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  • Now first and foremost, the colours of the below products were "forced" on me by budgetary requirements - aka. they were discounted because of the grim colours. They look even worse when combined together! This maybe be remedied soon.

    OK to start with probably the most beautiful piece of kit on the bike - a Sunline V1 stem - neat, clever CNCing, alot of internal machining, chamfered bar clamp area and only 34mm stack height on the steerer. The colour isn't too bad in isolation, but wait until you see the bars!

    The stem is 65mm long, weighing 180g approx. I don't like to scrimp on strength in this area and always use MTB/AM/DH stems on all my bikes. The weight penalties aren't too high, little more strength and easier to get in short lengths (which I prefer).

    And rather aesthetically pleasing!

    Now on to a component that has been and is a "bone of contention", Charge Bowl bars. I was after a real shallow drop track style bar, with not much reach, in aluminium. BOOM - they fit the brief perfectly. I wanted a shallow drop as I haven't ridden drops in about 20 years and need to work on my flexibility from years of BMX and MTBing.

    Bit of a breath, bear in mind they were half price - I do wonder why??

    As you can see, an odd but pleasing shape. Now the problems - the top bar area is very narrow and with the brake lever I'm using my non-brake hand will probably be in the way of the exiting brake cable. Due to the odd but pleasing shape to run the brake lever on the correct side of the stem would only allow half the lever travel - making brake setup a pain. But I'll review them once they are all bolted up and can get a good feel of any issues. Also got some Campagnolo brakes - do like Campag ever since my first set of handbuilt MTB wheels were Campag Atek rims on super smooth Mavic hubs.
    
    Next parts to be purchased will be deep section wheels, a chainset/BB, a hollow pin chain and probably a few finishing bit (bar shims, brake cables, maybe a new saddle) - then its on to the build.

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