Doing Hard TIME

Whilst busy posting my bike history and just how I got to this point over here , it became apparent that I currently have two bikes that do pretty much the same job. They're both comfortable but racy mile munchers with modern hydro and electric groupsets. One of them needs to go, and this will free up space and budget for something that has been niggling at me for a while. Like the middle aged chap who just has to buy the sports car he lusted over as a boy, I want to build up one of the bikes I lusted over when I was rolling around on my £500 Halfords special.

As such I paid a visit to a guy in Gloucestershire yesterday and came back with a 56cm Time RXR Ulteam frameset, of around 2011 vintage. It's in really stunning condition, having given it a good clean this morning there is hardly a mark on it other than where some of the decals/clearcoat have come away on the bars - I'll run the tape long enough to cover these.

The weight of the module including the seat post cluster (not pictured) is 2,200g, so although I wasn't originaly planning a particularly weeny build I think somewhere near 6kg will be achievable with a couple of tweaks.

This one's going to be a slow burner, I'm planning on learning how to build the wheelset to go on this for starters, but I will post updates as things move along.

For now, pictures:

Wild

Love a TIME, could see myself doing this when my mid-life crisis hits.

As a time fanboy, I wholeheartedly approve of this.

This has massive potential, very excited! Dura-ace and cosmics?

Or record and racing speeds?

I love this, it's peak logo.

Some wild corimas and record 👍

So many choices! More will be revealed when the postie comes this week, however now I’m second guessing myself…🤣

So much potential but rarely executed well.

No pressure…

So true!
It's quite easy really, just get as much red and white parts as possible. Red bartape to start with.

So much potential but rarely executed well.

#truth

No pressure…

#trap

Exciting trailer to this project, such a cool frameset. I'm intrigued by the words safe and nanostrength on the forks.

Things started arriving today.

Firstly, as all bikes need, a saddle. Now I'm normally an S3 kind of guy but at Wiggle clearout prices I couldn't resist giving an S2 a go in its posh carbon rail guise. Look for this in classifieds next year if it quickly causes my undercarriage to completely seize up like most saddles out there...

Next up a rather larger box. Could this be a lovely set of Zipp 202 Firecrest clinchers?

Not quite, because the rear hub is shagged. Thankfully they were advertised as such and I got them for a comparative steal.

It's high time I learned how to build wheels so whilst I'm sure there are easier rims to start with, I couldn't resist with what I paid for these. They've evidently had quite a hard life and the front feels a bit gritty, so I'll likely swap that one out too whilst I'm at it to something like a Hope RS4.

And in terms of what's going in the back, well I just happened to see find this on eBay at the same time. Sure it's a bit of an old fashioned way of doing that power measurement lark, but will give me free choice of what to do crank wise.

whats the brand of the bike? cant seem to find the logo... ;)

its a joke!! times are awesome!

Insane. Spacer stack looks terrible with that stem

looks terrible with that stem

Quite

that stem looks terrible

Yes

Is there meant to be a gap at the top tube / head tube? It looks even enough to be some idiot designers fault but also, wtf?

Needs some white rims bro. The future...

Yeah that definitely looks like it's meant to be there. I'm sure one of the words on the frame explains why, maybe it provides NANOSTRENGTH or ensures a FLUID RIDE.

Not sure I could pull off the white rims mind, particularly given my aversion to cleaning...

Yeah it's not great I agree, however having got it on a turbo trainer to do some rough stack/reach measurements I think it's unfortunately going to have to stay for now. It could be great motivation to get working on the flexibility though!

Wheel update - turns out the bearings on the front are in great condition but the covers were full of rubbish so a good clean and addition of new grease has got that sorted. I also discovered it's just about the one model of Zipp 88 hub that didn't require a recall so will probably leave it as it is for now.

The rear hub has now come off, all the spoke nipples were corroded solid so clearly these have seen a lot of use! I'm now scratching my head over spoke calculators and desperately resisting the urge to just take the new hub and rim into the shop...

I didn't quite believe it until it arrived, but I've managed to snaffle a rather nice NOS Boxed Zipp VumaQuad Crank for this build at an absolute snip

At the same time the Campag fairy also visited.

I've never run Campag before but aesthetically it just fitted the bill too nicely to say no. Again NOS at a snip vs RRP, so I'm feeling pretty smug. I should get a chance to sit down this week and have a go at building the rear wheel up again.

Boom!!