I said at the start that you can tell a lot about someone by their bicycle. Maybe that’s why I’ve been bashful about sharing my rebuild details. But I promised, and now The Radavist has forced my hand by featuring my bicycle in its Readers’ Rides series. Woohoo.
If you ride far, you start to have definite opinions about every part of the machine. That’s when it’s time to build your own bicycle from a bare frame.
So it was for me, anyway. I realised that modern road bikes are delicate and finicky instruments. If you’re not careful, they can end up like fighter aircraft that need an hour of maintenance per minute of flight.
This problem has in some ways got worse as our mastery of materials and engineering has got better. Consider James Huang’s review of the latest Trek Émonda for CyclingTips. Generous praise is interrupted by this note:
It doesn’t exactly help, either, that there’s no supplemental rubber seal between the fork crown and lower head tube, meaning the lower bearing is perilously exposed — a scenario that’s become very common since bike brands started molding crown races directly into the fork crown.
However, this fighter jet costs only €11,000. Maybe you have to pay more to get something that lasts?
Huang:
Such is the cost of progress, I suppose.
The English cartoonist Heath Robinson made a career out of mocking technological progress in the age of the machine. We lack a Robinson for the age of shopping, but the jokes write themselves.
I was reminded of Heath Robinson while working on one of Shimano’s toggle-link front derailleurs not long ago.
The diagram is from page 16 of a Shimano dealer manual. My colour-coding of the independently moving assemblies derives directly from an investigation by /u/SuperTaiyaki on Reddit. As you can see, this derailleur dazzles with an array of tiny pivots and levers, mainly doing jobs of questionable utility or fixing problems that Shimano created of its own accord in previous models. (“Matches the force curve of the hand”?)
Most of Heath Robinson’s machines were operated by fat bald men. Was his work a prediction of the 2020 bike industry all along?
Anyway, this is exactly the sort of contraption I wanted to avoid in this build. I wanted to KISS (Kelly Johnson), because less is more (Mies). The height of sophistication is simplicity (Clare Boothe Luce). Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem: entities should not be multiplied more than necessary (Brother Ockham).
No doubt fixed-gear jockeys think entities have multiplied out of control on my bicycle, which just goes to show the intellectual difficulty of sustaining pure dogma. So let me say I respect cyclists who think my bike is too complex, and I respect others who think it doesn’t have enough hydraulics and batteries. They’re all bikes, and that’s the main thing.
Mine, then.
Frame: Spa Audax, welded Reynolds 725 steel, 58 cm. Large by modern standards (I’m 5'10" or 1.78 m), because I agree with Gérard Vroomen that handlebars are usually too low. You can put the handlebar as low as you like, and yet the flesh won’t respond. Or you can put it as high as you like and ride with a low torso, because elbows bend. Therefore I like it high enough to brace against when braking at 1 g with all my weight on the front wheel.
I might get into the unique details of this frame another time. It has no decals because I like the clean look, not because I’m ashamed of riding a Spa Audax. Spa Cycles is a fine independent bike shop in the north of England.
Fork: Thorn Audax Mk3 R, Reynolds steel, 46 mm rake. I wrecked the original carbon fork in a crash and replaced it with this steel model with better tyre clearance. It allows tyres up to 35 mm with not enough clearance, or 32 mm with plenty. Proper mudguard mounts top and bottom, too.
Headset: Campagnolo Record HS00-RETHOS. Head bearings are boring, but they are a key component of a steerable single-track vehicle. I like my steering to respond no-handed when I shift another gram onto my left buttock. This model achieves that and has four ports under a rubber seal on the lower bearing to inject fresh grease without needing to drop the fork out of the frame. The old stuff is forced out the bottom, cleaning the seal on its way. That feels good after a wet ride. I use a little Dualco grease gun for the job.
Spacers: single 24 mm below stem, 5 mm above. The upper spacer is there because I don’t trust clamps that grab air. The lower spacer is one piece because threadless set-ups are ugly enough without multiplying the entities.
Stem: Nitto UI-86EX, 100 mm, 73°. This stem was cheaper than the Nitto UI-85EX with an 82° angle, so I got it and cut the steerer tube of the new fork a little longer than usual. Nitto of Japan makes beautiful kit with high manufacturing quality. Just what I want in a safety-critical item.
Handlebar: Nitto Mod 177 ‘Noodle’, 400 mm. This shape was championed by Grant Petersen of Bridgestone and Rivendell fame. I like its many comfortable hand positions, but it has a long reach and a square shape seen from above, which together bruise my wrists when I sprint in the hooks. So be it.
Bar tape: Velox Tressostar 90 cotton. White. Looks amazing for 10–15 minutes. This tape is free of padding, so it produces a thin, hard, grippy handlebar. There’s no floaty bloat here. Dirt cheap.
Bar plugs: Brooks natural rubber.
Seatpost: Nitto S83, 250 mm. Have a look at this Campagnolo Nuovo Record 1044 seatpost. You can see how it works in the pictures: the bottom jaw of the rail clamp pivots about its middle like a see-saw, the angle finely controlled by unscrewing one bolt and tightening the other. The two bolts screw into freely rotating collars to accommodate the changing angle of this lower jaw with no bending of the bolts.
The Nitto S83 is an upside-down version of this clever Campagnolo design. No other clamp design comes close for ease of adjustment. And you won’t fall onto your spinning back tyre if a bolt breaks, as can happen with single-bolt designs.
Seatpost clamp: Surly Constrictor. A mistake. I thought this might cure a slipping seatpost. It did not. Of course it did not. I’m going to shim the inside of the seat tube properly and use a smaller clamp.
Saddle: Selle San Marco Regal. Where I sit.
Brake levers: Campagnolo Gran Sport. Sheldon Brown in 1998:
The bigger difference was in the levers. The construction and design of the Campagnolo levers differed from the best of previous models as a Cannondale differs from a Huffy.
These hand levers remain unsurpassed. The quality of the internal hardware is obviously better than anything else I’ve worked on. It’s amazing how tightly spanners and sockets fit on classic Campagnolo nuts and bolts. Precision! More precision than makes economic sense, I’m sure.
Non-aero levers allow the cable housing to be replaced without redoing the bar tape. I can’t say the exposed cables have slowed me down except when I put them in tension. Maybe they would at 350 W over 40 km, as in the ads for aero parts?
Brake callipers: Campagnolo Record 2040. In chess notation, moves like this earn a “!?”. I prefer single-pivot callipers for technical reasons that I will describe another day.
These don’t brake the way you probably expect from riding some old clunker with rusty cables and ossified pads. I can lift the rear wheel with two fingers.
Brake pads front / rear: Campagnolo BR-RESR / Kool-Stop KS-CRSA, salmon. The mix comes from my running only one of these brakes for a while as a test.
Brake cables: Shimano SLR housing, Campagnolo conical ferrules, Transfil stainless steel cables. I had to import the special ferrules from the USA (private eBay seller) at outrageous cost.
Generic stamped ferrule on the left and machined Campagnolo ferrule on the right:
Pause to imagine a world where machined and plated ferrules are a reasonable business decision.
Sigh.
You need these rare ferrules for classic Campagnolo brake levers or the cables kink at entry as you see on vintage bikes built by people who don’t know this. One bike needs four ferrules and I have 13: hopefully enough for this lifetime.
Gear levers: Shimano SL-R400 down-tube shifters, 8-speed indexed. Down-tube shifters are simpler, lighter, more durable, easier to set up (no indexed front derailleur or trim), easier to maintain (no bar tape or hidden cables), and cheaper than STIs. I could go on … and will. They have lower cable friction, so you can dispense with expensive cables – especially with 8-speed that pulls plenty of cable per click. They are nearly invulnerable to crash damage. They separate brake-lever choice from shifter choice, permitting more freedom. The cables don’t interfere with steering, which is nice for no-hands riding (you’d think I seldom touch the bars, the way I go on).
Okay, you can’t change gear while standing, which prevents the mid-sprint shift that pro racers need a few times in their career. I’m not a pro racer. I don’t need to shift while out of the saddle. You don’t either.
It’s a mystery to me why the industry invests so much effort in shifting. Changing gears is a tiny portion of a bike ride. It’s in gear that the business gets done.
Besides, it’s easy to shift with down-tube levers: about as easy as sipping coffee from a cup on your desk. The rear is indexed, remember, so no dexterity is needed. Click, bang, wallop.
Meanwhile, I don’t ride around on the hoods all day because I don’t have a reason to favour that position over all the others for which I got drop bars in the first place.
Do I make myself clear?
Gear cables: Shimano OT-SP41 housing, Transfil galvanised cables. Transfil is a French cable giant whose main customers are car makers. Galvanised this time, because I want to see for myself how they perform through a winter in comparison to [more expensive] stainless steel.
Front derailleur: Shimano Dura-Ace FD-7410. For a long time I used a Claris FD-2400 derailleur, because front derailleurs don’t move me. But I finally found a NOS Dura-Ace example for cheap. The date code is TI. That means September 1995. I was 13 years old when Shimano made this derailleur for me.
Rear derailleur: Shimano Dura-Ace RD-7700. This is why:
Until recently, Shimano made you buy Dura-Ace to get ball bearings in both pulleys. I paid €35 for this derailleur, used from Troc-Vélo, and with an hour of glad effort made every pivot and bearing better than new. The picture above shows one half of one pulley’s ball-bearing complement after picking out the seal. It’s about 10 mm in diameter.
Pedals: Shimano Ultegra PD-6620. Shimano’s cartridge bearing system with built-in press and extractor is among the most elegant of the company’s engineering achievements. I chose this particular pedal for its replaceable steel wear plates.
Bottom bracket: Tange-Seiki LN-3912, 103 mm. I got an email from Sato Tange himself when I enquired about installation torque. For the record, he told me to grease the threads and tighten to 450 kgfcm. That’s about 44 Nm. I obeyed.
Cranks: Shimano Dura-Ace FC-7410, 172.5 mm. Given to me by a riding companion. Best cranks I’ve ever had.
Chainrings: Spécialités TA Alizé, 49T and 38T. The result of Jan Heine’s method for choosing chainring sizes, described here. Whatever these rings are made of is good stuff: they wear extremely slowly.
Cassette: Shimano CS-HG50-8 with 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23 and 26T sprockets. Near enough perfect: close ratios but not too close, decent spread, durable nickel-plated steel, low cost, no sprockets wasted on huge gears. (Jan Heine, again, figured this out long ago. He runs a 14T top sprocket despite being a very strong rider, having completed Paris–Brest–Paris in 50 hours.)
Every time I find a perfect product it gets discontinued, so last year I bought a stash of these 13–26T cassettes for the bright, bright future.
Chain: SRAM PC-850, 110 links. This is a direct heir of the French Sedisport chain that changed the world. Now made in Portugal. Reusable master link, chrome-hardened pins, under €10. What more do you want?
Rear hub: Shimano 105 FH-5700, 36-hole. I chose this 10-speed hub for the cup-and-cone bearings, as in other Shimano hubs, and better spoke-bracing angles than with 11-speed hubs.
Front hub: Shimano 105 HB-5700, 32-hole.
Spokes: Alpina ACI double-butted (2.0 / 1.7 / 2.0 mm) stainless steel with brass nipples. Alpina of Italy is not well known, but the company’s spokes have been used in factory wheels by Mavic, Campagnolo, and Zipp and on motorcycles by Yamaha, KTM, and BMW. Good spokes at good prices, especially from the UK shop cyclebasket.com.
Rear rim: Mavic Open Pro C. Not an MA2, but close enough for jazz.
Front rim: Mavic Open Elite. A cheaper, weaker, heavier version of the Open Pro C, but adequate for a front wheel.
Rim tape: Velox cotton, 19 mm. Still hard to beat.
Tubes: Michelin AirComp Latex, A1. Green sealant vulcanised into a mess-free torus.
Tyres: Michelin Pro3 Race Service Course, 25 mm. About 27 mm measured width. Despite the model name in two languages, you’d be mad to race these. But they’re great all-rounders, and Decathlon sold them for €20 each until a few months ago.
Bottle cage: Elite Ciussi Inox, stainless steel. I’m glad Italy still produces products like this: simple, functional, durable materials, rough finish because that doesn’t matter for the application, and not yet ruined by gratuitous design, cost-cutting, or boutique pricing.
Pump: Zéfal HPX, size 3. What a pump!
I have it on the seat tube so the bicycle can be carried up stairs on my shoulder. The redundant bottle-cage holes on the seat tube are sealed with PTFE plumber’s tape wrapped around stainless steel M5 grub screws. Conventional socket-head screws would interfere with the pump handle, rattling.
Three honest exposed structures, not counting my Covid-19 hair:
Ride bike!
Samuel