cfkb's garage: mostly steel (ft. surly, paul donohue, rourke)

A good few months off my bike due to a series of unfortunate life events. With that behind me, I'm kick-starting my re-entry to cycling with a silly project: weightweening the steel roadie, aka throwing-carbon-parts-on-steel-bike.

As pointless as it sounds, my objective is to have a winter / 2nd / bad-weather bike which performs "not too bad" compared to the venge, but also:

• upgrading to 11s so the road bikes can now share trainer / cassette
  
• clearance for clip-on mudguards, which venge doesn't
  
  

I toy with the idea of buying a disc brake bike, but I realise (1) I have absolutely no clue what the following words mean: post/flat mount, mechanical/hydraulic, bleeding in; (2) internal cabling seems a nightmare, but external cabling is ugly; and (3) cost.

So I turned my eyes back to the 1st road bike I owned, which has been a straightly turbo bike for the past year.

A look at its current state:

Groupset

• ultegra 6700 cranksets, FD, levers, 12-30 cassette
  
• ultegra 6600 brakes, RD
  
  

Finishing

• generic quill stem 80mm
  
• nitto m109aa bar 400mm
  
• shimano 600 aero seatpost
  
• Selle Italia Flite Flow saddle
  
• generic alloy bottle cage
  
  

Wheels

• 10s mavic helium
  
  

All the above will go in the coming month, shoot me a message if interested