Midnight faran and purple harum

Caad10s are going cheap too on ebay recently.

I've been keeping an eye out for a reasonably priced 58cm caad 9 frameset. For this exact purpose, quick 2 hour fast rides and nothing more.

I love my all city but its a chore if you want to try and ride 'fast' because it just doesn't want too.

so many good rim brake bike deals since a few years, even carbon..
for the same 1k i you can easily build something, choice between carbon frame + average components and alloy wheels, or you can get an alloy frame + better kit with carbon wheels.

This is fun! I have finally managed to ride my Faran. Two wheelsets…but for actual short blasts on paved roads I want to retrieve my Caad10 from my parents place finally. Will be the perfect compliment.

no way!!

how big tyres can you get on the caad?

This is an excellent question. I won’t get my hands on it until June when I plan to squeeze some 28c in. I reckon they will fit. 80% sure.

28 fit 100% in caad 10s

28c it's the max you can fit in CAAD4 to CAAD10

Can you suggest any specific tyre model? Have always assumed mine topped out at 25c.

in my experience it depends on the caliper, brake nut design, as well fork shape obviously.
But with recent caads and recent 11 speed groupsets it's the brake caliper which is the limiting factor. i would not put 30mm tyres in a rim brake groupset because the caliper would get too much rub. i have used 28mm gp4000, 5000, vittoria corsas, schwalbe ones...

Got a CAAD12, my first road bike ❤️

Had it a few weeks but had a week off work looking after kids and also wanted bike shop to give it a service first. Made some immediate changes - saddle, bars and stem, cages. I’ve only commuted on it but thoughts so far

• skinnier tyres again feels faster and along with the geometry a lot quicker to turn
  
• rim brake shifters are really nice and small
  
• odd one but I’m still quite taken with how much further back the front wheel is, how much less of it I can see over the bars
  
• such different brake feel, that’s going to take a little bit to calibrate to
  
• I don’t know if I’m imagining it but it feels more immediate when I give it a push
  
• I like it
  
  

The tape is the Fizik terra stuff - really soft and quite spongey. Not sure I like it

Still to do

• my impero doesn’t fit so I’ve ordered a topeak frame pump from lovely Sam and lovely fresh tripe
  
• New tyres - in time, would like to get used to these to feel a difference
  
• Bar bag - I don’t want something as large as all the current burrito bags, the ornot mini is nice
  
• Saddle bag - I have a big wizard works one for now but slimmer roadie one
  
• Change the cages for Arundel steel ones off my Faran. I really don’t like Iris(es) anymore.
  
• Desticker these wheels, eventually some wider more boutique ones. I will stick to alloy though, coming from hydro discs I’m a bit worried about braking
  
  

I’ve got the saddle as far forward as it can go, I will need to see if that’s enough or I’ll have to find a 25.4 inline seatpost which wouldn’t be ideal as this one is nice.

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#DBAD
I love the color of this

great bike

What about the Irises dont you like? 👀

So i don't like

• the experience of putting the bottle in
  
• they're so fucking tight, i know i can bend them but w/e
  
• the way the end of the 'finger' seems to rise off the line of the side of the bottle, as shown in the picture
  
• fickleness
  
  

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Thank god I’m just working my notice

Destickering these wheels was more of a pain than I thought. I found the best way was heating the edge of the sticker for a while with hair dryer, using a tyre lever to get an edge up and pulling off by a couple cm, then heating the sticker ahead with the dryer and slowly pulling off. Without the heat the top layer separated from the back layer, and it took a lot of heating to ‘melt’ the adhesive.

Used degreaser to clean off the adhesive residue from before I got that process down, couldnt find white spirit nor wd40 which I’m certain we have somewhere.

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the way the end of the 'finger' seems to rise off the line of the side of the bottle, as shown in the picture

This always bugged me as well, good to know I’m not the only one. Classic Kings for the win.

White Spirit is good but olive oil also works! Which is more sustainable. I dont feel heat really helps the process. I just lift the stick with a sharp blade and then peel the sticker slowly.
Any residue left I massage with oil and a cloth. Works great but is extremely boring

Nice! Managed any quick royal park or lane rides on it yet? My CAAD search ended when I found a good deal on a Kinesis Aithein, equally am quite nervous about the performance of carbon rim brake wheels…

@Tijs right??

@Hulsroy these may be quite old, maybe I was going too fast before, but the heat definitely helped release the glue so the sticker layers didn’t separate, and left next to no residue. Would have preferred to use oil though.

@ojwithbits ah nice, smart move tbh, you may not be as tempted to pour cash into Gucci bits rather than functional? Did it come with carbon wheels?

As I’m in the office tomorrow I could leave my laptop there and enjoy commuting without all the stuff. Got work done in the morning, watched the tour, then knocked off early and went for a few laps on the sun.

Loved it, great to get some riding without the weight.

The Fizik terra bar tape is already getting dirty, 4 rides in. I can’t imagine it would stand up to proper gravel use

Then I found @Tijmen had sent something to look forward to, and I’m absolutely pumped! He’s done a great job of dealing with a pretty awkward customer drip feeding ridiculous requests and questions, I’m really looking forward to getting these in. The frame bag is for the Faran, this whole thing started far before I was thinking about CAADs

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yeah maybe right haha the CAAD standard on the forum is very high… Definitely going to try and keep it more functional but that starting point is always tricky to adhere to.

It did yeah don’t think I would have bought some otherwise. Some Light Bicycle shallow rims - ‘climbing wheels’ I guess - will get an alu set by September, figure I’ll try them out for a bit first.

Box arrived from Wit Slingers in Germany this morning just as I was about to leave for work

I am excite opening this box

@Tijmen has hit the mark. I sold my wonderful carradice on Monday, had a backpack commute (did not like) on Tuesday, and got to quickly set this up today. I’m going to take some proper pictures on my Faran with the framebag down the line, but for now have these

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Proper. Great colour choices. Looks great with the frame.

Great bag! Thread title is beginning to be misleading tho!

Super pleased with the long flap roll top on this. He added a little pocket in the flap which is great for my pass, I love the poppers to hold the roll in, the side pocket clips are magic, carry handle is really nice to have, bright orange liner is supr,

all the execution is on point, fit is perfect, and at this point I'd like to thank @Tijmen for his patience - i came at this with quite a few ideas of what I'd like to see in a bag, which i drip fed him over a couple months. To quote from an email

Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you have a talent for asking for complicated things.

about a feature I'll leave him to say if he wants to offer.