Dolan Pre Cursa Track build

I've been riding at Herne Hill Velodrome for just over a year now and love it, and of course with the Pringle opening up basically on my door step I don't see my self doing less track any time soon.

Initially I was looking for maybe a second hand Giant Omnium or Langster Pro, but nothing was coming up in a large..

The forums Roboto pointed me in the direction of a Pre Cursa in my size (58) and as it gets the mdcc_tester stamp of approval it's good enough for me.

A lot of PC's are ridden with shorter stem than buyer thought, because the reach is longer than anticipated (the 75 degree seat tube fools some). By the way, make sure to visit the Pre Cursa thread for inpiration or leisure :]

Here's a list of the parts I have so far...

I bought some 3T forks from here on the forum as I wanted something I put put a front break on. Although this bike is just for track I've got to cycle the 40 minutes down to Herne Hill....

Next up was the headset, Lunar cycles in Kentish Town recommended a Cane Creek Head set which they installed for me.
Although I'm happy wacking a crown racer on with a copper tube and a hammer I didnt think that was such a good idea with a carbon fork...

Most of the other parts I had from other builds so I only had to make decisions about a back wheel and cranks.

With a V sprint from Varno going cheap I had my rear wheel sorted so the only major decision was cranks.

The choice was going to be between Sugino 75s and Omniums.
With Condor doing the omniums which includes a BB at almost the same price as you see the Sugino 75s going for second hand I went for the Omniums.

Finally crank lengh, as I'm 6.1 I really considered getting 170s but as I might want to take it onto the Pringle one day I went with the 165s.

Thanks Thuekr will do.

The stem is current a 100mm Deda Zero 1 road stem flipped up.

The bars are Deda pista so there's a decent drop on them.

Flip that stem back round the right way!

Looks like a good start. If you're wanting to ride it at Stratford I'd suggest thinking about getting a set of wheels specifically for there as indoor velodromes don't particularly like dirty outdoor wheels coming in and fucking up the floor boards.

^right about the floor boards, but not so sure about the advice on flipping the stem making you faster, maybe in some disciplines, maybe not.

Long term I'm going to get wheels just for the track.These will become the ones I ride down on.
Was thinking Mavic Ellipse as they are pretty highly regarded or costing an h+sons novatec build.
Any other recommendations?

I'm getting some Chinese carbon tubs built up for my indoor/race wheels. Depends what your budget is.

Thuekr, I never said flipping the stem would make him faster. :)

Carbon tubs sound nice, has it been confirmed that Pringle is tubs only?
My concern would be crashing on them and having to buy new ones, don't ride what you can't afford to crash eh? :-)

Omnium cranks went on a treat, really simple to install, and I got to listen to this chap on the Sram youtube channel. Americans surely do have great accents.

I think the chain line is larger than the 41 quoted but I'm failing at currently acurately measuring with my tape measure..

Finally I'd pretty glad I didn't go with longer crank arms, there's only about 3mm clearance..

Looks like a nice build. What's the chainring/spider clearance with the Omniums? Did you get the bb shell faced before fitting the bottom bracket? Had to remove a fair bit of material from my Pre Cursa to get it right.

There's about 2-3 mm clearance from the chainring to the chainstay. I bought the frame from JT22 who said he had a Phil Wood BB in beforehand, so I recon the BB shell was in pretty good shape.
That being said I had to give the threads a good clean and having looked at the spin properly and there does seen to be maybe 1 mm max of lateral movement in the chainring. Is this just a question of tightening the cups more?
Could this be improved by giving the BB another clean?

Movement on the chainring or pedal arm?

Chainring, pedal arm is tight as..

Could just be the bolts need tightening properly.

If pedal arm is tight, it's not BB related, must be the chainring bolts - are they the same ones that was supplied with the set?

Yeah it's the stock chain ring. I hadn't thought of tightening the bolts, i'll give it a go and see if it improves..

So I have built it up with what I have so far.
The reach is definately too long so I'm going to change to a straight seat post and shorter stem next..

Having broken the reach down into the proper two parts of saddle position first and bar position second I have achieved a good knee to pedal position with the current seat post. I swapped the stem down to an 80 which has sorted the reach out.
The new deda stem also looks better, continuing the matt black finish of the Dolan.

So a few months later, and the saddle, post and stem and wheels have all changed.
The deep silver rim has been replaced with a mavic sport pro onto a hope hub for traning purposes and for indoor I have added the zipps that you see in this latest picture.

so dope.

Nice build, just curious how tall are you I'm trying to decide between a 60 and 58 I've got long legs short torso so might have to go on top tube length

Short torso - size down.

That's what I was thinking--cheers

I'm six 1. The angle of the seat tube really extends the top tube so as you can see I have a short stem. Generally with dolan's the advice is to size down..