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@MechaMorgan
OK, so after all the shit chat about disc brakes in the Cannondale thread, I saw a smal Giant TCX turn up cheap locally, and thought I'd jump on it. There's loads of lovely bridleways and fire tracks near me, so I'm going to use it as a summer canal cruiser and a cross racin', winter training bike. Being me, however, I'm also going to make it look awful, and it's riddled with problems from the off. Fucking brilliant!
Apart from popping a Romin on and some spare SPD pedals, and generally getting the fit sorted, I haven't done much apart from ride it about. It fits quite nicely and it's good fun - I can keep pace with people on club runs, and set a PR up Brassknocker too which is slightly worrying. It weighs 10.4kg, which is going to have to change...
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The bike came with a a single Hope 38t attached to a 6700 crank, which is pretty grim looking. I picked up a 5800 50/34 crank from our boy @Sumo, and I've got the front derailleur knocking about too, so first thing to do will be to fit that. I'm not sure if I'll need a new chain, but I expect that problem will make itself known fairly quickly if I do.
The brakes, despite being 160mm Spyres, are only ok at slowing me down and not brilliant at stopping. Despite my hearing this being a cross bike characteristic I'm not thrilled, so will be recabling them and maybe switching the pads out in the near future. At risk of summoning Scoble, what's a good, cheap, compressionless cable for discs? They also rub like a mother!
Apart from that and maybe sorting the fit, I'm not planning to fuck about too much more with the components right now. The bars are fine, the stem is what it is, and the seatpost is proprietary. The paint, on the other hand...
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My current thinking is to strip the frame, polish it, and then get someone to spray on a fade. After seeing @Hulsroy's latest frame, I'm quite tempted by getting Armourtex to put on a lick of Iridescent Black Fire, which would hopefully make the frame look slightly heat tempered towards the front / headtube. The forks will be stripped and rattle canned matte black, and I'm tempted to replace them with something like a Whiskey No. 7 to lose a bit of weight.
I'm pretty open to other ideas however - I was thinking about light primer grey with reflective / holographic finish Giant decals.
After that, and hopefully a couple of cross races, I'm thinking about SRAM 1X11 Hydro and some Far East carbon wheels in the long term 🤔 🤔 🤔
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For now - opinions on build, spec, paint appreciated. Are 35c Rocket Rons any good? Should 160mm discs feel pretty fucking grippy or no? Where does one ride cross around Bath / Bristol? How can I lose weight while increasing goodness? WHAT TYRE PRESSURES DO I RUN?????
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