Equilibrium winter bike

First project thread on this forum so excited to document the process of building my second bike.

I've started road cycling three years ago with my housemate at the time and bought a second hand Caad8 off the Bay to be able to join him on ride. Since then, I've just Chevalier in Kingston and then Brixton Cycles who I now ride with.

The first bike I build was a Bowman Palace with 105 and Deda finishing kit.

The plan is to keep the Caad8 to commute to work, the Bowman for the summer and build a nice winter bike to help make those winter miles that much nicer.

I've heard really good things of this frame and wanted to try steel for this build and found a good deal at £289.

Setup idea:

• Genesis Equilibrium (Non-disc)
  
• 105 shifters / read derailleur
  
• 105 crankset (50-34)
  
• Shimano R451 breaks
  
• Ultegra BB
  
• H Plus Son on Hope Mono RS (Already built by Seabass)
  
• FSA Headset
  
• Kalloy Uno or Deda Zero 100 stem
  
• Deda Zero 100 bars
  
• Brooks C15 saddle
  
• BigXtop saddleroll
  
• King still bottle cages
  
• Seatpost?
  
  

Wish me luck and any ideas/comments fire away! :)

Check out the Condor Strada finishing kit. In the black friday sale they were dead cheap and look really tidy. I've just added the stem to my titanium winter bike and it looks great. Even at non-black-friday prices they are good value when compared to Deda etc.
good luck with the build, imho there's nothing as satisfying as building your own transport...

This popped into my head :) will it sycthe through traffic like this fella goes through bad guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4weEXyoXZKs

Will make sure to have a look!

Just received and unpacked the frame yesterday and it is gorgeous. The paintjob is just insane.

NON DISC ON WINTER BKE??! Not very on trend..

Lovley looking frame :)

Thanks! Haha I know, no discs ... But the colour got me and I have a pair of H Plus Son on Hope hubs that I wanted to put on this :)

Matte black PDW mudguards received! Tried to fit the headset last night but was struggling to fit it in, it doesn't seem to easily go into the headtube. Anyone had this sort of experience before?

It's a FSA Orbit DL / No.1 and came with the bike so I'm assuming it should be fine.

I think I also received a sample of paint with the box so might try to get someone to pain the stem at some point for bling points

The headset is pressfit so doesn't just pop in like the name implies. Need a headset press tool.
Also, the paint sample is touch up paint for any scratches.

Thanks for this! I was having a chat with a mate who also suggested this about the headset so will pop into the LBS and get it done.

Do you think the paint sample would be enough to get someone to paint a stem with it or replicate it?

Cool, any lbs should be able to sort you out. I built up an equilibrium and it was the single job I didn't have the tools for myself.

Not sure on the paint. You could probably try emailing genesis for a ral code or something? Maybe even see if they have more bottles of touch up paint they can provide. Couldn't comment on whether one bottle was enough though, I've only ever painted walls.

Also, super important.
The frame set I got came with the barrel adjusters not greased.
They seized in 3 months and I had to get them drilled out (genesis supplied replacement adjusters but that's all). I didn't check if they were greased as they come fitted. Get them greased before you build it up.

Great stuff, thanks for both messages and that tip on the barrel adjusters, will make sure to grease it with love.

And yeah, will take the frame to Brixton Cycles to get the headset fitted. I think I only need to buy a simple wrench to do the bottom bracket so will do that so I can replace it myself in the future.

There is a lot of DIY methods for pressing your headset in, so you might google that as well. Use some grease, put the cups in a freezer and you can do the job at home as well.

Ha, I think I'll leave it to the shop to do considering I can and will do most of the rest apart from cutting the steerer.

Thanks for the suggestion though.

Looking forward to see this build up.

It's starting to look a lot more like a bike now, got the guys at Bon Velo down the road to install the headset and popped the stem and wheels on. Plenty of clearance for mudguards with 25s on and might even be able to squeeze in 28s with the PDW.

Next week I'll get most of the rest of the build so should be there soon hopefully. I've stripped some of the parts from the summer bike as it's not going to be used for a while a saves me money before I have to buy both or decide I want something longer/different for any of the components transferred.

Apologies for the poor light on pics, we'll take them in the daylight next time.

I've made some further progress on the build. Been a bit lazy getting all the parts together and dragging them home from the office. However, this rainy weekend gave me some more time to build it and this is where I'm at now:

I've got the bar tape and chain so just need to get the chain installed, steerer cut etc ... and we should be fine.

One problem I'm having though is that there's an imperfection in the frame on the second little metal bit in which the rear brake cable runs. There's a little excess of material in there that prevents the cable from running smoothly. So I've bought a mini hack saw and will try to saw it off tomorrow to see if I can fix this.

Really pleased with it so far! My only concerned will be that I will struggle to get it out in shit conditions as it's such a nice looking bike!

Managed to saw off the little bit of metal that was preventing the cable to move nicely. Made a couple of small scratches under the top tube near seat post but it was a very small space and a bit awkward to work on and you can't see those unless you turn the bike over and look closely so overall I'm okay with it.

Should be able to finish this off this weekend with chain installation, gear indexing and bar tape etc ... First club ride on Sunday on it if I'm productive tomorrow!

My winter bike is pretty much identical to this. Just a different paint job and fenders.

I'm able to run conti 4season 28mm tyres with SKS blumels with plenty of clearance so gunk doesn't build up. Hopefully, you can fit 28s too. Made winter riding so much nicer for me after having 23s before!

Good to hear you're happy with yours! I'm still thinking of adding a frame pump on top of this to help with cold winter puncture repairs.

I've fitted 25s Conti GP4000s on it and am happy with that for now. I don't think I'd be able to fit 28 with full guards

The Blumels are full guards and fit the 28s fine, but I'm not sure if the PDW guards have the same clearance.

Frame pump would be good, a silca one would look nice on that frame ;)

Ha, if I win some sort of lottery maybe, otherwise it will be a simple Zefal HPX