cale

It's actually a sensitive subject but not in the way you are thinking. I don't mind sharing in the spirit that my mistakes aren't so banal that they aren't worth learning from and also I'm a glutton for punishment. Haha

Sometime late last summer I was in the midst of a great storm of bike building. I had a Litespeed I was finishing and the Motobecane was being "repurposed" for my son. (Yes, the same frame featured in this thread.) My son's bike-needs factor in as this past summer he really broke into riding. I wanted to encourage this momentum and was in search of a new bike for the kid. What I really needed was a new frame but I couldn't find one with disc brake mounts that fit my tight budget. (See the thread, A Bike for the Kid. Disc brakes are a "Seattle" thing, and I'm a parent...)

So the Moto was torn down to donate the majority of its parts to the Litespeed, the Litespeed was being assembled, and the Moto was being built up with the cockpit/drivetrain from the boy's previous road bike. It was a flurry of activity and in the midst of my work, I became very frustrated with getting the Moto's headset properly adjusted. I became convinced that the parts in the Turino Team headtube were the wrong size or where "defective". These weren't particularly rational thoughts but that's what being tired and frustrated will do to you. The bearings slid into their seats too easily and That, I rationalized, must be what is causing my inability to get the proper adjustment. (The way it was, I could get the tension tight enough so that the headset wasn't binding but a clicking inside meant it wasn't tight enough. Making it tighter cause the fork to bind. There seemed to be no correct adjustment.)

I pulled out my box of bike stuff and sorted for all the "like-sized" bearing assemblies I had collected over the years. I settled on one that promised a tight fit and then I started to press it in. (If you've gotten this far, you may be wincing. That's okay but brace yourself.) I've pressed numerous bearing assemblies over the years and I don't shy from using homemade tools and elbow grease. But this particular bearing, the lower cup, was giving me a really hard time. After getting up a really good "I'm going to do this" sweat over the part I threw the frame, with headset tool attached, onto my workbench and bore down on the tool like there would be no tomorrow.

Yes, this was a BIG mistake. For not only did I fail to fix the problem (I could elaborate but suffice it to say that everything is fine now), I also managed to drag the bike's downtube across the edge of the workbench. Sufficiently so that I torn through some of the right side decal and chipped off a bunch of paint.

So when you ask me if I might have been concerned about "status" the answer is, in part, yes. But it was my status as a hack builder that embarrassed me, not the brand of bike.

As it turns out, the Motobecane didn't fit my son at all. The size was okay (lots of room to grow into but not so much that it wasn't a good start) but he really Hated the orange color. (Get this, we'd been talking bikes for a while and in his head he thought the Litespeed was his next bike. Haha) Another frame was just around the corner, so to speak, and in late August I picked up a Asylum Meuse on sale in a size smaller.

The headset was eventually returned to proper working order as I "fine tuned" the fork length and returned the original parts. I touched up some of the paint to fill in the chips on the decals and it didn't look too bad, from a distance. But it wasn't until I settled on building the Turino up for more mundane uses and saw the value of reflective tape that I really knew how to "fix" my mistake.

Father and son (Taken during the brief time the Turino Team was being used by my son. The Litespeed I'm riding has the Motobecane's drivetrain and front cockpit.)

cale

Shimano recently introduced a dual control lever (brifter) which offers mechanical (cable) control of the derailleurs with a hydraulic brake system. This is different from the previous electric/hydro system (Di2, I believe.)

I rode it as is and I continue to ride it. It is a very good bike and manufactured by Kinesis which has a good reputation among bike builders.

Compared to other bikes I've ridden? It is nearly identical to the Kinesis Tripster that was stolen in July but with a fantastic drivetrain and great brakes. It is not as light as other bikes I have owned but the difference is a pound or two and only is noticeable, by me at least, when climbing. I'm not doing much sprinting any more and once I'm rolling, I really only notice the weight when it's loaded with groceries.

You can expect it to be very stable (not twitchy in the least) which is due in part to the relatively long wheel base. It likes to carve corners but "balks" a bit if asked to "dive in". Hope these impressions help.

I have no regrets, I'd be riding it today in "out of the box" spec were it not for my insurance settlement.

RubeRad

Cale I like it. Love the orange (it looks like the same orange as my moto hardtail), and love the detailing you did with the reflective tape. Very clean work, except for the "OB" showing through on the downtube, it looks factory-designed!

GeoKrpan

Thanks a lot for eloquently stated reply. I don't blame you about the stickers, I couldn't stand some big ****** scratches on my downtube either.