Sell my Crabon, build a steel road bike.

NPFF refers to citing an NPF when an NPF is not an F and often not an NP.

By the way, you can click on either "in reply to" or the comment number to regain context.

Fittingly, that comment ^, appeared on a new page, in my view of the forum with my ignore list and display settings.

Your mileage may vary.

Stem will be a silver Deda Murex 100mm, holding silver Deda compact drops. I have blue hex bar tape on the way. I may hate the tape, we will see.

What are these silver Deda compact drops you speak of? I'm trying to find some relatively cheap (ie not Nitto) silver compact 26mm drops too. It seems like the Piega bar is ideal but it's black.

an hour of sanding and polishing and it becomes shiny....

I'm trying to find some relatively cheap (ie not Nitto) silver compact 26mm drops too.

Soma Highway 1?

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/handlebars/380-soma-highway-1-drop-bars-260mm-clamp-silver/

50 quid though.

https://www.evanscycles.com/deda-speciale-26mm-silver-road-handlebar-EV213236

Cheap as chips.

I'm trying to find some relatively cheap (ie not Nitto) silver compact 26mm drops too.

https://www.evanscycles.com/deda-special­e-26mm-silver-road-handlebar-EV213236

Cheap as chips.

I have these bars, they are not compact:

The picture is quite misleading when it comes to the shape.

Deda Piega is the compact one

There's the Dajia/Velo Orange compact bar which comes in silver, but TBH it's only about 10eur cheaper shipped than the Nitto M106 if you shop around and don't get hit with customs fees (there's some cheap ones on ebay).

My bad.

Shallow drop bars.

Mehcakes.

I did this, is fine. Advice: don't do the whole bars, you will cover them with tape

Best laid plans of mice and men...

Today I picked up the Scirocco wheels. Not tubeless, not built by me. But ... eighty quid. With lush old Campag QR skewers.

I have also just paid for a seven year old Athena groupset. The 2010 one with ultratorque and ultrashift. Carbon levers and cranks. Silver bits.

Hopefully about to win a Campag aero seatpost on t'bay.

It's coming together.

Let me know if that seatpost fails to materialise. *taps nose

now you say!

I missed the bidding thing. Soz. I think the one on my Mercian may no long worker for me with my new back. Drop us a PM if things go South. This seatpost has LFGSS provenance and there are very few people who I would let it go to.

Progress has been made.

I pressed in a headset. Yay for me. Fitted the fork and stem.

I installed bottom bracket and crank set.

Wheels are in with the cassette mounted, just waiting for the lock ring tool.

Rear mech is attached.

Front brake is attached.

Thin tubing has been successfully routed through the top tube for guiding the brake cable.

I'm still waiting on seatpost, handlebars and a load of fiddly little things: correct length recessed nut, knock off campag 11s chain tool, down tube shifter boss cable guides, seat tube clamp bolt, valve caps that aren't fucking yellow, front mech clamp and necessary shim.

Noticed that there is a chain hanger peg braze-on on the DS seat stay. Took me a while to figure out what it was.

Cool.

Aesthetic decision:

The bike is an 80s neo retro. The eighties did things in a uniquely ugly way. I am trying to decide how far to go with this.

Definitely: Blue valve caps. Blue stripe on black tyres. Blue stripe on black Arione saddle.

Definitely not: Blue cable outers.

Undecided: blue bar tape or not?

I thought I had decided and ordered some blue hex tape which is nice. But it is blue. Blue bar tape. Can I ever get away with blue bar tape? But .... on the other hand ... Eighties!

Help.

No blue stuff. Are you flipping mad?

No valve caps.

White saddle and tape. Tanwall tires, or black but never blue. No valve caps

Options -
White Rolls or Turbo saddle with white bar tape.

Black Rolls or Turbo saddle with black bar tape.

No Valve caps.

Blue benotto tape would be good, but it's horrible to ride with.

But if you put blue tyres and valve caps on you will be hunted down and tortured to death, a slow, lingering, horrifying, painful death.

The Cinelli Caleido might look nice.

Or look out for some blue Pelten Shade bar tape from eBay.

The tyres are a done deal. Sorry.

Haters gonna etc.