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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame
You’ll have to tell us about the ride quality, and how you liked it.
What kind of terrain do you ride with it?
I am 179/83 and got the frame in size S. Personally, I find their sizing recommendations somewhat on the large side. I am pretty happy with my size, very sporty ride, while still being stable in the front (I only tried the 55mm trail setting). I live in Switzerland and have ridden 600km so far, about 60% gravel/CX-light and 40% road. The 45mm tires in combination with the 25mm inner width Elite Gravel wheels are great - very capable off-road. Frame clearance is about 8mm on the side with true to size 45mm tires. With the Conti RS tires its about 2kmh slower than my Venge - while being 20mm higher and 20mm shorter in front. On the downhill with 70kmh its rock solid (with balanced wheels).
The handlebar from SPcycles was only okay, as the rivets for the Garmin mount were glued in crooked - so i had to file them flat. The screw sits still not flush.... Otherwise, no complaints for the price of 120USD. Middle of the road with respect to flex. Bought it in 80/450 to match the progressive frame geo.
In conclusion: I can only recommend the frame, paint is great (except around the bottle cages and overspray on the brake mounts) and rides very well so far. Looked very clean on the inside. I am now thinking about selling the Venge. Its a pretty good do-it-all bike when paired with wide, fast rolling tires.
I hope that helps.
July 30, 2024, 03:22:11 AM
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Re: Frame for mix road/gravel use possible - SPcycle g056 build
1st post updated with build list
August 21, 2024, 07:59:32 PM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame
Just received my 068 about 2 hours ago; this post is first impressions + some remarks about features that aren't listed on the SPCycle site. Before starting, I want to give props to David at SPCycle for being very responsive to my (many, annoying) emails and providing accurate tire clearance measurements. Thanks!
FULL ALBUM HERE: https://imgur.com/a/H2liWld
This is a size small frame in the blue chameleon color. I'm very pleased with the paintwork - it's flawless almost everywhere, just some tiny deformation around mounts and holes that will be covered up by bolts anyway. The color itself is exactly what I'd hoped for, a blue/purple shift with teal sparkles. There is some overspray around brake mounts and some of the bolt bosses, but nothing that can't be fixed with some careful use of a sharp utility knife.
The weight isn't super impressive, but it never was gonna be: 1154 grams for the frame (no hardware) and 500 grams for the fork (with thru axle inserts, uncut). Seeing as the downtube is so incredibly girthy, and the rest of the frame isn't exactly svelte, I'm ok with these figures.
Now for a list of thoughts and observations:
- I fit 650b x 54 mm (measured tires) between the chainstays with ~2-2.5 mm of room on either side! I'm planning on running 650b x 50-52 mm as my gravel setup on new wheels, so this is very nice. I don't have fat 700c tires to test with, but I'll get more exact chainstay measurements later.
- The headset bearing cups are molded well and the provided bearings fit snugly with zero play. I'm using a Token S-Box compression ring and top cap, as I don't like the aluminum C-shaped compression ring that comes with the stock headset - too much risk of fork damage and it's HEAVY. Unfortunately, the Token bearings are 51.8mm OD and have a small amount of play in the 52.0 mm bearing seats, so I can't use them.
- The hose routing hole on the steerer tube is kind of rough, but won't be a concern when it's hidden away in the frame. There was one strand of loose carbon that I sliced off without issue. I pushed a brake hose up from the caliper end and it popped right out the steerer hole without any guidance needed, so the inside is perfectly fine.
- Speaking of the inside, the interior of the frame looks to be very well molded, without much in the way of wrinkles or excess resin. The only real exception are the areas where the chainstays are bonded right behind the bottom bracket, which have some lumpy resin but nothing major. See the endoscope pics in the album.
- There's a cable routing port on the back of the driveside seatstay, which is a far better location than the port on the underside of the chainstay. However, it looks like the seatstay port may only be large enough for electronic cables - not an issue for me since I'm building this up with Di2, but something to consider if you're going mechanical.
- There's a fender mounting boss on the underside of the fork crown. Not super useful on the holeless fork since there's no corresponding mounting holes by the dropouts - I'd like to see those holes present, but clip-on fenders should be fine for the winter.
- The bottom bracket threads are clean, with no point overspray or damage. I'm not sure if the paint around the cups will be damaged by BB installation - I'll be doing that tomorrow with a SRAM T47 BB and an Abbey tools socket, clamped to the frame, so hopefully there's not much room for anything to slip.
- The front thru-axle has measurements written on it but the rear doesn't. Ideally it would, but here's the measurements: ~168mm length, ~15mm thread length, 1.0 pitch (thanks, UDH). The brass washer on the rear axle is captive - good - but the washer on the front isn't retained in any way and just pulls straight off. Also, the rear axle head sits flush with the frame but the front axle head protrudes slightly. The axles are quite heavy, I'll likely replace them in the future.
- The flip chip on the brake side is only retained by the axle! When the axle isn't there, it just falls straight out of the fork. Not good, especially because the driveside chip is elegantly retained by a little grub screw on the tip of the fork blade - why couldn't this have been done on both sides??? This is my biggest complaint since it's so easily avoidable, and actually IS avoided on only one of the blades!
- The brake mounts on the frame and fork look to have been faced, but then not fully masked, so there's a rim of paint around the edges that prevent mounts from sitting flat and flush. I did some experiments with carefully slicing away the paint from one of the fork brake mounts, and it looks pretty good, so I'm going to complete that on all the mounts once I'm done with this post.
Overall, it looks like this frame will do exactly what I wanted - to serve as a road and gravel bike with 2 wheelsets, without compromising too much on either front. I'll make at least one more post, probably 2, detailing any build notes and ride impressions I have.
Check out the album - it's got all the pictures thus far!
August 23, 2024, 05:16:59 PM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame
Where did you end up sourcing the Token headset from? I've had a look online and they don't seem to be particularly easy to find. Is it the TK1556SP model?
Yup, got it from the Token US website: https://tokenproducts.us/collections/all-headsets/products/s-box-semi-integrated-cable-router-for-road-bikes-tk-1556sp
I've finally completed the build and taken the bike out for its first trip up a familiar local climb, and it performed great. The paint in direct sunlight is amazing. There's a few minor fit tweaks to do, and I need to put on a longer chain (this one is left over from my road bike with shorter chainstays), but overall, very nice and I'm happy to have gotten the fit right on the first try. There's absolutely no flex between the headtube and bottom bracket, which is noticeable out of the saddle and when sprinting, but it's not uncomfortable. It does feel a bit more squat than my road bike, but that's likely because of the 14 mm shorter reach and slightly lower BB height. The handling characteristics are much closer to my road bike than my gravel bike, which makes sense given that I sized this frame to be closer to the former. It's definitely not sluggish, if not as extremely precise as my road bike (one day I'll rebuild it into something... maybe make it as light as I can for fun).
I don't have any more major build notes; the only thing I forgot to mention is that the rear brake mount is 160 mm native, so there's no way to run a 140 mm rotor. I'm not interested in doing so, but something to think about if you like that size in the back. Also, with a +20 mm adapter in the rear and the fork in the 50 mm offset position, you could run a 180 mm rotor in the rear and a 140 in the front... wacky and dumb, but possible!
Unless something goes really wrong, this is my last update until I get my 650b rims in 3-4 weeks and get those wheels built up. Stuck with just road wheels for now, I'm gonna be doing all the longer road rides I haven't done in a while, so I won't be able to judge this frame as a proper gravel bike until then.
August 26, 2024, 07:09:35 PM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G068 Carbon Gravel Frame
My 650b rims came in about 10 days earlier than I was expecting, so I built them up over the weekend and took them on their first ride today. 34 miles with 3300 feet of climbing; pretty short in absolute terms, but it was a good split of surfaces, about 45% pavement, 35% smooth/slightly washboarded dirt, and 20% jeep doubletrack with lots of rocks. Not a ton of distance or vert, and it is only one ride, but my impressions of a bike rarely change after the first ride so I think I can provide some useful info.
Main thoughts:
- With tires measuring almost exactly 50 mm, I have 4 mm clearance at the chainstays on each side. I expect the tires to stretch a little bit over time, so it's good to know that if they plump out another 2 mm I'll still have adequate clearance. I didn't bother measuring the front, there's easily >6 mm of room on either side, the fork could probably take a 2.1" tire if it's not too knobby.
- The total diameter (including tires) of my 650b wheels is about 1 cm less than my 700c wheels; the ~5 mm difference in radius didn't really change handling but did lower the cranks by that much, which is important because I got two or three pedal strikes, even with a decent choice of line so as to avoid the larger rocks. I'll be getting crank boots since my crankarms are carbon. Not really an issue on terrain where you're not trying to navigate through a rock field, but that does make up some of the more fun routes around here so it applies to my use case.
- Probably due to the far fatter and squarer tire profile, the handling at the front was more sedate than with the 700c wheels; it did take a bit of persuasion to rapidly change direction when I was crawling uphill. No real change with how the rear wheel tracked, though, which was nice. Overall the handling is quite stable but I wouldn't classify it as slack, certainly not on the level of a Stigmata or similarly headtube-angled frames. No problems staying upright the few times that the rear wheel broke traction, which fortunately never happened up front.
Side thoughts:
- The downtube bottle cage mounts are a bit too far up to fit a 750 ml bottle. I used a bottle cage extender (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805494776538.html but the design is generic) to drop the cage about 2 cm down, which works well. I did drink all of that extra water so it's worth it.
- I didn't get any chainslap on the way up even as I was bouncing around, but did get a fair amount on the rutted dirt descent, even in the big ring and lower gears in the back. I'll be putting on another layer or two of clear tape on top of the single layer that's already on the chainstay, just for a bit more cushioning.
- Being able to run a dropper post may be the single biggest advantage this frame has over an actual Canyon Grail. The dropper is pretty much mandatory for the dirt descents I do and I also use it quite a bit to get aero on parts of descents faster than I can spin my 48/11 top gear (i.e. most of any descent). I have the clamping wedge torqued to 7 Nm and the seatpost hasn't slipped at all - I put a ring of silver Sharpie around the base to make sure - which is impressive, considering how fat I am.
- The rear rim already got a few small nicks from rocks flipping up from under the tire, but I've found with my road rims that a tiny bit of clear nail polish hides such marks on glossy carbon very well.
- The wheelbuilding process on these rims was quite nice. LightBicycle AM728 rims, i9 Torch rear hub + i9 Solix front hub (Torch hubs are effectively impossible to find now and purple ones simply no longer exist ), Sapim CX Ray/Sprint front/rear respectively. Was my first time building with alloy nipples, Sapim Double Square, and they performed no different than the brass ones I've used before. The internal square part is easy to fit an internal tool (https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256802115683590.html) and rotate, which is nice because it allows a spoke holder to keep the bladed spoke aligned without a spoke key in the way.
I'm using the SRAM T47 BB and even though it's nominally for 85.5 shells, I can confirm it works perfectly fine in the 86.5 mm hubshell of this frame. With RED cranks, the fit is absolutely perfect with a 2.5mm driveside spacer and the preload adjuster turned all the way out. My subcompact chainrings sit a little closer to the frame than stock chainrings would, so with a 2 mm driveside spacer you could get some preload adjustment.
Slight amendment; this did work fine but when the chain was on the inner chainring it was like 0.3 mm from the frame, close enough that wax got onto the downtube. I ended up sanding about 0.7 mm off the inner face of the preload adjuster ring and swapped to a 3 mm spacer on the drive side. This bought me ~0.5 mm more clearance, which is good enough. This problem is likely unique to my setup - the Bikingreen chainrings sit further inboard than stock chainrings due to the weirdness needed to fit subcompact rings to a 110 BCD spider.
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Final thoughts, having put ~175 miles of road riding in on this frame with 700c wheels plus this one ride on 650b: this frame is really good at being a road bike, pretty good at being a rough-terrain gravel bike, but it's not a master at either discipline. Where it felt the best was the smoother dirt, and I think it would be absolutely outstanding when ridden on such roads with a set of 700 x ~45 mm tires. Still, it's plenty good enough at fulfilling the dual role I ask of it - a keeper for sure!
September 16, 2024, 10:02:17 PM
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Re: Spcycle New Mold G056 Carbon Gravel Frame
I built what I consider to be my all-road bike using this frame, with the first proper ride yesterday.
tl;dr Overall, I'm satisfied. I like the look, although I realise it's polarizing. Buy it if you're looking for a really cheap frame for a budget build, but expect some hassles during the build process. You can probably find better frames for just a bit more money. And a matte black frame would likely have fewer issues caused by paint overspray.
I don't ride gravel - there isn't much of it where I live. But there are plenty of national parks that are great for riding, in nature and with minimal traffic. The challenge is the terrible paved road surfaces - coarse chip seal with cracks, ridges, potholes, erosion at the edges, etc. Add on steep and windy descents, and it's enough to dent my confidence. So I was looking to build a bike that would help me handle those conditions better, with space for wide tyres, a longer wheelbase, slacker head tube angle, more trail, and with a lower BB to compensate for chunkier tyres. In other words, a gravel frame. Maybe even throw in a flared handlebar for good measure.
On my ride yesterday I set PBs on the technical descents along my course, so it seems to be doing what I hoped it would. The overall time for the whole ride was a little slower than previous rides on my endurance bike though. Whether that's more down to the wider tyres with lower pressure, or me having spent more time building a bike rather than training lately is hard to tell.
I ordered the frame in size S, painted Pearl White, without handlebars. The seller was Surprised Store on AliExpress, they sold the frame as "Ceccotti RF25". Frame cost was US$ 410 all up, including shipping, Australian sales tax (10%), and with AliExpress+store coupons.
Weight of the built bike including pedals, Garmin Edge out-front mount, Varia seatpost mount, and bottle cages: 8.2 kg (or 18.1 lbs for those of you who prefer nonsensical units ). The painted frame size S with all bolts, axles, hangers, and grommets removed was 1075g. The uncut fork was 404g, seatpost 204g, the included thru axles 68g.
On the frame, the good:
- Packaging was very good - actually I'd say exceptional.
- The fork steerer was flawless - even wall thickness, no pitting, and my vernier calipers suggest that it is round.
- The inside of the seat tube was very smooth - no unevenness, tenting, or loose fibers.
- The included seatpost has a rough texture at the clamping area, and it hasn't slipped, with the bolt in the wedge torqued to 4 Nm.
- Routing the hydraulic hose and the mechanical shift cables with foam tubing through the frame was straightforward, so that suggests reasonably clean internal surfaces, even though this is not an EPS frame AFAIK.
- It works great with 2x mechanical shifting.
- No brake rub after adjustment, even with all the paint overspray (see "the bad" below). Perhaps this is due to the forgiving L-Twoo calipers?
- Two mounting positions for the front derailleur hanger enables using 2x chainrings ranging from subcompact to standard.
- Came with a T47-24i bottom bracket and two spare rear derailleur hangers.
- Grommets for both mechanical and electronic shift cables included.
- The headset dust cover with cable entry port for using a regular bar and stem actually fit the frame, unlike the one that VeloBuild supplied with their 066 frame.
- The rubber cover for the seatpost clamp stays in place.
The bad:
- Paint overspray! So much paint overspray!. On the brake caliper mounts, the brake hose exit port on the fork, and the thru axle "dropouts". And all of the mounting points for bottles and mudguards/fenders on the frame are rough to thread in.
- The threads of the bottom bracket shell were very rough on the NDS, not because of paint overspray, just shoddy workmanship. I tried to clean the threads up with a file, but in the end I took it to my LBS to have them chase the threads. Drive side threads were fine.
- The seat for the top headset bearing was very rough at the front of the seat. The bearing didn't sit flat (it rocked), and there was a loose and sharp piece of carbon fibre sticking out. I saw traces of paint in there, so I suspect there had been paint overspray, and then someone had used a reamer without much care. I fixed it by smoothing it out and building it up using multiple coats of nail polish. The seat for the lower headset bearing was fine.
- I'm using the included headset for a regular bar and stem, and it fits well. However, the headset uses a C-shaped aluminium compression ring that I'm wary of using longer term. All of its edges are chamfered and smooth, which is somewhat reassuring, but I'd still prefer another solution longer term. The Ritchey upper headset that I used on my previous VeloBuild doesn't fit, as the dust cover sits way too high (or the top bearing doesn't sit deep enough in the frame). Same for the headset that came with the Mosso stem from AliExpress. If someone has suggestions for an alternative headset with a compression ring that wraps around the whole steerer, I'd love to hear!
The minor annoyances:
- The saddle rail clamp uses a 5mm bolt at the rear and a 6mm bolt at the front .
- The seatpost doesn't have height adjustment markers.
- The angle of the front derailleur shift cable cable stop/exit port near the bottom bracket makes the mechanical shift housing interfere with installation of the bottom bracket. The bottom bracket I used had a soft plastic shell that was easily deformed by the shift housing, but I managed to line up the sleeve with the cups eventually. A bottom bracket with a stiffer sleeve would likely be much easier to install.
- I asked for a fork without mounting points, as I don't plan to take this bike packing. The seller just painted over the mounting points - I can just about see them through the paint when I look up close.
- The crank arms run so close to the chainstays that a cadence sensor won't fit on the inside of the NDS crank arm when using a Shimano road crankset. I suspect that single-sided NDS crank arm-based power meters (4iiii, Stages) on Shimano road cranksets also wouldn't fit with their protruding pods. Might be fine with GRX cranksets? Fortunately my power meter pedals measure cadence.
- Not the frame, but my L-Twoo R9 set came with two subtly different brake calipers. One was branded just "L-Twoo", the other "L-Twoo R9". The one branded "L-Twoo" used an Allen/Hex key for the bleed port bolt, while the one branded "L-Twoo R9" used a Torx key! #ltwoolife
And finally, the hilarious:
- The whole side of the shipping box was covered with stamps! (see attached photo)
Components:
- Shifters and brakes: L-Twoo R9 hydraulic disc with 2x11-speed mechanical shifting. A lot has been written and said about these shifters, and I don't have a long term review. But I will say that I really love the ergonomics, especially using the thumb shifters, from both the hoods and the drops. And they look much better than the bulbous Shimano 105 ST-R7020 mechanical/hydraulic shifters IMNSHO.
- Rear derailleur: Shimano GRX RD-RX810 11 speed
- Front derailleur: Shimano 105 FD-R7000-F
- Crankset: Shimano 105 FC-R7100 with 50/34T chainrings, 170mm crank arms
- Cassette: Goldix one-piece monobloc CNC, 11-34T. Rear shifts are very smooth with the derailleur clutch off, but a little less smooth with the clutch on. Maybe I should try to adjust the derailleur clutch tension to be less tight?
- Chain: Shimano CN-HG701, immersion hot waxed
- Brake rotors: Meroca RT-RX 160mm x2
- Stem: UNO aluminium 7050 110mm 7 degrees drop
- Handlebars: Specialized Short Reach Flare aluminium 38cm, with 12 degree flare, so 42cm in the drops. 70mm reach, 119mm drop.
- Tyres: Vittoria Corsa N.EXT 34mm tube-type, measure 34mm on the wheels I use.
- Inner tubes: RideNow 39g all-road TPU tubes
- Wheels: EliteWheels Edge Gravel 45mm deep, 31mm external width, 24mm internal width, steel bearings.
- Pedals: Garmin Rally RK100 (transferred from another bike)
- Shift housing: Shimano OptiSlick - purchased an MTB kit for sufficient full-length housing.
- Saddle: Mixed 5D. Not bad, but I'll probably swap it for the 7D.
September 23, 2024, 06:53:59 AM
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