Fast and long

Agreed. Kinda looks like one of those chonky TIME stems and that’s a look I like.

Cheers, guys! I love that its "not as crap as expected"! :-)
Here's a few more pics before I muck it all up again with wet and dry (to get rid of the speckles you can see in the paint). I have a can of matt black on order, which will hopefully match the stem in with the other parts (seatpost and lightbicycle rims).

3 Attachments

Yes.. Ha ha! Yes!

So, I started threading cables yesterday and today. Its a b!tch. I already think/know I'm going to have to pull them all out again. I thought I'd be smart and bring the cables out of the BB to push the anti-rattle foam on. However, once they are out, they won't go back in without kinking.

Also, the stem to spacer relationship is on the rocks (again). I cannot seem to get them to play nicely together. Grrrr.

Here's some pics.

4 Attachments

Oh dear.

I have worked out why there's a big gap between the stem and the front of the headset spacers. Sorry if this is boring for you lot still following, but here are the trials and tribulations of building up a project like this from a collection of parts direct from China.

So, in the dim and distant past (up thread) I posted a lot of pics of the different bits of headset spacer, stem, etc, and you guys helped me figure out the order and how to sort out the two little prongs on the top of the top headset cap.

Maybe I can be forgiven for sorting all that out and testing it "dry" - I put it all onto the bike and nipped up the bolts, it all looked good, but... there was a problem, which I have now discovered. See, the steerer is 28.6mm, and the inside of the stem is 31.8mm, so there is a spacer. I knew that. It was pretty obvious. However, I never thought to check the inside of the headset spacers/top cap assembly. It turns out this is NOT a good fit on the steerer; it is ALSO 31.8mm inside dia. Without the cables/hoses installed this wasn't an issue, but once you put the cables and hoses through the front, it tips the headset spacers forward. In addition, the underside of the stem isn't square (yep...) and the result is the gap shown above.

The solution is (1) buy a longer 28.6-31.8mm sleeve (easy) and then (2) find a way to close up the gap, which also needs to incorporate the two little prongs (because these no longer engage). B0ll0cks.

I am now getting a bit frustrated. However, I've ordered the sleeve from ebay, it will come in a week or so. The sleeve will (in my mind's eye) go through the stem AND the whole spacer stack and hold them all nicely concentric. I'll trim the bottom of the spacer so its exactly the right size for my stack. And then, I will make a carbon wedge-shaped spacer, painstakingly, by hand, to fill the gap. And I'll have to drill/dowel the whole lot to stop the spacers and stem turning relative to each other. Any of you who are still following this deserve some sort of medal. Here's some pics...

4 Attachments

Oh no 🙈 That does sound terribly frustrating and, as someone who gets easily frustrated with things like this, I feel your pain.

I guess this is the pice we pay for aero-integrate-all-of-the-things.

Ah that's annoying but hope your solution works. Also, not boring at all

I am still rooting for you and I think you're gonna nail this.

I thought you must have reached peak patience already threading those damned hoses through the bars!

Cheers, you guys - you cheered me up :-)

Yep, not giving up hope (and beer/sleep helped).
Progress has been good so far. Here's what I've done: I drilled through the current top headset spacer with a 4mm bit (and in doing so, I drilled out the two prongs). I cut out another top spacer from a spare bit of 6mm carbon sheet I had left over from another project :-) and shaped it out to sit nicely on top of the original.
I also cut a few small dowels from some 4mm stainless rod to pin the carbon spacer to the original top spacer and then to the stem. These are much better!
The next step (and the whole point to this exercise) is now to sand the new carbon spacer/top cap to match the stem and to dowel the two together. Hopefully this is reasonably straightforward. It looks super-neat, will be even better once I put a coat of gloss onto the new top cap!

4 Attachments

Hopefully this is reasonably straightforward.

I chortled.

I step away from a thread for a month and someone's drilling bars to fit aerobars. I'm not a safety officer!

I want longer pads than are available off the shelf (because it helps massively with comfort). The ones on my red bike are home-made too, and the length of the forearm contact is about 300mm (compared with a standard pad of 125mm).

https://www.witsup.com/product-review-culprit-csr-arm-supports/

https://tririg.com/collections/scoops

Lots of progress to report!

First, and by far the most welcome, is that the headset spacers and stem now fit together! The carbon spacer is shaped to fit the cables and hoses better, and its also 2mm higher at the front to match the (not square) stem. And the dowels also fit nicely. Happy!

I also bolted on some mechs to make it look a bit more like a bike. And with the mechs cabled and working (well, they seem to shift up and down) the internal cabling is done. So, I pressed in the BB today. That was straightforward too. I used a bit of loctite on the shoulders because IMO that's what you use on carbon shells to ally cups.

And no Scarlet update would be quite complete without some sort of issue; I fitted a pair of the wheels I intend to run... except they don't! I had a pair of Gigantex/Hope RS4 with QR adaptors, but the SPCycle is 12mm through axle, so I bought 12mm through axle adaptors. Hope's site is crap in terms of working out which ones you need, so naturally I bought the wrong ones. Another set now in the post.

4 Attachments

For your sanity's sake I hope you never have to adjust your bar height :P

Cheers, @hippy - I totally agree. This is my second "integrated" build (the first being my SpeedConcept), but this one has tested my patience a bit. What I'm really dreading is doing a long ride, realising the reach isn't quite right and I should have had a 120mm stem...

You can just build one though, no?

You can just build one though, no?

Spent all weekend wondering whether I can build a variable length stem... :-)

I got the seatpost shim in the post on Sat, so I cut it to length, pulled out the old shim (which just supports the stem) and pushed in the new one (which now goes through the headset spacers too and holds everything concentric). I'm calling that whole lot done.

Today, I am stripping and waxing chains for this project and for my race bike. Its one of those "little" things that all the fast guys seem to know, but no-one ever told me... So, off with the SRAM and on with a DA HG901.

I'm also cutting brake hoses to length and inserting barbs. There's a lot of measuring and a good dollop of procrastination. And coffee.

4 Attachments

Is that powdered wax? I've only done the brick-o-paraffin method.

Its wax pellets, I think Kerawax, and the powder is 1.6um PTFE. I got the bits and pieces from ebay or amazon, I think. Its been super-easy once I got setup.
I just bought a second slow cooker (and a second batch of wax, obvs) for race-chains, in the hope I can keep it cleaner for longer than my training chain pot. Ah, first-world issues...

Hah. It's a rabbit hole if you want it to be - ultrasonic cleaners, boutique wax additives, spare chains so you can batch cook em.

Wow epic work, I am in awe of anyone who even attempts PBP let alone finishes!

Slow progress here. It feels like 2 steps forward, 1 back. So, I connected the brake hoses to the calipers yesterday. Although the hole in the non-drive chainstay for the hose is a bit too big, so I ended up putting several bits of heatshrink onto the hose to pad it up a bit. Seems OK.

Then I came to bleed the brakes, and the bleed kit I bought doesn't contain all the bits!! No Shimano STI master connection, so I now have to wait for one to turn up (I may borrow one whilst mine is in the post).

The front and rear mech are on and connected, and seem to shift up and down OK. The chainset is on (although I have a spider power meter on order, so that'll have to come off in time). The chain is waxed. I can't put the rear wheel on because of the Hope adaptor issue (new one due to arrive tomorrow, yay!). So, actually tomorrow could be a good day; rear wheel on properly, hence correct cassette on. Then chain on. Then fettle gears, then cut the front mech cable and put the cap on. It'll look like a real bike! It won't stop, mind. But who uses brakes anyway :-)

3 Attachments

Thanks @ghettro! Have to admit, it was tough going in 2019, and hooking up with another rider on the final day made all the difference; sharing the work and a bit of banter, and I forgot about the aches and pains for a while. I am really fired up to get out there again!

Its a bit hard knowing how to approach PBP this time. I'm very lucky that I've good enough fitness that getting around isn't a concern (and I know this isn't the case for everyone). I spent a bit of time in the aftermath of 2019 trying to work out how to go faster. But the more I think about it, I think its just a magical event to be part of. And the crepes at la Tanniere are awesome!

Hydraulic brakes. This is my first (road) set, and I've sort-of been looking forward to them/sort-of dreading it too. And I was right to... Like all things new, it was a complete pain first time around, and I'm not 100% happy.

The hoses were through a few days ago, cut to length and connected both ends. Well. I thought so. The front brake was first; being a shorter run, and pretty much vertical, I thought it would be easier. To get the fluid in/bleed, I have a funnel-cup thing for the lever port, and a syringe and tube for the lower port. I filled both with 20ml mineral oil, and the antics began.

To cut a long and frustrating story short, I probably got half the oil on the floor via a number of booby-traps; the hose pops off the caliper bleed nipple far too easily, and generally once you are squeezing oil at pressure into the system. Sometimes when you are looking at the funnel thing, so you don't spot until half a syringe of oil is soaking your sock. There are torque settings for the hose fastenings, but show me the open-ended torque wrench? So, I thought I had the rear hose properly screwed into the caliper. Apparently not. I discovered when I had filled the non-drive-side chainstay with mineral oil and it started coming out of the BB hole. And the bubbles, the neverending bubbles!

Anyways. I have some lever now. Sadly, the bite point isn't quite the same; the front has a longer pull. But I'm going to leave it for a few weeks, wait for any air to hopefully rise to the top and repeat this wonderful job again.

4 Attachments

Ah the joys of brake bleeds. You shouldn’t be feeling much pressure when pushing through from the syringe. I’ve made that mistake before, so just make sure the bleed port is sufficiently open.