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« on: October 18, 2021, 09:10:54 AM »
Hi all! I have been lurking this thread for the past few months while deciding if I should go ahead with building my own bike, and whether to get it from Velobuild. Really helpful tips so far and definitely helped with my decision to make the purchase! I finally decided order a VB-R-168 from Chris, in Matte Chameleon Green colour. I thought it would be useful to share my experience and two-cents on the bike building process. It was one rewarding experience to finally be out riding on your self-build bike!
Size: 52
Groupset: Ultegra R8000 Hydraulic
Disc: RT800 140mm Front and Rear
Handlebar: 400mm/90mm
Wheelset: From Taobao 60mm Depth with Hubsmith hubs
Tires: GP5000 TL
Saddle: AliExpress power saddle lookalike
Pedals: AliExpress Lollipop pedals
Weight: 8.2+Kg there about
The building of the bike was not too difficult, just gotta do research and watch youtube for bike building process, tips and tricks, note the torque settings of the various components. The most tedious of all would be the internal routing. I routed the cables through the handlebars first, followed by the rest of the routing through the frame. Used an old brake wire to help with the guiding of cables through the respective cable holes.
The FD cable stop was some what tricky, I had to file off the edges to get the cable to fit in to the hole. There is a small bracket to secure the FD cable stop into, it is rather flimsy and mine broke off. I had to fit it back into the frame from the bottom bracket hole, and screw the cable stop into the bracket. (sorry i didnt have pictures to explain it better).
Another problem I had was that the headset compression ring not being able to sit squarely into the bearing, I had to squeeze the compression ring inwards a little (with a lil force) for it to sit properly into the bearing. Otherwise there would be large gap between the headset spacer and frame.
Otherwise, rest of the installation was rather smooth!
This is my first full carbon bike with deep wheels, so I cant exactly do any comparison. In general the bike rides really well, with much better handling, and maintains speed better. Overall very happy with the whole build!