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  • With time on my hands and a pretty much finished track bike that will not be going anywhere near a track for some time i've turned my attention to the road bike. Now that the Capo has Alpina's the Premium+ forks have been fitted to the C9 as originally intended. They ride better, are significantly lighter and have better clearances so a worthwhile forum sourced upgrade. I also think they look pretty good on there but i'm sure we can all agree the new bartape trial has not gone well.

    Speaking of forum finds an Ultegra R8000 FD and 6800 RD popped up cheap and local so i bagged these whilst ticking my daily exercise allowance and adhering to strict social distancing regs. Whilst checking out compatibility (never had 5800/6800 issues) it turns out the new gen 11 speed has different front ring spacing which might explain why i couldn't get the 5800 mech that well setup (or...). To say i'm impressed with the new R8000 front mech would be an understatement. I now have silky shifting, much better cable management, on mech cable tensioner (need to remove my inline jobby) and a lot more tyre clearance. Not bad for a tenner. Rear mech is slightly underwhelming by comparison, it feels the same as the 105 but matches the colour of the FD and says Ultegra so is already better. Slightly regretting not forking out for R8000 cranks but as i wanted 165's the R7000 were from memory about half the price. If anyone wants some tidy 5800 mech's i'll do both for £15 collected and can included 34.9 clamp.

    Undecided on bars atm. I've been doing laps of CP and fountain drive with a lot of climbing and descending and found that whilst i really like the flat section on the Neoclassics they're not particularly comfortable for me in the hooks if i'm trying to shift or brake. Today i tried out Deda RHM's and although i missed the flat section of the Neoclassic bar on climbs and flat roads i felt more comfortable in the drops descending. I'm not unconvinced i don't need a longer stem to get more comfortable in the drops on either bars so i'll try that next but at least for now i've found some tape i quite like.

    Bars need rotating down.

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