Small Kine Bike Stuff

Some new stuff I'll be adding to my bike.

New Vittoria Diamante Pro rear tire - since I'm running the Vittoria CX on the front, I wanted an equally good riding, grippy and more durable rear tire...just gotta avoid all that glass and keep my fingers crossed while I ride.

New White Profile Bar Tape - my old tape just really needs a changing...

Koolstop Salmon Brake Pads - my new Kinlin rims don't like the old DuraAce pads I had on there...especially when it's raining...

Tested & Certififed...F-A-S-T!!!

Pimp My Ride...
I'm usually NOT a pimper...usually always preferring FUNCTION over fashion...but these things just look so good...

So after retruing my new wheels using the D-man's truing stand, I headed out for a short ride this afternoon in probably the windiest conditions I have EVER ridden in. Not wanting to get blown around too much with the cars, I just rode around the neighborhood and did about 4 laps on a super windy lagoon. Downwind, I was easily spinning the 53x12, and into the wind, it was usually a 53x17 or 19.


FIRST RIDE VERDICT - My new wheels LOOK SWEET...did I already say that???? They're also super fast as the "dead spot" feels a LOT LESS than before. Could it be all psych? (tests show 30mm rims to be of no help)...who cares???? since it felt way faster riding around today in all conditions (down wind, side wind, raging head winds) - no matter what "they" say, I say that churning 24 aero spokes per wheel versus 32 round ones, and having a deeper and narrower profile HAS to help...

I was wondering about how the rear wheel, at only 24 spokes, would perform. It feels much more direct, compared to my Revolution spoked OpenPro, like the bike is hard wired to the pedals and jumps with no delay at any little effort. The front at a heads in radial 24 also turns and hold a tight line like it's on rails. Side winds are also not that bad, although on Lagoon it was mainly head and tail winds...but when a strong side gust does catch the front wheel, you gotta make sure you're holding on and countersteering into the wind - worse than my OpenPro, but in today's strong gusts, ANY wheel with some profile would be harder to handle.

Btw...did I mention that my new wheel's color scheme...black w/ red nips looks sooooo pimp on my white w/black and red Look KX Light...???...

Cont. My Rear Wheel...

I was all set to go to work last night...when I heard that today was the Kuhio Day State HOLIDAY!!! What a surprise! I was this // close to going to work this morning...

Anyways, put the day off to good use and spent about 3 hour building my first rear wheel...and although if took a LONG time, it was satisfyingly fun!

Here it is with the 6 pull drive side spokes laced. I took a long time deciding whether to lace the pull spokes heads out or heads in. But, after reading the Sapim site and seeing they recommended the pull heads in, that's the way I built it. From what I've read it's supposedly a better bracing angle and I knew I wouldn't have any clearance issues with my rear derailure since my current Open Pros were built pull spokes head in. My only issue was that the Dura Ace hub I was reusing was laced the other way originally...oh well...

Not knowing exactly how to do a 2x rear lacing, it was a good thing I took some pictures of the original 650c build so I had something to follow. Not as difficult as it may look or sound...

All built and trued up!

Took a really long time to true it up as I didn't have all the "proper" tools (only a Park spoke wrench) and was doing it all by feel. But, after slowly tightening left and right, things really started to fall into place and I think its really a tight build...a LOT tighter than my front wheel. I will be tightening up my front wheel again for sure...

For this wheel, I used one of my old frames as a truing stand. For my front wheel, I used an old steel fork I had laying around. Also used plain old Phil Wood grease on the threads and the nipple seats. I read that if you lace it up really tight, you shouldn't need any Spoke Prep...we'll see...

One thing I remembered today (and should have know yesterday) was that to prevent twisting the spokes 360 degrees while tightening, I needed to push on the rim to detension the spokes, made truing much easier - versus almost damaging the spokes trying to hold it with a cresent wrench...duhhh...

Also, on this rear build, I decided to "debur" the nipple seats using the ball-end of an allen wrench...not sure if it was really needed, though, I read it was good to do...

Took some weights:

Rear DA 7700 24h Hub: 310g (no skewer)
Kinlin 24h 30mm Rim: 460g
24 Sapim CX Ray Spokes: 115g (278, 280)
24 DT Alloy Nips: 10g (yeah...chancing the alloy on the DS)
24VeloPlugs: 5g???
TOTAL REAR WHEEL: 900g

Front DA 7700 24h Hub: 120g (no skewer)
Kinlin 24h 30mm Rim: 460g
24 Sapim CX Ray Spokes: 110g (272)
24 DT Alloy Nips: 10g
24VeloPlugs: 5g???
TOTAL FRONT WHEEL: 705g

TOTAL SET: 1605g

Wow...pretty light and looks super trick...not bad for a set of 30mm deep aluminum rims w/ Dura Ace hubs...can't wait to ride it!!!

My Custom Front Wheel...

Spent yesterday building my first bicycle wheel, an easy front wheel radial build. Felt pretty tight and reasonably straight so I decided to ride it today. And NOW I know why people build their own wheels...there's nothing more sweet than riding one you've built yourself.

Every time I looked at the blurred spinning wheel while riding today...it was very very very sweet looking with the red nipples adding just the right amount of bling with the black rims, silver brake tracks, and glistening spokes, even in today's fading cloud infested afternoon gloom. And although it was really windy, the cross winds hardly affected the front wheel and it felt pretty fast and aero to me...

Build Parts:
Kinlin 300 Rims (24 hole, ~465g ea)
Dura Ace 7700 Front and Rear Hubs
Sapim CX-Ray Spokes 272f, 278ds and 280nds
DT Red Aluminum and Black Brass Nips
Veloplugs



Finished front wheel:


Sweet looking red nipples w/ black rims look great when spinning and, they match my bike...


After debating for days...and lacing it heads-out at first, I decided to go heads-in for the better bracing angle and increased front end stiffness. If I laced it heads-out, the distance between the spokes at the hub would have been way less than the D-mans front Mavic hubbed Kinlin. Now, my wheel has about a 1 mm wider bracing angle than his build, which should help the front end feel more solid...


Now all I need to do is start building the rear, 2x both sides...

Long Ride with New Deep Drop 215

With all the cold and wet weather (and the colds) over the last month or so, today was the first day in a LONG time for me to put in a ride of over 3-1/2 hours. After the ride, I could tell that my body really needed it...

It was beautiful with some pretty decent Westerlies making riding the "easy way" harder. After my usual neighborhood warm up, I hit Tantalus from the stop sign after about 1:20 or so. Witht he wind blowing up the mountain, I figured I could do a pretty decent time, but was not really sure how the legs would be since I haven't gone hard for a long time. Did it in 19:19 so I figure with the regular wind it would have been about 19:45 or so...not bad, not good, but OK considering...

My new Deda Deep bars are pretty good, but I'm still working out the best position. I've been fiddleing with the angle, a lot, and with my seat height. Then today, I could tell my stand up climbing was really over working my upper body, compared to the Shallow bar. Since the hoods are higher with the Deep's bend, I decided to slam my bars all the way down, iow NO SPACERS, and that seemed to really help my stand up riding. And now, the drops are really really really really deep...we'll just have to see how this works out...

Wheel Building & Youtube!

Youtube's great. Search "wheelbuilding" and you get a ton of hits on how to build your own bicycle wheels. Maybe it's just me, but this one is pretty good and quirky funny: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTb3x5VO69Y

Rims: These are my 2, 24 hole, 30mm deep Kinlin Rims I ordered for $60ea. from www.fairwheelbikes.com:


The built wheel is the D-man's home brew front Kinlin rim w/ Mavic hub - I was borrowing it.

Hubs: I'll be reusing my 24 hole Dura Ace 7700 hubs that are currently laced to Velocity 650c rims.

Spokes: I'll be ordering from www.wheelbuilder.com, a set of Sapim CX-Ray spokes for the front - radial maybe??? For the rear I will be using probably CX-Rays on NDS radial, and maybe 14/15 db on the drive side. I just pray that the 24 spoke rear wheel will be strong enough.

Build: I'll be building my first set of wheels soon :-)

New Bars...

And I'm not talking about the drinking kine!

Deda 215 DEEP drop bar - 240ish grams.....not exactly 215...


For a while now, I've been riding around with my Deda 215 SHALLOW drop bar...the same one LA used in several TDF wins! But that bar's reach was just a little too short with the 11 stem I was running AND, when really hammering the drop was just a tad SHALLOW duh...

So I decided to try the Deda 215 DEEP drop and it seems like it's working out pretty good. I had to go to a shorter 10 stem, but the DEEP's reach is 15mm longer so that netted a 5mm longer reach, just what I was looking for. And, the drop is 10mm deeper so its a way better fit for me in the drops. Also, the hoods are also a tad higher since the DEEP bar does not drop angle down as sharply as the SHALLOW.

As with all bike fitting issues go...we'll just have to see how it goes.