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

1 month review of the roller. It got really sluggish. My diagnosis:

• under-gearing (48:20, which is a terrible ratio to begin with). I struggle to put down power before spinning out, and therefore never get the momentum I used to have
  
• reach too short. moving from bullhorns to flatbar makes out of saddle pedalling very awkward
  
• aero (lol i know) going into headwind, I could hear my flaps acting against me. How much aero drag is that I don't know, but mental drag is def there
  
  

So in short, longer stem, setback seatpost, 19t cog. (flap is a necessary evil... or is there such a thing as aero flap?). Update coming soon...

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In other news, I have caught the aero bug...

I prefer the Donohue, but you've done a nice build on the roller

Surly looks classy!

That surly is an attractive bike.

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

No WW-build comes without actual weights. Components missing weights are still in the mail

Groupset:

• DA 9000 levers (373g), RD (161g), FD (66g)
  
• DA 9100 12-25 cassette (191g) / ultegra 8000 11-30 (269g)
  
• sram red aerolink brakes (259g)
  
• FSA SL-K light ABS crankset 52-36 (595g + 82g bb)
  
  

Finishing:

• kalloy uno stem (90g)
  
• quill stem adapter (171g)
  
• FSA force compact bar (210g) / USE Summit bar (190g)
  
• elita one seatpost (160g) / USE evo91 seatpost (160g)
  
• s-works romin (124g)
  
• zefal l2 cage (17g)
  
  

Wheelset:

• archetypes laced to bitex (F 716g + R 882g). Not WW-graded but I have them lying around. These were on the venge and has been superceded by some LB wheels.
  
  

A few comments:

• I would have loved a sram red 22 group, but patience has run out and used DA9000 stuff are relatively easy to obtain (bar £)
  
• the FSA crankset seems to be an unpopular choice online. I chose it in the end due to (1) limited choice for <=170mm crank length (2) weight <600g and (3) cost.
  
• the spare USE kit (bar + post) is an impulse buy when I discovered the USE outlet site, only after I purchased the FSA bars and elita one post.
  
• my least favourite part is definitely the quill adapter. In the process of sourcing a used 1" columbus minimal fork
  
• The above would shave a grand total of ~1kg off a 9kg bike.
  
  

The said LB wheels mentioned above, laced to bitex hubs. These are my 1st and only carbon rims to date. Impressions:

• they stopped as well as the archetypes in dry condition (with the LB pads); have not tried riding in wet and would like to avoid regardless
  
• they sing
  
  

Progress of the past week: bike stripped, cleaned & rebuilt.

Farewell shoot with the 6700 groupo

Stripped

Rebuilt with DA9000 goodies. Weight drops from 9.3kg to 8.3kg, and more to be saved with a carbon fork / cockpit!

Things that didn't go as planned:

Quill stem adapter - it looked completely out of place, there isn't enough head tube for it to be slammed. I took it off immediately after it went on. This has been an issue before when I was sourcing quill stem that could work with the <9cm head tube here. This means I couldn't use OS bars as I had intended.

Though not all is lost. The nitto m109aa is a lovely shape. There are worse bars to be stuck with.

So the carbon bars will have to wait while I source a threadless fork. And speaking of handlebars, the USE summit bars have its hood position too low for my liking. A shame as I like the integrated cable guide, and it's 20g lighter than the FSA.

USE summit

FSA k-force light

Another pain point has been the sram aerolink brakes - they just refuse to center. Less of a problem for the rear, but a major problem for the front where a 9cm headtube means unavoidable cable bend. I have already routed the brake cables in the EU/US way such that it gives the front brake cable a bit more space, but still it is causing too much push/pull for the brakes to center. So here I am, living the "I-told-you-so" moment, when the one (of the very few) agreement of the internet is to stick with shimano DA calipers.

With that said, I'm now looking for 7900/ 9000 brake calipers if anyone is looking to offload. 9100 for whatever reason seems to warrant a much higher price, yet I don't see how it performs any differently.

The riding experience so far:

FSA cranks. Comparing it with the older 6750 cranks, the FSA (with a 30mm spindle) is much stiffer, very similar to the 9000 cranks (but cheaper!).

DA 9000 mini group. Moving up a cassette has become effortless, crisp and quick. Also takes in a 30T no problem. The experience is pretty damn close to di2, which is quite a standard to match. Lever throw has been much reduced (probably unfair comparison with 6700), and only needs a very light touch to shift. Shifting down however is less amazing when there were a few occasions where the shifting lever stud didn't catch the shifting barrel stud. Never had this problem with the 6700. The front isn't quite as good as the 9000 cranks on the venge with di2 though, but I blame that on the FSA chainring rather than the FD. There has been (very) slight chain rub on the outermost position (big ring, small sprocket) which I could not get rid of. Perhaps due to the fact that these are marketed as 10s chainrings.

Finishing kit. I'm quite happy with the more traditional shape of the Romin. Lately I have been going on 100km+ rides with the Power and experienced some discomfort towards the end of the ride. Romin is both cheaper and lighter, so win-win if this works out. However the Romin rails are positioned pretty far back, and I might switch to an in-line post as I dislike the look of slammed forward saddle.

Speaking of seatpost, the elita one post is nice for its price. Nice finishing, and after shortening it by 15cm it yields a 110g ultra light post (I don't need much post as you can see). However the 2 bolt mechanism is not as well engineered as something like a thomson. There seems to be more friction in the rear bolt, and under the same torque the saddle would have a slight forward dip.

The cages are chinese clones bontrager xxx. They work fine, 1 of them weighs bang on 18g, the other is overweight at 22g. The bolts are pretty cheap looking. Given the very similar cost and extra long wait time, I would have gone for the zefal l2 cages instead. My ones on the venge both weighed 18g , and comes with much nicer alloy bolts.

What else... cables. Jagwire pro are a nice upgrade from the lifeline stuff. They do fray pretty easily if you are (I am) clumsy with repeated adjustments.

That's about it for now. The next upgrade would be a threadless carbon fork. I have no experience with headsets or any press fit bearings, so might be a steep learning curve. I have already grabbed a cheap mizuno fork from ebay just to "practise", and if that works well I would fork out for a columbus minimal.

Must commend you on your commitment 👏

I think the Donohue looks better with silver components rather than black tho.

I would agree with you... I think it looks worst when there is a mix of black & silver components. I do wish modern components could come with silver

Same same

The donohue is really lovely. I like the mix of slim and wide tubing, esp down tube vs forks. Would the logos come off the crankset with some acetone? Would let the yellow logos pop more

The tubing is my favourite thing about the frameset. Aside from the iconic donohue tear drop down tube, the seat tubes and chainstays have a bladed shape around the seat tube, but transitioned into round shape to shelter the skewers from the wind. It's disappointing the fork doesn't share the same aerodynamics properties like the bladed steel forks of the same era e.g. Argos

Point taken on the logos as now I can't unsee them. The previous owner put a protector on top to protect the logos so I might start with sharpie out the blue "K". Quick internet search suggests there is a clear coat on top of the stickers so stripping them is a project of its own.

Phase 2 of the build starting soon: carbon threadless fork. Managed to acquire a new 1" columbus minimal fork for a decent price from the wiggle ebay outlet store due to poorly listed specs (as with most of their items).

Having no experience with fitting headsets and cutting forks, I thought I would be extra cautious and practice on a cheap frame&fork before ruining anything else. So here's yet another frame added to the collection

According to the seller this is a columbus tubing frame made in France. The plan is simply to play around with removing / refitting headset, and have a go at cutting down a steerer tube.

Sidenote: the lifeline workstand sparks joy. Wonderful upgrade from the aldi workstand

Fork and headset transplanted successfully onto the PD track with relative ease. Few other upgrades:

• asthetically got bored of the brown saddle / bar tape / gum wall look. Went all black
  
• USE carbon drop bars, shimano levers
  
• Spesh power saddle with a direct mount reserve rack, added 2 planetx carbon cages
  
• DA goodies: 7700 cranks, bb, cog & lockring
  
• Campy record ring
  
• conti tt tyres 23c
  
  

Ride experience (pretentious subjective adjectives coming up):

• carbon fork is more responsive than the original steel one, particularly obvious when bike throwing
  
• USE drop bar is stiff and shape is lovely, only let down by the low lever mounting position #bdhu
  
• Shimano levers are ergonomically inferior - too narrow to hold and too long to reach when in the drops. Will be trying the TRP / sram options
  
• Rolling resistance is real, though the jack brown <> conti TT might not be a fair comparison to start with
  
• Rear mount bottle cages have a very high chance to eject your bottle, or worse, tool bottle. My experience confirms it.
  

Final weight reduction on the red bike:

• original steel fork -> columbus minimal fork (-300g)
  
• quill stem -> s work stem (-140g)
  
• Pedals m520 -> m9100 (-60g)
  
• Nitto m109aa -> FSA k-force light handlebar (-110g)
  
  

Unfortunately added a few as well:

• elita one seatpost (chopped) -> USE seatpost (+40g)
  
• Sram Red brakes -> DA brakes (+20g)
  
• GP TT 23mm -> GP5k 25mm (+70g)
  
  

Bike came out to be 7.8kg (originally 9.3kg). The next most significant weight saving would be the wheels (~1600g currently), but without going carbon / tubular results would be minimal. I also can't seem to find any kinlin xr200 rims for sale anymore. Have they been discontinued?

Few follow-up comments on the above:

• I was expecting the carbon fork to work magic on the cockpit, it didn't. By magic, I meant "responsive steering", "lively" and other subjective positive experience. The old cockpit (steel fork, quill stem, nitto bar) weighs some ~630g heavier than the new one (carbon fork, threadless stem, carbon bar), yet I have not "felt" it on the road. I'm still glad I made the switch as it opens up choice of bars for me (there are a grand total of 2 25.4/26mm compact narow bar available, nitto m109 and soma highway one)

• s work stem is a stupid luxury. I have an UNO stem, but it looks chunky (partly because of its short 80mm length) and the matt finish is too "matt". The swork stem check 2 boxes: (1) polished surface (2) 12deg - parallel to the top tube.

• m9100 xtr pedals are another luxury, but at least I got them used. Perhaps I'm so used to m520s I actually find the reduced float of the m9100 more difficult to clip into. More than once I found myself slipping off the pedals when I'm clipping in. Never happens on m520s.
  
  

• I hated the sram red aerolink brakes. They weigh a mere 248g, but my god was it difficult to centre them! Particularly difficult on the small bike with short head tube. The cable bend is gauranteed to push the calipers off center. Found some DA9000 calipers, all hail modulation and ease of maintenance.
  
  

• Finally I switched to the USE seatpost purely for asthetics. The elita is also too chunky and matt-y. Could save ~40 grams saw off some 10cm post, but cba.
  

super late on this - but do the sram brakes up then adjust the position using a 14mm spanner on the nut closest to the fork/frame once they're all tight

Took me ages to work this out but if you do that they're the easiest brakes to centre.

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Not easy to adjust when you have a short head tube and tight brake cable angles.

When I had the Sram red callipers on my bike with 10cm head tube, I had to cut the cable 2-3mm at a time to make sure it wasn’t acting as a spring to push the brake arm over.

What @Acliff said. By the time I realised it was the cable off-centering the calipers I had already botched the cable too short. Also a modern shimano lever-caliper combo has such nice braking feeling I have yet to feel the need to go disc