Van Nicholas Chinook

Yep - still pretty long but I might play with handlebar height to see how it feels. Reckon I'll end up with 2cm of spacers under the stem. The maximum allowed on the fork is 5cm - blimey!

Sick bike, bruv. How fast can it go?

Also looks like your stem is too long and the saddle too much forward.

Looks nice .. apart from the fork stack, but early days! and I'm sure it'll ride good if the reviews are to be believed .. Thing I noticed (and it maybe the pic angle) is your levers look a little low on the bar.

The saddle and stem is from my old bike which was way to big - hence the super forward saddle. I've put a different saddle on now (still an Arione but with Kium rails instead of Manganese). When putting the cassette together, I didn't have the right size spacers to do it according to the manual and it doesn't shift properly in the big sprockets, so it looks like a trip to Condor tomorrow to pick some up. Still plenty of tinkering to do. Comes in at 8.4kg with the cheap Khamsins, so should be about 7.9kg when the nice wheels arrive.

I'm off for a spin!

Nice butters

haha, awesome photos and sick bike!

and? how was the first ride?

This looks lovely. Well done!

and? how was the first ride?

In a word, epic. There is a feeling when putting power down that I can only describe as a surge. It feels way lighter than my previous roadie (even though it's only 1kg difference) which somehow makes a big improvement to the handling and precision feeling.

Had a couple of issues that I've fixed now (I think)....

First, the spacers in the cassette were all wrong and the big sprockets weren't changing nicely - turns out it's a Veloce cassette not a Centaur so we were following the wrong diagrams.

Also, the chain died on the way back about 100 metres from home (phew again). Research today has suggested that you have to use a special Campy tool for the chain or these problems can turn up. So, I'm going to use the Wipperman 10s8 that I got with the groupset for the time being. Apparently it doesn't run as smoothly, but you only need a standard chain tool and it has a quick link thingy. If it turns out to be too much to ignore then I'll ask the guys at Fitzrovia Bicycles to fit the Campag one properly or look at KMC / something else.

Anyone got any advice on 10 speed chains that work well with Campag and don't have all the fannying about?

I can't wait for the wheels to arrive so I can find out what it will really be like to ride.

KMC 10SL for me .. maybe not quite as smooth as Campagnolo but doesn't need the £100plus chain tool to fit !

Which group are you running?

KMC 10SL are available in gold. Uh oh.

I've got that on Centaur 10 at the moment and also had another chain on a Record 10 setup(bike sold now) .. and unrelated another chain on Sram Red .. I'm quite happy with the KMC 10SL you could say :)

Merlin Cycles .. cheapest I've found. If you find cheaper please post.

Thanks Oswald. Might give that a go.

Awesome. Good work on the build.

I'm using SRAM chains on 3 different bikes with various Campag gruppos, perfectly good.

Plus a standard chaintool + SRAM joining link are easily used in emergencies.

Butters, great looking bike!

Getting this back on track now that my shoulder has healed up. Next on the list is a matching Easton EC70 Seatpost:

The manual that comes with it says not to use any grease, which is quite different to the fork manual which said to use a little grease when installing the crown race. I assume it's not because of any reaction with the grease but more likely to be that grease will cause slipping. Any forum wisdom on whether carbon assembly paste is a good idea on this bit?

Lovely!

Lovely bike and am truly envious. I would love to know more about the CK wheel set, as I'm looking to build something very similar soon. How do they roll and who built them?

Cheers.

I still haven't got the CK's! It's a long story but the summary is that I was getting them cheap so was prepared to wait but have now found out that I can't have the spoke count that I would like. So, I think I'm going to go with some Strada built Archetypes on their own brand hubs with 24 / 28 Sapim CX-Rays.

Ah, ok. I've been hearing good things about Strada. I've been looking at A23's with R45's and trying to convince myself to pull the trigger. It'd be great if you could post a review of Strada and your wheel set when you get them.

Tom

never use grease on anything carbon. Carbon assembly paste is good though.

That's what I was thinking but the manual for the fork said to use a little on the crown race. Oh well.

What torque setting does everyone use for the seatclamp on a carbon post? Neither Van Nicholas nor Easton specify this in their manuals and the seatpost clamp has no manual. I'm thinking 5Nm and see if it stays put.

4nm should do, with carbon assembly paste.

A carbon post generally doesn't need grease as the clear coat is going to prevent any bonding with the frame. Carbon posts, however, tend to slip in the frame and so lubing the post with carbon paste is a good idea.

The problem with using grease is the wide variety of greases on the market, and the base material and additives can range from be very mild or very aggressive to either the clear coat or the epoxy resin matrix of a carbon part and could cause swelling of the composite laminate. As a result, the makers of carbon parts don't get into the business of saying "this grease is OK, but that one isn't” so they just say don’t do it.

Obviously the joke is you have carbon crank sets, carbon derailleur parts etc. that are ALL continuously exposed to petroleum based lubricants from the chain and you don't see them disintegrating or otherwise suffering from the grease and oil ..