Now if the chamfered part is oversized you'll indeed have preload problems.

If you can't get a 52mm bearing to fully seat, you could pop a 51.8 bearing in there to see if the chamfer is correct(fit full headset, fork, stem, add preload. No play = correct seating), and then make decision to either have it reamed or just use a 51.8 bearing.

You have a picture of the full frame? Curious how it looks. Also what's the fork axle to crown? That's some wild tire clearance you mentioned.

[Woutervd]

Yeah tough to tell from pictures if it's safe or not. Have a local shop or carbon repair shop make a judgement in person if you want to be sure.

Technically, the bearing should be fully supported on the chamfer, and therefore the 52 inner diameter being slightly oversized shouldn't matter from a functional point of view. Now if the chamfered part is oversized you'll indeed have preload problems.

If you can't get a 52mm bearing to fully seat, you could pop a 51.8 bearing in there to see if the chamfer is correct(fit full headset, fork, stem, add preload. No play = correct seating), and then make decision to either have it reamed or just use a 51.8 bearing.

You have a picture of the full frame? Curious how it looks. Also what's the fork axle to crown? That's some wild tire clearance you mentioned.

I can get the 52 mm in there, but I'd need to put in a fork with shorter head tube to be able to add preload or perhaps put on like 4 stems lol. I'll do that tonight actually.

Added some pictures, side view of the frame w/fork, bars, wheels (21 mm internal). GP 5000 25 mm, around 27.5 mm width as measured. Pictures of tyre clearance with 10 mm hex key for scale. Basically, there's >10 mm clearance around the ~28mm tyres. This frame makes the GP 5000s look like 21 mm's.

Axle to crown I'm honestly not completely sure how to measure accurately. See pictures. Roughly 365 - 6 mm (bottom of axle to bottom of crown measurement minus axle radius).

Hopefully the pictures make it obvious why I think it's a really cool frame. If, with preload, there is no play & the bearings turn smoothly, I'd probably be fine with a partial refund and accept possibly shorter bearing life. The fork scares me more, but I guess I could again see about that refund and just pick up a replacement fork with similar ATC and clearance.

EDIT: I was probably a bit too pessimistic about the headset bearing seat. Under preload spins freely and no play. Guess possibly shorter bearing life is the only real problem there.

[jonathanf2]

If you can get the bearings seated in the head tube and the fork doesn't assplode, you'll probably be fine. My fork steerer looked ugly, but it rides just fine. Then again I'm not as picky when it comes to these things.