Hartley Cycles endurance road bike

Ending up going against everyone's advice, going for hope skewers but still not sure on bar tape. May just go with cinelli as it's what I know, lizardskinz/fizik is kinda tempting though.

hope skewers

Well I guess they are pretty

Will be fine for a dabbler surely.

I have Hope skewers on a couple of bikes. They aren't the company's finest hour, let's say. The adjustment point for good bite while still being able to open and close them alright is pretty narrow.

Go thru axle and hydraulic discs. Proper silent, no disc rubbing

I got rid of my Hope QR's as they couldn't keep the wheel in place reliably. YMMV.

If you really don't want Shimano, then Salsa QRs work well.

Old campag qrs are always a nice touch.

Cool project, I like a custom frame that's a bit special/weird rather than just an otp frame with slightly tweaked measurements.

I have bowed to the forum hivemind and gotten some XT skewers (I like shiny things and the shimano ones were harder to find cheap than other shinier ones). Salsa are annoying cause they're in between UK distributors at the moment.
I trust your collective experience and my shimano QRs on my cross check have never disappointed.

Also re: hydro and thru-axle I've bought everything for this already so not looking to go down that path! Am running full housing on brakes so that I can go hydro in future if I want, and thru axle is new and different and thus scares me.

this forum 😂 design a custom bike where every single possible thing can be changed or modified and you get a page of discussion about QR skewers. god alive.

To be fair I'd already decided on everything else ;) but also #marginalgains

Looks good; Velo Orange do some shiny internal cam skewers which work well.

Who fitted you for the bike? Just wondering why you're going with a super slack seat tube and an inline post?

Also; I'd suggest anything else over those Velocity rims, unless they've sorted their build quality.

Alas I've now ordered some shimano ones, I'm sure they'll be grand!

The fit was by La Beau Velo, but the slack ST was not their idea, I remember me and Caren having a conversation about it and I don't remember exactly why but it was partly cause I had the inline post already, and due to some other stuff I've forgotten, but definitely convinced me at the time.

I've heard good things about the A23s but we'll find out soon enough.

Yeh; Shimano skewers are the best!

I usually think bikes look better with a steeper seat tube and an layback post. Gives a bit more tyre clearance aswell. There are some builders who seem to build with an inline post in mind; I think Speedvagen and Rob English.

Unless you've got them already, I'd be tempted to swap the A23s for Archetypes. I had issues with my sets of A23s, although this was a few years ago so perhaps they've sorted them now.....

So it was partly cause my legs are so long and torso so short it makes the bike look a bit less squashed with a slacker ST. Perspective I've heard of inline is with a custom frame, why not make it work with an inline?

I already have the A23S so we'll see. I hope theyre okay, I got them as they're lighter and cheaper than archetypes. If they suck I might go to stans rims (or anything I can use the same spokes on).

Now that you've managed to sort out the skewers, everything else will just fall into place :-)

CRISIS AVOIDED

Heh, yeh, I'm in a similar boat. Long legs (a tiny bit longer than yours) although I am 5cm taller.

The issue I had with the A23s was spokes pulling through the spoke bed; apparently a bit of a problem with them (or at least certain batches perhaps). My experience of Stans is poor; Archetypes (or maybe those Pacenti's) are really solid and barely any heavier.

Few update shots, wheels built, tubes are being mitred as we speak and headset arrived. The bike should be finished next week, and is then heading off to be shown at the Berlin Fahrradschau

Bike's in the spray booth today! Exciting. Few pics of the build process:

Making some nice shapes on the tubes.

Guide for the internally routed dynamo cabling going in

Rear wheel in for some alignment checking n stuff (I guess, I don't know how you build a frame)

In the spray booth! The mount at the top of the right seatstay is for a son rear dynamo light.

All from the Hartley Cycles instagram.

Any progress?

The external sleeve/seat cluster is really nice.

Yes! The bike is done and now back from Berlin, I am taking it for its first ride tomorrow (lots of hills in Kent). No full bike pictures yet (proper photos being done on Thursday night), but some close ups from instagram:

Paint is sparkly black fading to plain back with part of the stainless polished to a mirror finish and lil bits of orange.

Very, very excited to ride it. Will inevitably take a BAAW shot tomorrow but proper pics will be up in this thread when Caren sends me them.
Frame is also only 1900g (I think that's what Caren said) so I'm excited to see how much the whole shebang weighs (though that hasn't really been a priority).