Current Projects chat and miscellany

Dibs frame! Lovely.

Nice! How's it to ride? I always ask myself how stiff those frames are

Good luck. There are a few scuff on the bars now and some burrs on the stem from when for some reason the stem spontaneously tightened and became stuff, despite it being free just a second before. Much annoyance.

did you use some reverse pliers when you did yours?

If only!

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I never appreciated the beauty of the spoke to rim transition before seeing them drawn like this. Now I want a trispoke.

beauty of the spoke to rim transition

My spoke to rim transition is shit, I'll probably spend a whole evening next week trying to make it blend like a real one. For some reason which I don't yet understand, it won't even do a small radius fillet at the moment.

Though you can see the join where Hed glued a Jet9 fairing to a Hed3 to make the H3D, so maybe I'm just being too fussy :)

Exactly, that's why I looked up a real one to see what it should look like.

I think it can be done properly with swept surfaces. But I've spent 60% of the last couple months in Siemens NX' freeform toolbox, so might be a case of "if all you have got is a hammer"... I'll have a go on the train tomorrow, maybe I can save you from an evening of agony.

Matching the fiber direction was the least they could have done.

maybe I can save you from an evening of agony

If I'm playing with CAD, it's a displacement activity when I should be having an evening of agony on the rollers.

Yes, a sweep (or maybe a loft) would fix it, but it's plenty good enough for the purposes as it is, I'm just modelling up a bike so that I have something to draw lines on when the position regs argument kicks off again :)

What single speed brake lever best matches a Shimano STI lever with regard to hood shape?
I like the look of these, however I'm worried they won't feel as nice as a Shimano STI lever

I'm worried they won't feel as nice as a Shimano STI lever

They don't, they're very old fashioned and nowhere near a modern STI/Ergo/Dubtap for comfort on the hoods. SRAM S500 are nice

and they won't, just get some (used) cheap sti levers and remove the shifters ;) it's the only way to get the feel you need. Maybe some Dura Ace 7970 or Ultegra 6770 levers? They go quite cheap and won't have the shift lever build into the brake lever ..

@mdcc_tester said Vision cranks would be stiffer than DA so I threw my money at some.

Luckily, the 30mm spindle is stiff, and a 52t chainring clears the chainring. And I like all black everything (apart from the seatpost clamp, I lost a black one en route to Berlin last year and only silver replacements are available).

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If you're matching a left to a right, then just get a matching left - butchery optional.

No, literally just wormed it. Had two go's where it started to look impossible. Then somehow on the third go it just came loose about the final bend (the tight one between the tops and drops). Can't remember whether the slot was on the inside or the outside of the curve.

Did attempt to lever it open a bit with an Allen key which worked a bit if i were to get it stuck, but I didn't seem to use it for fitting it round the bend.

I like your personalised wheels

@mdcc_tester said Vision cranks would be stiffer than DA so I threw my money at some.

Has anyone noticed flex from cranks and/or bottom bracket area ? I couldn't tell the difference between most systems to be honest (Including track standing starts, climbing out the saddle etc). Notice stiffness in shoes far more.

I switched about a year ago from (cheap) Mega Exo (24mm axle) FSA crankset to a Praxis Works Zayante Turn M30 (30mm axle). This made such a big difference, even surprised me. The bikes feels so much more direct now.

This was on a Specialized Awol, which has huge flexing chainstays and other things that make it comfy

I cannot really tell the difference between the cranks in terms of flex, but I could see the physical evidence of the flex in terms of marks on the chainstay.

Has anyone noticed flex from cranks and/or bottom bracket area ?

Yes, but I'm pretty sure it's a thing you can notice but not measure (in terms of actual useful output - obviously it's easy to measure crank deflection). When I switched from square taper to UltraTorque (all else equal), the difference in feel was striking, but the difference in performance was immeasurably small.

I looked up a real one to see what it should look like

I got it to look more like a real one, but I still have trouble making look how I want it to look :)

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What program are you using again? Should be fairly simple in SolidWorks. The renders do look quite nice. How long do they take to make?

Also thinking about this, the left alfine di2 drop lever is one alternative.
But not sure whether di2 hood shape differs much from the mechanical shifters.