Croix de Fer 931: the bike to do it all

I just placed an order for a croix de fer; after some deliberations I decided to go for the 931. Due to arrive in a couple days. Much excite.

Pics to follow when it arrives

subbed.

Dear Mr golgol Your frame will be leaving us today and we will email
and send you a tracking number once it has been collected from us
later today. Regards Sharon

I'm pretty set on 5800 for the groupset but wheels are still a bit of question mark.

You can always get some Shimano RX31 for the time being.

Best of the brunch is the Hope/Stan ZTR Crest.

Riding my Flo30's this week, they really are great wheels. Hard to get hold of, but might be worth the trouble.

http://www.notubes.com/Grail-C158.aspx THESE

Thoughts on the Kinesis Crosslight Disc V3 Road/CX Wheelset? They seem to get rave reviews for the price...

Saw these Novatec wheels the other day suggested as an alternative to the Kinesis. They are lighter and also seem fairly well reviewed by Road.cc

http://www.extrauk.co.uk/product/detail/Novatec/CX_Wheels/3152/

Are there too few spokes though? This seemed to be the only real point for internetz speculation.

Depends on rider weight I guess? A mate of mine who's on the heavier side killed a Fulcrum Racing 7 rear wheel in about 4 months...

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/hope-hoops-pro2-evo-29er-wheelset/

Or

http://www.merlincycles.com/hope-hoops-front-pro2-evo-29er-60037.html
http://www.merlincycles.com/hope-hoops-rear-pro2-evo-29er-60052.html

£307 total as they're doing 10% off hope.

I decided to go the custom built route... Novatec 711/712 hubs on Archetypes. Only downside is a 3 week build time.

I have everything else for the bike boxed and ready to go tempting me to build it by without wheels theres not much point at the moment.

Any progress with this @golgol ? I'm away to pull the trigger on a 931 CDF and would love to see yours.

Still waiting on the wheels so it is looking rather sorry for itself hanging in my understairs cupboard with just the crankset and front/rear mechs installed.

I'm taking alot of the finishing kit off another bike which this one is replacing so don't want to dismantle that one until I have everything to get this up and running... i.e. when the wheels arrive (which should be any day now)

The final few bit arrived this week but still (!) no wheels.

The chap who is building them for me quoted 3-4 weeks but it's just gone over 5 weeks. Next week apparently.

Ah nice. Those PDW guards look the business!

I just got my tyres today, 35c Kojaks.

The PDW 'guards are very nice - I need to edit mine a bit, would anyone know a source for brass, semi-tubular rivets?

Wheels!!!

put it together then

My PDWs had to be bent in quite a lot to stop callipers knocking them (long drop shimanos). great guards, but def need a fair bit of fettling.

Disc brakes: no need for bending, the stays took a bit of dremeling though.

What parts needed dremeling? I'm thinking about getting these for my CRF 931.

Also I'm planning on running 35mm Kojaks, any recommendation for wheels that would suit tyres of that width and be reasonably light?

Also keen to hear re the dremelling - was this on the time machine?

That's got me thinking, the caliper is mounted outside the rear triangle much like this:

I might be able to get away with running the stays beneath the caliper or I might need to try my hand at bending the stays.

Yep, on the Time Machine, took about 2cm off the end of each stay IIRC.

Dremel went through with no issues, but beware - the stay will get very hot!