Or...an idiot building a bike
Part three: Bars and brakes.
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Christmas has been and gone and I've got my brakes, wheels and a few other bits so can start building again.
The fork headset needed to be fitted first, this is as easy as sliding on the lower race seat, then the race sliding the fork through the steerer and dropping the top race into place. I put on all the spacers supplied to start with to allow room for adjustments later and also slid the clamp that my brake master cylinder will attach to, then dropped on the stem.
At this point you need to decide how long you need the steerer tube, draw a line around the top of the stem where it meets the steerer then disassemble again, I cut around the steerer about 6mm below the line to allow for the stem adjuster to slot in and then the top cap. After cutting the steerer, carefully with a hacksaw dress with a file, reassemble and tighten everything up.
Next to fit the shifters, these just slide on and then clamp up by a torx headed bolt hidden under the rubber grips. Now finally after a few weeks of waiting I can fit the brakes. These are Hope V Twin, this is a hydraulic brake set up that uses normal road shifters by using the brake cables to actuate the master cylinders under the stem. This means you get the benefits of hydraulic brakes with while using road bike drop bars and shifters.
One of the other problems with fitting hydraulic brakes to road bikes (other than no one is currently making hydraulic road shifters) is the lack of road wheels that take discs. The solution is to use mountain bike 29er wheels which are exactly the same size as road wheels just generally over built as their designed for off roading, not a big issue as they will be put to good use on our great lakeland roads! So I opted for a set of Fulcrum Red Power 29ers which are a good compromise of weight against cost.
To fit the brakes properly the hoses need to be cut to lenght then the system re bled to remove the air so i lso took the opportunity to fit some colour co-ordinated caliper caps (little red things) fitting these means total disassembling the caliper screwing the old black caps out and fitting the new ones from the inside then filling the whole system back up with brake fluid. I ended up placing the full system on the work bench, fitted a small clear hose to each caliper bleed nipple in turn and bleeding through the air by pumping each master cylinder in turn (while keeping it topped up with fluid) a bit of a faff but effective.
So now I have the bars, saddle, shifters, brakes and wheels fitted. So I can stop and turn just need some gears to be able to go!
- Match the saddle to the bars and the tires to black; or
- Match the bars to the colour of the frame at the top of the head tube and the saddle to the colour of the frame at the top of the seat tube and the tires to the colour where they come closest to the frame; or
- Match the saddle and the bars to the frame decals; or
- Black, black, black
Christmas has been and gone and I've got my brakes, wheels and a few other bits so can start building again.
The fork headset needed to be fitted first, this is as easy as sliding on the lower race seat, then the race sliding the fork through the steerer and dropping the top race into place. I put on all the spacers supplied to start with to allow room for adjustments later and also slid the clamp that my brake master cylinder will attach to, then dropped on the stem.
At this point you need to decide how long you need the steerer tube, draw a line around the top of the stem where it meets the steerer then disassemble again, I cut around the steerer about 6mm below the line to allow for the stem adjuster to slot in and then the top cap. After cutting the steerer, carefully with a hacksaw dress with a file, reassemble and tighten everything up.
 |
| Bars, stem, shifter and master cylinder adaptor fitted. |
Next to fit the shifters, these just slide on and then clamp up by a torx headed bolt hidden under the rubber grips. Now finally after a few weeks of waiting I can fit the brakes. These are Hope V Twin, this is a hydraulic brake set up that uses normal road shifters by using the brake cables to actuate the master cylinders under the stem. This means you get the benefits of hydraulic brakes with while using road bike drop bars and shifters.
One of the other problems with fitting hydraulic brakes to road bikes (other than no one is currently making hydraulic road shifters) is the lack of road wheels that take discs. The solution is to use mountain bike 29er wheels which are exactly the same size as road wheels just generally over built as their designed for off roading, not a big issue as they will be put to good use on our great lakeland roads! So I opted for a set of Fulcrum Red Power 29ers which are a good compromise of weight against cost.
To fit the brakes properly the hoses need to be cut to lenght then the system re bled to remove the air so i lso took the opportunity to fit some colour co-ordinated caliper caps (little red things) fitting these means total disassembling the caliper screwing the old black caps out and fitting the new ones from the inside then filling the whole system back up with brake fluid. I ended up placing the full system on the work bench, fitted a small clear hose to each caliper bleed nipple in turn and bleeding through the air by pumping each master cylinder in turn (while keeping it topped up with fluid) a bit of a faff but effective.
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| Rear wheel with caliper and disc fitted. |
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| Ready for some gears. |
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