Tasty Cycle

Fabrication: bought this vintage Rockshox suspension seatpost for a song BUT it was missing hardware. I used an old handlebar which happened to have the same radius and fabricated the missing piece. Some old things are worth bringing back to life.

Workarounds: Specialized has suspension built into the headset (mixed feelings) of their Roubaix models. This customer wanted a much higher rise stem but was locked into their proprietary system. A couple shims and some small mods to the top cap opened up ANY option for future stems. Also gave the bike a wider gear range pairing a GRX derailleur with the 105 road shifters: 11-40 rear and 52/36 front is a healthy range 🤘🏽

Find the creak: after tackling the usual suspects i determined the creak on this bike to be coming from the headset: clean, grease, torque, etc. I really like this internal cable routing solution. It has a lot of layers, but its a good design, and the bars look badass! Also gave the bike a tune and new bar tape.

Brake upgrade: besides tires and a dropper post, id say one of the best upgrades for a MTB is the brakes. Its typically where most companies skimp on part spec and it makes a world of difference to calmly descend down something steep without the need to white-knuckle.

Overhaul: FULL overhaul on this with new cables, new drivetrain, brake pads, bearing service, and various small fixes.

New bike protection: the first day of ownership is the best time to install a protective film on your bike frame. The bike is sparkling clean for proper application, and no accidents have happened yet. After I built this bike out of a box, we went with the medium level protection kit. More than enough for most common areas.

Some assembly required: frame up build of this TT bike with SRAM force AXS drivetrain. Also installed the newly Popular aero bars.

Unfortunately, the handlebars were not a direct fit. So I had to mount them using a BLANK adapter plate. That is to say, it had none of the mounting holes and they needed to be drilled PERFECT so that the bar sat straight and all the holes lined up.

This was by far one of the most difficult builds I’ve done and took me almost 6 hours. I love a challenge though.

Riv-nut repair: bottle cage fix on this Campagnolo spec Trek. There is only one permanent fix for loose bottle cage bolts, to grind them down, punch them into the frame, fish them out and press new ones in. I really love doing technical and uncommon repairs like this.