This time round, it came after an unplanned and uneventful drop-in to the local bike shop to say hello to the boys in the mechanics area. Displayed against the pillar, attached through the rear dropout to the wall was one of the prettiest prettiest prettiest frame I've seen since Cervelo's S3 (formerly known as the Soloist SL).
I haven't had one this severe since I had the urge to build a road bike a year and a half ago.... which I did... culminating in the birth of this one. And I thought I'd never want a replacement for my old faithful Fisher.
Alas, after 8 years, there's a worthy replacement for her... may I present the Tranny!
In your choice of Nude, Granny Smith Apple Metallic Green and Copper Metallic. I'd personally go for either Nude or the green. As for the components, I'm pretty torn between full XTR with Formula brakes... or SRAM XX the damn thing.
Now then... 1200 quid for the frame shouldn't be too hard to come by now would it?
About a month or three ago, I was in the market for a road bicycle. You know, them things with the weird looking bent down handlebars? Yahah so anyways, I gave up looking for one when there was none with the specs I wanted at a price ceiling of £450.
A few weeks later, this turned up on Ebay, at a price too good to resist:
£129.99 lighter in the wallet, the frame duly arrived 3 days later. A piece of paper was whipped out of thin air and a list of the parts needed to build a bike was made up. Back then, I was torn between either mixing and matching bits and pieces or going for a complete groupset. In the end I decided to bite the bullet and go for the all singing and dancing Shimano 105 10-speed group, which was released about 2 - 3 years ago.
Initially, the plan was to buy the bits one by one over a few months to lighten the financial load. I also enlisted the help of the BFF who was back in Malaysia then to help me purchase the groupset as it was cheaper. That, sadly, fell through the roof and crashed many many floors down, much to my dismay.
Hence a new budget was set at £600 with the aim of building it to be under 8kg. Parts were then purchased from CRC, Wiggle and numerous other online vendors as well as the good people at rock&road , addiktioncyclesand Birmingham City Cycles.
Much to my dismay once more, it shot the budget roof by £189.77. I haven’t weighed it yet, but it feels to be under 10 kilos. Which is abit of a good news. It was supposed to have had its maiden ride last Saturday but yours truly decided to lie in and die on the bed because it was cold outside. Sniffle.
The spec list is as follows:
2008 Giant SCR4 frame – 46cm
Brand X aero carbon wrap front fork
Shimano 105 BR5600 front brake and Shimano R650 rear brake
Shimano 105 10-speed gear levers 5600
Shimano 105 10-speed front and rear derailleurs
Shimano 105 10-speed 12-25 cassette
Shimano R700 crankset 34-50 (170mm)
Shimano 105 Hollowtech II bottom bracket
KMC 10-speed chain
Shimano Dura-Ace shifter and brake cables
PRO PLT stem, 80mm 10º, silver
PRO PLT drop bar, 42cm width, silver
PRO PLT seatpost, 27.2 x 280mm, silver
PRO bartape – Floral Baby Blue
Charge Ladle Ladies saddle, black with baby blue trims
Shimano RS10 wheelset, black
Shimano A515 SPD pedals, metallic baby blue
Vittoria Rubino Tech Pro 120 TPI tyres and inner tubes
I chanced upon this gem of a site while doing the usual trawl online and the author has a put forth an interesting application of the double wishbone suspension design; on the front of a motorcycle!
A litre class bike with racecar style double wishbone front suspension and drop dead gorgeous styling. I can't quite see how the dampers are actuated but assuming that he wants to display his dampers on top of the fuel tank it's probably remotely pushed or pull by a rod or rocker of some form. Refreshing from the blingy Ohlins black and gold inverted beauties we're used to seeing.
He must have had quite abit of fun playing with instantenous swing arm length during his geometry optimisation phase. Lovely design and packaging as well. Good craftsmanship too.
Picture taken directly from the website. Rendered by a Mr. Jose Garcia. Please drop me a mail if anyone would like this taken down for intellectual property reasons.
