Building My Bike: #10 Bar Tape

Everything was put together. The fitting had been completed. I put the insert in the steerer tube and the stem was firmly attached to it. There was just one thing left to make the bike complete and I couldn't put it off anymore: it was time to wrap the handlebar with tape.

The reason for my hesitation stemmed from my attempts to wrap bar tape on my ten-speed back in high school (known as "the seventies" to you youngsters). It always ended in disaster. However, the bar tape you get to work with now is so much better than that plastic stuff from way back when. For the tape, I stuck with with what I know and has been working for me: Cinelli Cork. It feels good, it looks good, and it comes in a variety of colors and patterns. Another nice thing about this tape is that there is a small strip of adhesive on the back to hold it down while you're wrapping.

To build up my confidence, I watched this video a few times:

Time to get started:

Wrap those cables first.

1. Wrap the cables to the bar with electrical tape.

Those "spare" bar tape strips
go behind the shifters.

2. Use the extra tape section to wrap behind the brake handle.

3. Beginning at the bar end, wrap, wrap, wrap. Wrap, wrap, wrap. Woops, running out of tape. I guess my original plan of overlapping by half the tape width was way too conservative. Unwrap, unwrap, unwrap. This time I'm going to wrap so that the adhesive strip on the back lands just outside the tape underneath.

I wrapped with the adhesive
just outside the tape below.

Re-rap, wrap, wrap, double over the brake handle, wrap, wrap, wrap. Done!

4. Instead of using electrical tape, Cinelli provides tape strips (with their logo, natch) to tape the end. Some people used to recommend using an X-Acto knife to cut the end of the tape so it is perpendicular with the bar but using scissors is much easier and you don't cut into your bar.

An improvised mallet.

5. Time to put the bar-end plugs in. Hmm, that isn't going in easily. In fact, it was pretty hard. I ended up using a hammer but, because I didn't have a soft mallet, I had to improvise by putting some extra bar tape on the hammer head and whacked those plugs in.

Not a bad job.

There! Not a bad job. Not a great job but not a bad job. Fear of wrapping the handlebars begone!

Building My Bike: #9 Stem, Saddle, and Fit

In the home stretch now. The stem and saddle are very easy to put on but they are the heart of a proper fit (after the frame's geometry, of course) so I wanted to try and get them close to the measurements from my fit.

First would be the stem. I did rough measuring and found that I would need to stack the steerer as high as I could to attach the stem, and even then I wasn't sure that would be high enough. If that was the case, there exist stems with steep angles that can raise the handlebar even higher but I was hoping we wouldn't have to go that far.

How high did I stack things, and how did I do it? Well, a couple of years ago a quick special came up on the old Bonktown site for some carbon spacers--cheap! I ordered them and put them on my old bike, saving the old ones that came with it (in bike repair, it pays to save as many of these spare parts as possible). I also didn't use all the spacers so I had some more spares there. I ended up using almost all the carbon spacers and the old bike's spacers to get the stack high enough, which turned out to be about 2 1/4". Yes, 2.25 inches. Someday I'll get some nice Chris King matching spacers but, for now, this alternating pattern will do.

Putting the saddle on was a piece of cake, of course. I did need to use anti-seize on the seatpost because it being metal meeting titanium. I set it to the neighborhood of the right height, based on the fit measurements. Then I tried adjusting saddle angle and forward-backwards position. After a few very short test rides around the driveway I decided that saddle fine-tuning would be better done by a professional.

Note that the steerer tube was still un-cut at this point. I didn't think it would need to be cut at all but I wanted to be absolutely sure and that would not happen until I finished my fit. For my 3T Funda Pro fork, this presented a problem. It has an insert that you epoxy inside the top of the steerer tube after you have cut it. The insert is where the top cap screws into the fork. Without that insert, the fork is loose. If you ride a bike much with a loose fork/headset, apparently you can really mess the headset up. Another reason to stop doing test rides and get the verdict on cutting the steerer tube.

So the bike was pretty much assembled, except for bar tape, which I couldn't put on until I found out about the steerer tube. Here is what it looked like at that point:

Time to go back to FinalFit. A lot had happened since my last trip there back in June 2012! They had moved and changed their name to ERO Sports but it is still run by Jim Manton. Once he saw the name on the bike he remembered my whole story and was eager to see how the bike turned out, since he might be able to recommend Carver to people looking for a custom frame. Jim took out his measuring tape to see how the bike compared to the fit numbers we arrived at in June and I was very happy (and relieved) when he said it was perfect (even my high stacking of the stem!). He even commented that the frame looked very well-put together. All we should need to do was tweak the saddle position (up/down/forward/backwards/angle) and that turned out to be the case. I'd ride (the bike on a trainer). He'd tweak. I'd ride. He'd tweak. We were very close but not quite there and then he made a very slight adjustment and everybody (I brought my girlfriend) could tell that that was the missing piece. I rode faster and looked more comfortable. I'm not even sure what he adjusted but the fit was now excellent!

I brought the bike home, marked the seatpost position with tape in case it slipped later (it did), took pictures of the saddle set-up, removed the fork and epoxy'd the insert to the steerer tube, put the fork back on the bike, and got ready for the last big challenge: bar tape.

Building My Bike: #8 Cables

Stretching new cable.

What makes me the most nervous about any kind of project is doing something permanent. For example: cutting. For this project, that includes cutting a chain, cutting bar tape, and cutting cable. I try to cut long when I can because my fear is cutting short and ruining something, which means I have to spend more $$. Nervous.

Stock ferrule didn't fit.

Don't go without ferrules.

I started with the brake cables because I thought they would be the easiest and they were. Route them through the brake handles, run them through the housing and then through cable guides, hook them up to the brakes. Done. Something helpful to do, though, is stretching the cable. Once the cable is hooked up, grab a section and pull on it a few times. Then go back and tighten it up again. Cables stretch, especially when they're new, so pre-stretching as much as you can does help.

A step-down ferrule.

Another helpful tip is don't use the wire-cutters you may already have. You are not going to be just cutting cable but also the housing, which is plastic on the outside and metal underneath. Traditional wire-cutters can cut the cable but squish the housing. Get yourself a cable and housing cutter. Mine is made by Jagwire and it also does endcap crimping.

Perfect fit.

I had a bit of an adventure with the cable housing ferrules, those metal things you put at the end of a section of housing. The ferrules that came with the cable housing did not fit the cable guides on my frame. They kinda went in but didn't fit well. So, I thought I would try to get away with not using ferrules. Bad idea. Stupid idea. So I put the ferrules back on but wasn't happy. I did some internet searching and found some step-down ferrules. I went to a LBS to see if they had some, they did, I put them on, and they were perfect.

That bit of daylight is
where the cable goes.

The shifter cables were a bit more of an adventure. I started off by having a hard time figuring out where to start running it through the shifter (I should mention that these are Shimano Ultegra shifters). I should have taken a picture of where I pulled the old cable out. I figured out the right opening and ran the cable through it. However, it wasn't smooth going. I kept pulling on the cable, though. I knew I was in trouble when the cable stop kept going. It actually got a bit stuck in the shifter. After taking a few things off the shifter (those things are pretty complicated and don't disassemble so well--which is why they're so expensive), and some luck, I was able to pull the cable back out. This time I turned the bike in the stand so I could take a good look at the bottom of the shifter. See that hole in the bottom left? In there is some daylight. That is where the cable needed to run through. Once I figured that out, the cable went in smoothly.

What a cable stretcher can do
if you're not careful

The cable to the rear derailleur was easy: run it, hook it up, stretch it a bit. Piece of cake. The front derailleur, though...

Let me admit that the front derailleur has always been my nemesis, even when installed by a bike shop. It would stretch and I'd have to pull it but I would screw up and shifting up front would suck for a while. Same thing happened here. I installed the cable but I couldn't get it tight enough, shifting would be okay for a while but it wouldn't take long for the cable to stretch (I could never seem to stretch it enough), so I'd pull the cable some more, I couldn't get it tight enough, shifting would be okay for a while...you get the picture. Clearly I was missing something and that something was a "cable stretcher" or a "fourth-hand tool". It's a clever little tool (mine is from Park Tools) that grabs the cable, lets you pull it tight, then lock that pull in place while you tighten the bolt. If you're not careful, though, you can mess up your cable while using it so let me give a few tips:

1. Do not cut your cable until after you have used the stretching tool to install it. Even then, you'll probably want to cut it long the first time because it is going to stretch and you are likely going to have to pull it again. You do this because the cable won't fray as much if it is whole. If you try using it on a bare cable end, see the picture above.
2. If you do cut it again, make sure you leave enough length to use the cable stretcher well-within the end cap. You don't want to knock the endcap off while you are using the cable stretcher. See the photo above.
3. For the front derailleur, set the inside adjustment screw about midway. Once you install the cable, you are going to be screwing it in so make sure you have some room to do that.
4. Set the chain in the largest cog in your cassette and the small chainring. This is as far in as your front derailleur will be going.
5. Using the cable stretcher, pull the cable so your front derailleur is as close to the chain as possible. Though we will be using the screw to fine-tune the adjustment, you don't want to make a big adjustment with it.
6. Lock the cable stretcher and screw the cable down.
7. Stretch the cable with your fingers as much as you can. More than once.
8. Repeat steps 5 and 6.
9. Lastly, don't squeeze the tool with a death grip. It is not needed because with this tool you don't need that much effort to stretch the cable. If you squeeze too hard you can fray your cable even if you haven't cut it yet.

Since I used the cable stretcher my front shifter cable doesn't have slack and it shifts just fine. There is still some slack in the rear brake cable but I am not sure what I can do about that yet. The brake works just fine but when I go over bumps the cable slaps against the frame, which isn't harmful but it is annoying.

Building My Bike: #7 Brakes, Derailleurs, and Chain

Front too close.

Rear too close.

What could be so hard about brakes? Take them off the old bike, put them on the new frame, put new brake pads on. Done, right? The problem was that both brakes didn't fit on the new frame. Huh? I've never heard of brakes not fitting but they didn't fit. The rear brake pads were right up against the seat stays and the front brake pads were right up against the fork. Mild panic because I didn't want to buy new brakes. Did some reading. Didn't find anything. Okay, if this isn't a problem that's documented then it isn't a problem, right? If you look at where the brake contacts where it's going, there's this thick washer. Perhaps I just needed another thick washer.

Front with washers.

Rear with washers.

Well, I couldn't find any at the hardware store or the LBS ("I must throw out ten of those a week." Sigh.) so I improvised. I decided to use regular washers and stack them until the pads cleared their obstruction. It took three washers for each brake but it worked. Now, I'm not convinced that regular washers are the best thing to use. They are smooth and the thick washer that was with the brakes is serrated, likely to keep it from turning when force is applied to the brakes. I looked and I looked and I finally found that JensonUSA stocks serrated washers so when I next place an order from them, I will include some of these.

Derailleurs proved to be a bit easier. Hanging the front derailleur was pretty straightforward: put it a few millimeters above the big chainring. The rear derailleur was a bit more interesting. Putting it on was no problem but I noticed this adjusting screw that I hadn't seen before (because you don't really see it until you're looking at the derailleur from the inside). It is the B-adjustment screw and it is used to, in a nutshell, keep the cage from rubbing up against the cassette (learn all about rear derailleur adjustments from Sheldon Brown). That would have to wait until I put the chain on.

As for the chain, I could have gone with the usual Shimano Ultegra chain but I decided to give the KMC X10.93 chain a try. It was almost half the cost of the Shimano and it got great reviews. Sold. The instructions in the FLO Cycling guide I have been using say to wrap your chain around the big chainring and the biggest cog, add two links (one if you have a master link, which the KMC has) and that is the length of your chain. I was a bit skeptical but I checked other sources and they had the same advice. Worked great. I was surprised when all that fit in the rear derailleur but it did.

Now that the chain was installed, I could go back and work on that B-adjustment screw. The FLO Cycling video that accompanies the guide for this shows the top-most pulley always quite a distance from the cassette. Hmm. My top-most pulley only gets that way when it is pulled down a bit by the chain. Hmm. Well, I'm not convinced I have totally set this correctly but it is working for now. I'll probably have to revisit this.

That was the easy part of setting up the derailleurs. The real adjustments happen after I attach the cables.

Building My Bike: #6 Wheels and Tires

The crash wrecked my wheels. There weren't taco-d but they were so messed up that I needed to get new ones. I liked the Vuelta wheels that came on my old bike. A little aero, bladed spokes, and demonstrably bomb-proof. I wanted to see what else was out there, though.

The first set that caught my eye was the Mavic Cosmic Elite. Very similar to the Vueltas feature-wise. They were right on the upper edge of what I wanted to spend but they were tough to find on sale and in stock. I did find a good source for them, though: eBay. Seems that they are the standard wheels on some bikes but people want to upgarde to better wheels so they put their Cosmic Elites on sale. I got close in a few auctions but then I started wondering whether I really wanted to spend $400 on wheels. I decided to find another set.

Next up was the Reynolds Shadow. Spokes aren't bladed but the price was right. However, they were really hard to find in-stock in online stores (some stores say they've been discontinued). I also had a question about how bomb-proof they were, since there wasn't much in the way of reviews to check out. See, light, fast, and expensive wheels are made for whippet riders. Us bigger folks need heavier wheels that won't crumple when we bunny-hop over potholes.

In the end, I decided to go with what I knew: Vueltas. The Vuelta Corsa Pro, to be specific. I already knew that Vueltas could handle my load. They are 30mm deep and have bladed spokes. Clinchers, of course. And the price at JensonUSA was right. Sold.

Tires wasn't much of a decision but I did decide to go with something slightly new. My go-to tires are Vittoria Rubino Pros. I have tried tires by Continental, Specialized, Vredstein, and Michelin but I keep coming back to Vittoria. They wear well, hold up against punctures better than the others, feel good (really, some tires just don't feel good from the first few pedal strokes) and I can run them at high pressure (120psi rear, 110 front). However, instead of the typical 23mm tires, I wanted to try 25mm tires. More grip on the road and a supposedly smoother ride. We'll see.

I should mention rim tape. Because I use such high pressure in my tires, I can't use regular rim tape. Did you know that? Neither did I until I did some rides with the higher pressure and I got a flat going downhill on the inside of the tube. I did some reading and found that because of the high pressure, regular rim tape can fail, allowing the tube to expand in the spoke holes and flat. I now buy Vittoria High Pressure Rim Tape (up to 145psi) and put that on my rims.

Building My Bike: #5 Bottom Bracket, Crankset and Cassette

I had hoped to move the drivetrain from my old bicycle to the new frame and I did, for the most part. Taking the crankset off was straightforward. I had never taken a cassette off a wheel, so that was new but wasn't too hard. A helpful tip: cassettes come off one cog-at-a-time (for the most part) and there are spacers between some of them so take pictures of the pieces that come off in the order that you took them off. It will really help you putting things back together.

When it came time to remove the bottom bracket, I found I had two problems. First, I had the wrong tool because I thought I had a BB with external cups. Yeah, that's a stupid thing to not notice but, in my defense, my old bike originally came with one but that changed when I switched to a compact crankset, so I'm not completely hallucinatory. The second problem was that when I turned the bottom bracket, it felt a bit rough so I figured it needed replacing. I decided to let get a new bottom bracket and at the LBS and let them install it. I'm not convinced that was the most cost-effective decision but I didn't want to buy yet another tool and was anxious to get this done. Oh well, they put it on and it is smooth as silk.

Putting the crankset on the new bike was, of course, a piece of cake.

Before I put the cassette on the new wheel, I wanted to clean it. All I did was mix up some water with degreaser and soak the cogs in there while I did other work on the bike. After an hour or two I took them out, wiped them off with a shop towel, and put them on the rear hub. While they don't exactly look new, it is a huge improvement over how they looked before.

Oh, and while I was down there, I added the bottom bracket cable guide. That's something you don't usually think about, do you? Not only does your LBS probably not stock them, they are kind of a neglected part out there on the internet. Your best bet is to find them on eBay. The problem is that there are different sizes of cable guides because of the different sizes of bottom brackets and you don't always get a description of the BB size for your cable guide. The guide from my old bike didn't fit so, originally, I bought a Campagnolo cable guide on eBay because I thought it would be funny ("Find the Campy part I used."). It turns out that it was made for a bigger BB so I couldn't use it, either (though I did try and ended up stripping the cheap screw in the process--I had to break the cable guide and used pliers to remove the screw). Stopped at the LBS, they had a couple different types laying around so I got both. The ugly one fit best. Oh well, nobody will see it but me.

Update 3/2/13: Competitive Cyclist just posted a gallery of their new Merlin Extralight titanium bike. Look at the bottom bracket cable guide! Looks like I'm in good company.

Building My Bike: #4 Headset and Fork

The headset. It doesn't do so much. It connects the fork's steerer tube to the head tube, allowing you to steer the bike. And that's it. So how do you decide what headset to get? I don't have much experience with them but the overwhelming consensus on the internet is that Chris King makes the best headsets. They work well and they last. Sounds good. Headsets don't cost all that much, relatively speaking, and, while a Chris King Nothreadset costs over $100, which is twice what a lower-end headset costs, it's still not the most expensive one out there. A pro-level component for not much over $100? Sold.

I thought getting a fork was going to be much simpler than what it turned out to be. That's because I didn't know as much about forks as I do now. Specifically: fork geometry. See, I thought I could just buy any old carbon fork and it would be good. So I went to Bike Island, which stocks components found on BikesDirect.com bikes, and looked at forks. Something I noticed was this thing called "rake". It differed between different forks. Hmmm. So I did some reading on the internet about forks, which lead to another term: "trail". Good thing I did. Because of my frame's head tube angle, the rake found on most forks would not give me the right amount of trail. That article said a trail of 57mm is ideal but that is what my last bike had and I could not ride hands-free for very long so I wanted a bit more trail. I used this handy trail calculator and found that I needed a fork with a rake of between 48 and 50mm to get the trail I wanted (time will tell if it makes much difference). Finding a fork with a trail like that was not much of a problem. For instance, both 3T and ENVE make forks like that. Finding a fork with a trail like that that wasn't over $400 proved to be more of a test. I finally found an online store that had a 3T Funda Pro fork with a 49mm rake (which made my trail 60mm) at a good price. Sold.

Fork (with crown race), headset, and frame. All I needed to do was put them together. It turns out that assembling all that requires specialized tools that is just not worth me purchasing. I dropped everything off at the LBS and the job was done the next day. If you get a headset installed on your frame, check out its orientation. If the headset's logo is aligned (e.g. the logo faces forward), your shop is paying attention to details (mine did). That's a good thing.