Fairlight Strael with matching fork in RAL7021

Been following the builds on here for sometime and thought I would post my own build of a Fairlight Strael. My only reservation was the fork was not painted to match and was black. I asked if they could paint the fork to match but alas that was not an option. I decided to order the Strael in deep grey (RAL7021) in the tall option (bad back) and have the fork painted elsewhere. So frame was ordered in Aug 2018 and finally arrived in Jan 2019. The fork was dropped off with Cheshirecycles and 6 weeks later it came back painted to match the frame. It looked great and a perfect match.

So onto the build.

I built some wheels with 350 hubs, Kinlin XR rims, ACI spokes. All was going well until I mounted the rear wheel. It was clear the wheel was not centred so I assumed dish was out but this was not the case as I checked this by flipping the wheel.

An email to Fairlight and they arranged to have the frame picked up the next day and sent me a new one a few days later.

I wanted a 48/33 chainset and found a cheap one at Spa Cycles. When it arrived it looked like it is made from a triple chainset with the back filed down a bit. But no problem as it’s sold as a double so will work fine. I also ordered the recommended 110mm square taper BB.

I fitted the BB and the rest of the build went quite smoothly until I started adjusting the front derailuer. The derailuer couldn’t go out far enough because the chain line of the “triple” was about 46mm and not the usual 43.5mm of a double. So no problem, I ordered a new Square taper 107mm BB. This was fitted but now the back of the chainset was binding on the BB shell so out with the file to shave a few more mm off the back of the chainset and all was good.

Finished the build and took it for a spin. It is really nice and smooth on 32mm tubeless tyres and I’m very happy with the matched fork. Interestingly Fairlight have just started offering a matched fork for the new orange frame.

Nice one! looks cool. fairlights are nice. Intersting that the rear end wasnt straight, but good that they sorted it

Haha, give us a better image!

Haha, yes photos are too small.
What’s the best way to import photos taken on iPhone to maximise photos in this forum