Genesis Equilibrium Disc, new/old commuter build

Always fancied the original 2014 Equilibrium Disc with the steel fork - so when a pretty much mint one popped up recently I took the plunge, build plan was going to be as cheap as possible to get rolling but I decided to slow down & do it right (ish) first time instead of constantly changing parts.

Will be used in the West of Scotland year round so frame internals got a blast with some spray wax stuff from Toolstation for £3.50, nozzle is compatible with the straws from WD40 etc so you can get it right into the breather holes, will be better than nothing at least - balls to paying £20 for framesaver!

A mate sorted me out with some old (to him, not me...) Aksiums with 140mm rotors so they'll do nicely on the wheel front, picked up some Thomson bits & had some Deda RHM02 bars spare so they're going on too - would have preferred a polished black finish but I wont lose sleep over it. I probably will though.

Next addition will be a pair of Spyre SLC, because shiny, once i've put them back together - they all tend to come pretty dry from the factory so it's worth an hour of fannying about to strip & grease them up good every now & again as once the tiny thrust bearing race starts to rust up it's a pain to get smooth again - the 3 bearings on the cam assembly are apparently 3mm so these can be replaced if need be but dunno how easy the other one would be to replace...

I should really take my spyres apart, clean and regrease but I can never be bothered and I'm always using that bike. A Sunday afternoon job maybe.

Looks great. Fair play stripping the brakes.. I have a 2015 equilibrium disc too.. great bikes

What drivetrain you planning to run?

Cheers - got 5800 gears & shifters with a Praxis chainset, test fitted everything at the weekend & should all work out quite nicely I think - would have had it finished but ran into a few niggles...

Had ordered the only 5800 front mech adapter I could see to fit the 28.6 seat tube but when it arrived it was for a 31.8 mech & mine is 34.9... found a 34.9>31.8 adapter in a box of spares which was pretty chunky so I tried it with the extra reducer to see how it felt, seems fine so on it went - not the prettiest solution but if it works i'll overlook it for the sake of getting it on the road.

The matt finish bars were annoying me before I even started putting it together so I unearthed some polished finish Deda rhm01 from the loft from an old build & set about taking the scratched logos off with acetone - came up pretty fresh looking so on those went too.

The spoke clearance with the Spyres / 140mm centrelock rotors was a bit iffy - the actuation arm on the brakes was hitting the spokes with the caliper centred over the disc & the inner pad was rubbing if I moved the caliper out enough to clear the spokes - so quick search online & a rummage in the magic spares box unearthed what looked like a couple of old freehub (possibly) spacers, the hard plastic type - one around 1.5mm and the other probably about 0.5mm (absolutely no idea where / what they came from) they slipped over perfectly with a bit of persuasion, the bigger one centred the caliper perfectly over the disc but the lockring was catching the fork leg very slightly (plus i didn't really want anything that would push the rotor too far across the splines either...) so I went for the slimmer one & wound the outboard pad across slightly to make the pad gap even. Tightened everything up & all seems well - another look online suggests Bontrager make a 1mm spacer for this very purpose, might pick one up in future but for now this seems like a solution.

This is with no spacers involved - there's really not much of a gap between the lockring & the fork, although this shitty phone-camera angle makes it look worse than it is

Slow progress - but chipping away at it, pretty pleased so far but the fork curve combined with the weird angle of the 140mm front rotor mount makes it look like the front end has melted, will see how the 140mm rotor is - a 160mm might give me slightly better braking, more clearance and less ugly, but we'll see how it pans out...