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Today May 2021

And to think I almost went with the black!

Just got back from the bike shop today. Not enough time for a proper ride yet but I did a short ride from the shop back home. The guys at Punto Rosso helped me dial in the fit and of I went. I'll need to do a could hundred km on it to dial things in but eventually I'll have the fork stem trimmed.

I didn't get to crazy on the ride back because I had a backpack full of accessories but first impressions:
Bike feels a lot stiffer, in a good way.
Ride is as smooth as the Bianchi if not better.
Brakes being separate from the shifters on Di2 is nice when downshifting while braking.
I can hear a slight rub on the front disc while doing a standing sprint. Not sure if this is normal for disc brake bikes.
The fit feels a lot better than the Bianchi. The reach is much shorter so I feel less stretched out. Also with that and the narrower bars the bike feels more responsive during a turn.

Proper review coming soon but these are my first impressions.

Also the bike weighs 7.5 kg with Ultegra pedals. Still need to swap over bottle cages and my new computer mount when it arrives.

Here's some teaser shots for now.
View attachment 31492View attachment 31493View attachment 31494View attachment 31495
Damn. Beautiful. Well done, mate.
 
the other thing is with a standing sprint there is quite a bit of flex in the front forks. Chances are a few hours riding with some hard braking will seat everything in and the rubbing will stop. great looking bike.
 
** Below is a quick off the top fo my head disc brake troubleshooting thingy that I usually do when I have an issue - it isn't complete nor fully encompassing every scenario, but it covers a bit **

I run bigger discs on my MTBs and Gravel bike - so they have more room to get out of whack.
I am however 'shocked' when a Disc is 100% straight. My experience is that they get banged up in shipping, assembly etc...
Even brand new rotors coming out of the box are rarely dead straight.

That said - after dealing with these things for years and years on my own bikes and friends bikes - there are things I check first....

Always start with an Eyeball test. Get to an angle where you can see some daylight (or flashlight) between the pads and disc. Spin the wheel and see what the situation is... does it touch one side? both sides? it is just the outer edge touching etc... Squeeze the brake while looking at the caliper,does it move the rotor toof side or the other? If things look straight and no touch is obvious, but you can hear it.... look at the carrier (if 2 pc disc). If your caliper is a touch too low, it can make contact below the braking surface and be quite annoying. - none of this so far requires you to touch anything.... just diagnosing for the next step.
Once you can make these observations - you know what to check next.

If the touch is consistent all the way around - it is 99% a caliper adjustment. Every now and then, I get a post mount with some form of smudge on it. That makes the caliper mount angle a little off. This results in the outer edge making contact all the way around while the lower part of the brake track touches nothing as expected. Remove the caliper, look for paint chips or anything else that can cause an uneven mating surface. Claen it up and reseat.

If it rubs all the way around on both sides... there is a chance your brakes were bled and too much fluid is in the system preventing the calipers from properly pulling back. This sucks, but a small release of fluid resolves it.

If the touch is incosistent and only in a small area - there are a couple things that could be wrong.
a) If a 6 bolt disc - Remove the disc and look at the mating surpace. Make sure the hub is clean and the disc is clean. This is the easiest to check and take care of. no special tools required, just a good cleaning. A little out of round at the bolts results in a little more out of round at the disc. - Centerlock this is less of an issue. I recommend this first simply because nothing can go wrong if you are careful. Worst case, nothing changes.
b) Swap front and rear rotors and see if the problem goes away. If so, you know it is the rotor.
c) If it is the rotor and If you have a truing stand and a runout gauge, you can check to see where your rotor is warped (in the traditional sense) or warped (in a twisted sense). This will require bending the rotor to get it back to good. The problem here... you can make things WAY worse if you dont know what you are doing.
 
I'm not sure if this is common knowledge but I figured I'd share for anyone interested in Shimano power meters.

I swapped over my R7000 105 4iiii left side crank power meter today from my old bike to the new bike (Ultegra R8000). Not that it really matters but I was wondering if there was a significant difference in the weight of design of the left crank arms. Looking at both of them they seem to be the exact same part other than the different label and slightly different color finish.

I was having trouble finding the exact weight of just the left crank arms so I decided to weigh them myself.


4iiii R7000 crank: 196g
R8000 crank: 189g



PXL_20210530_064727338.jpg
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According to 4iiii their power meter adds an additional 9g over the stock crank. But weighing the two cranks you can see there is actually only a 7g difference in the actual weight. So based on the fact that they two cranks look exactly the same based on the weight I think they are mostly likely the exact same part with different labels. The missing 2 grams is probably just a difference in tolerance.

So...you are basically paying an extra 10,000~ yen for the Ultegra label if you go for an R8000 left crank arm.
 
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the other thing is with a standing sprint there is quite a bit of flex in the front forks. Chances are a few hours riding with some hard braking will seat everything in and the rubbing will stop. great looking bike.
On cheaper bikes you also get a surprising amount of flex in the handlebars. That's one of the reason I replaced the Cube OEM handlebar with a 3T handlebar on my old Cube road bike. However, there, disc brake rub was almost non-existent, I really had to manhandle the bike to get a ting out of my rotors. I don't think I have done an all-out, out-of-the-saddle sprint on my new bike. (Today, I did a seated 1,000 W sprint on a group ride, and it was fine.) But so far the rotors have been silent.
 
@OreoCookie yep. I feel like I've checked all the boxes for everything that I could ever want on this build.

Wheels are 45 mm mavic Cosmic SLR. Despite being an aero frame all the builds I've seen have 45 wheels. Next step up would be 60mm but it's be worried about cross winds at that depth.
That's the goldilocks depth these days, 45–50 mm. I kinda wish they would do what Enve does and feature slightly deeper wheels in the rear but that's fine. I can't speak for your Cosmics, but my 45 mm deep 3T wheels are very benign when it comes to crosswinds. On the first proper ride we had some strong winds (gusts up to 50-60 km/h according to the weather app), so I was cautious when descending. But in the end I mostly just feel the wind slightly, but it isn't pushing me over left and right. The 35 mm 3T's I had on a loaner were seemingly impervious to wind.

Tech has come a long way. In 2017ish I was loaned a Trek Domane SL6 Disc with deeper carbon wheels and these were not pleasant to ride. Cross winds would push the whole bike over. Which is great if you are on a loaned super expensive bike in traffic.
Added a D-fly wireless adapter so I can use the top shifter buttons to control my Wahoo, and display gears, di2 battery power etc.
This is really a must and should be standard. I was bewildered when the loaner bike with Di2 didn't have Bluetooth connectivity. I bought my first Bluetooth-enabled device, a GPS tracker in I think 2005 or so.

And the extra buttons are one of the few things I wish SRAM eTap had, so that I can switch pages on my Wahoo without having to take my hands off the handlebars.
Shifters are actually Dura ace that they threw in free of charge because they weren't able to get Ultegra shifters in time to finish the build.
Nice!
Availability is really a pain. I would have had Red cranks otherwise. (Mommy, I just got an E-class, not an S-class, weeeee!!!)
The wheel hubs are also extremely quiet which is sort of disappointing because I love how loud my Hunt's are. 😆
Loud hubs are mostly nice to scare off pedestrians, but you shouldn't overdo it.

PS One more comment about the color: of course, there is nothing wrong with black, but if you get the equivalent of a Ferrari or Porsche, you should be bold with colors, too. The candy apple red and black looks great. I can imagine it is a bit marmite on some (who'd prefer a fire truck red instead, perhaps), but IMHO that's what gives it more personality. You did good. More than good, in fact 🙂
 
Maintenance day on Sunday. I bought a new part to try out - a copy of Easton's EC90 aero handlebar, for around 13% the price of the real deal. Not that I particularly wanted or need an aero bar. I wanted a shorter drop than what I had, and this seemed interesting.

bar1.JPG

It was fiddly to install. I have cabled R8000 brifters on the bike in question. Both cables are on the inner side of the lever, and only barely go through the hole on the inner side of the bar. Got it done eventually though.

bar3.JPG

Even more of a problem was getting a new cable to the front derailleur. Pulling the old cable out took quite some force. I should have stopped and checked at that point, but was too eager to get on with the task. But when it came to threading the new cable, it would not go through the BB conduit. Would not go at all.

hole1.JPG

hole2.JPG

It felt like the cable was hitting solid plastic or metal. But after much head-scratching and probing, I got in there with a small drill bit, twisting with fingertips, and reamed out... dirt. The tube was packed solid with dirt, which I guess had dribbled down the cable from riding in the wet. Pulling the old cable out caused a landslide that filled the space completely.

My other maintenance task was to replace a tyre. I'd been waiting for an excuse to swap this one, but figured it had a few more rides left in it. After an emergency stop on the Tamagawa to avoid hitting a little kid who danced down some steps into the path, the decision was made for me. (No flat, because Gatorskin.)

2021-05-28_19-52-28.jpg

tyre1.JPG

tyre2.JPG
 
And to think I almost went with the black!

Just got back from the bike shop today. Not enough time for a proper ride yet but I did a short ride from the shop back home. The guys at Punto Rosso helped me dial in the fit and of I went. I'll need to do a could hundred km on it to dial things in but eventually I'll have the fork stem trimmed.

I didn't get to crazy on the ride back because I had a backpack full of accessories but first impressions:
Bike feels a lot stiffer, in a good way.
Ride is as smooth as the Bianchi if not better.
Brakes being separate from the shifters on Di2 is nice when downshifting while braking.
I can hear a slight rub on the front disc while doing a standing sprint. Not sure if this is normal for disc brake bikes.
The fit feels a lot better than the Bianchi. The reach is much shorter so I feel less stretched out. Also with that and the narrower bars the bike feels more responsive during a turn.

Proper review coming soon but these are my first impressions.

Also the bike weighs 7.5 kg with Ultegra pedals. Still need to swap over bottle cages and my new computer mount when it arrives.

Here's some teaser shots for now.
View attachment 31492View attachment 31493View attachment 31494View attachment 31495
Absolutely gorgeous!
 
s800.jpg


With yesterday's 218 km ride (on Strava) I managed to crack the 800 km per month for the first time this year. Last year I only did this once, the month we rode the Fleche from Aichi to Tokyo. Having five weekends in the month helps, but during the middle weekend I only did shopping rides.

We had a small family party the night before that kept me up until 01:00, so I only set the alarm for 07:00 and left at 08:20. The goal was Chichibu, which is pretty far from here, especially if you come back via the river, swinging north through Nagatoro to avoid climbing Yamabushi toge from both sides. I did some VeloViewer tiling near Mt Buko and Nagatoro.

s800.jpg


The first tile was a gravel tile on the NW side of Mt Buko. There's a limestone cave near it but I didn't visit that.

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I chased several more tiles, always with a weary eye towards the rain clouds. It had rained briefly around mid-day between Yamabushi toge and Chichibu, but somehow I managed to dodge it for the rest of the day (and night). At Nagatoro and beyond there were puddles on the road from rain that had fallen in the late afternoon but no new rain where I rode :)

There were a lot of greenhouses for growing strawberries.

s800.jpg


I came across these huge straw sandals, about 4 m tall, made from real rice straw:

s800.jpg


with a message explaining they are meant to chase away Covid. Here the sandal is telling the virus "新型コロナ死ネ" = "Covid, drop dead!"

s800.jpg


Well, if it was me, I'd opt for mass vaccinations from a competent elected government capable of delivering them.

The local government here in Setagaya announced they will send out tickets to anyone born on or before March 31, 1962 (or with medical conditions or working in elderly care) between June 15-19. Currently most sites here are booked until mid-July, so that means a likely vaccination date in August for my wife and me (yes, we're old enough).

Back to the ride: The sun set when I was still 90 km from home, but it took me longer than expected to get back. Everybody was already in bed by the time I got back to Setagaya in the wee hours of the morning.
 
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Nice pictures.
 
I'd opt for mass vaccinations from a competent elected government capable of delivering them.
Come come, don't cavil. We'll get a mass superspreader event from a government keen to demonstrate its competence in satisfying the spectator sports industrial complex. Isn't that worth celebrating?
 
I hate to throw things away if someone can get some use out of them. (Hope it's ok to post this here vs. classified since all but the saddle are freebies) It's all free except for the Selle Italia Novus saddle (would like 3k for it...less than 200km on it). There is an assortment of mirrors, a pair of DMR V8 pedals, swim goggles, a Garmin chest strap, a Blackburn top tube bag, a Giza handlebar bag (cheap but pretty handy..easy on and off, holds rinko bag nicely) and an ARKEL bike bag rack (removable quick release type).

None of these things are worth the hassle of shipping. Could meet you at Blue Door Cafe near Aobadai just about anytime, or Cross Cafe (Inagi) with some notice. Otherwise, out it all goes (but for the saddle). Probably best to DM me if you want any of it.

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Lovely bike factorzero! The shape is wonderful and the colour reminds me of Candy Apple Red Gibson guitars. Fender's CAR is a different colour.

Here's a video comparing Shimano cranksets with weights. After watching it, I felt confident buying a 7000 105 4iii power meter for my 6800 Ultegra crank. The 105 PM was on sale on Probikekit. I've not noticed any difference in pedalling, and the only problem may be a slight reluctance to take photos of the non-drive side where "105" is written.

 
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