Inpd

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for all your help here and in the mechanics section. Well its done and I can say now having built up a bike, I doubt I'll ever buy a bike whole again. Building it up was surprisingly easy and I got exactly what I wanted and I know its done right.

The obligatory first photo is attached as well as the parts/price list. I'll post higher quality photos soon. The steering tube is barely cut and is sticking up like a honey-mooner's d*ck as per the guidance in the mechanics sections and the bar isn't taped white nor is the silver seat post in as yet.

I've only ridden it once for a short 30 mile ride but some immediate things I noticed.

i) I now get what people mean by the benefits of a stiff frame. I push down hard on the pedals and the bike almost pushes back and vooom off I go. I'm not a strong enough cyclist to always make use of the stiff frame but I can clearly see the benefits.

ii) The 105 groupset is really nice. It's clearly faster than my Claris and the 11 gears (I have a 11/32 cassette) offers a wide variety of gears.

iii) The handling of the bike I'm reserving judgment on. The ride I did was pretty mundane with just a few corners. But I do love that I can pedal into corners aggressively.

iv) The benefits of steel I can feel on rougher roads but in all honesty on my smooth paved MUP it was not noticeable.

Thanks again everyone.

MagicHour

Spec looks fine, but might want to revisit that spacer stack. If it's a carbon steerer it looks to be around 2X max what you'd want to have for safety. If alloy, still kinda crazy high. Do you have flexibility or other physical limitation?

FeltF2Tarmac

As mentioned that spacer stack is just nuts ( fit not dialed in yet ?)but overall looks good. Can we assume white bar tape? Even with the bar tape figured in that's a great bike for the money. 105 is a fantastic group and so much better than the 5700 stuff. Nicely done.

Inpd

It's to dial in my fit. So in the mechanics forum I got some good advice to just do a very slight cut and ride with that until I dial in my fit.

MagicHour

Bike looks great! and is definitely, completely safe to ride. Yay!!!! we're all winners!

rms13

Steerer is aluminum and head tube is very short for size. Going to need a few spacers probably just not that many. Bar tape might be useful. I feel like this is the Chinese Democracy of bike builds. I'm sure only Guns N Roses fans will get the reference but basically we've all been hearing about this for so long and I was beginning to think I'd never see a finished product

DMC707

Helluva deal ! Race ready steel for less than $900

FWIW -- i wouldnt worry about what these Casper Milquetoast's say about stack height and "safety factors" --- pic of my Litespeed below after i was dialling in an alternative fit after a back injury ---- the original Reynolds fork is hanging on a peg in my workshop , i got a new carbon fork/carbon steerer to get some more elevation

It didnt stay sky high forever , but unless the fork is exceedingly cheesy, its not going to be an issue , --- i would place a gentleman's bet on it.

AlmostTrick

Agreed. It's not a safety factor, it's an image factor... very important to some on BF.

rms13

There could be a safety factor with carbon steerer. Most manufacturers have spec on how many spacers you can run above and beneath the stem

MagicHour

Hey if you guys want to take road bikes and ride around bolt upright, more power to you! But no need to resort to name calling.

DMC707

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[h=1]Caspar Milquetoast[/h]From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


This article is about the character and related usage. For other uses of milquetoast, see Milquetoast (disambiguation).

Christmas card with Caspar Milquetoast by H. T. Webster

Caspar Milquetoast was a comic strip character created by H. T. Webster for his cartoon series The Timid Soul.[SUP][1][/SUP] Webster described Caspar Milquetoast as "the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick". The character's name is a deliberate misspelling of the name of a bland and fairly inoffensive food, milk toast. Milk toast, light and easy to digest, is an appropriate food for someone with a weak or "nervous" stomach

AlmostTrick

Understood, but carbon steerers have more failures than metal ones do even when these specs are maintained.

There is no way the OP's set up would = "bolt upright". There was no name calling from me.

Lazyass

Nice build. Still tempted to get one.

Doctor Morbius

Sweet and hard to beat! Did you include taxes, shipping and customs on your components?

Also, if it's comfy and you like it, screw the naysayers.

Fiery

Your right brake/shift lever is considerably lower than the left one. Intentional or careless?

rpenmanparker 

Levelling brake levers is easy. You just place a straight edge/rule across the tops of them (no hoods. please) to give you a line that is very close to the line of the bars. Then you can easily sight the comparison of the two lines to see if the ruler is parallel to the bars. It isn't quite so easy to get the twist of the levers around the bars right, but a bit of trial and error will do it.

Re: the spacer stack, yes it is wise to leave the steerer tall when first fitting a new bike. But it makes no sense to leave the steerer taller than you could possibly use it. The stem height is 40 mm. On an aluminum steerer I would limit the under-stem spacer stack to another 40 mm for both safety and aesthetics. You can either start at the bottom of the stack with the bar flipped down and work up or start at the top of the 40 mm stack with the bar flipped up and work down to get the necessary spacer stack before making the final steerer cut.

Here is the rub. Numerous folks, moi aussi, have commented on the long reach and short stack of the Venturi frame. Looking at what OP is starting with for stack and the modest extension of his seatpost, one gets a better idea of what that means, AND one starts to wonder whether OP has bit off a frame he will not be able to chew. If you start with just 40 mm of spacers and the stem flipped up, and the bars are still too low, then unfortunately you have the wrong frame for you. This isn't a bike picked out of the junk heap that you will ride until you can buy a new one, size be damned. This is your new bike; it should fit.

So while it is true that you don't want to overcut a new steerer by mistake before you have the bike properly set up, it is also true that cutting the steerer to the longest length you could properly ride it (40 mm below the stem and whatever is recommended for that steerer above the stem) can't be wrong. If you are going to cut the steerer at all, you might as well cut it to that level. You can't ride it any longer than that and you can't return it anymore anyway.

As we follow this saga through its natural progression, the old saw about a bike only being a good buy if it fits must necessarily be at the fore in our thoughts.

rpenmanparker 

As an afterthought to the above, the tall spacer stack is helping OP with the long reach due to the backward leaning angle of the steerer. As you go up, you also go back. Likewise the flipped up stem. If at the right or tallest allowable spacer stack the reach turns out the be too long, you can just buy a shorter stem. Whoops! Wait a minute. Where are you going to get one of those matching white stems? Something else to think about.

Lazyass

To level the levers you measure from the bottom of the clamp, along the bar down to the tip with both sides equal distance.

jamesdak 

Some very good points. I keep seeing posts about these frames and with BikeWagon just an hour away I could add one to my stable anyday. But as someone with a bad back who has to ride with saddle and bars pretty much even I just can see fitting one of these to me properly. So, even though N+1 is calling strongly in this case I think I'll resist.

Still a sweet bike though and wish the OP the best with it.

MagicHour

This. Careful man, other posters here might jump all over you for being a naysayer or a nervous nelly, whatever

MagicHour

Op-FYI Deda, FSA, Ritchey, and Bontrager currently make or have made white gloss stems, shouldn't be hard to find one on eBay if necessary, should you decide to go shorter.

rms13

Just set it up the way it's meant to be and get more flexible

rpenmanparker 

Good to know.

Inpd

Occam's razor. Favor the simpler explanation! I finished setting it up late into the night and just took a picture of the setup.

As to all these naysayers about the bike having issues I don't know how old you are, but even as an older guy I have no trouble with the reach even with the bars one spacer from the bottom.

The only issue is that with the bars down low my gut gets in the way a bit!

Inpd

It was $853 including taxes and shipping. All my orders were below $200 so did not attract duties.

Its not an endurance bike that's for sure but I could do a really fast and hard ride for 30 miles without any issues. I'll try doing a century on it soon.