My “Budget” Road Bike build

Looks great. Congrats.

wow, great job hunting this stuff out. for me, if this bike ever sees a crit… consider alloy bars to match the stem. I have actually seen the very expensive, carbon punji sticks that are born from mayhem

I didn't see a chain keeper? meh, I love my Time and I don't have one either. again, great job!

Craig the Racelite 2 is much stiffer than the original Racelite :) The bike is built for speed & comfort; it won't see any racing. A few things may change but overall I'm very happy with the bike.

Very nice weightweenie build, lotta bang for the buck. The only thing questionable is your rear wheel build. 24 spoke rear wheels built with Revolutions tend to be fragile and flexy unless you're a flyweight.

Greg I don't weigh a lot at least for my height. The interesting bit about the rear wheel is the spoke lacing. I went with 16:8 which means there are 16 spokes on the drive side and 8 non drive side. This equalizes the spoke tension much better than the standard 12:12. For a heavier rider the Kinlin XR-270 rim would be a better choice than XR-200. FYI I built the wheels mostly from parts at BikeHubStore.com

That's an interesting way to balance tension between the spokes. I'm a little more conservative but most of my wheels are built for other riders.

How do you like the Superlight hubs? Have you used the mountain version or the Rotaz disc models?

Glad to see you changed the brake pads on the KCNCs, you would not be happy camper with the stock pad.

The Bike Hub Store hubs have been fine so far. The bearings are silky smooth. The front spins for a few minutes in the truing stand! The rear hub is a bit loud though. I haven't tried Rotaz but they are popular. For the MTB I have American Classic disk hubs laced to AMC 350 rims & Marwi TI spokes. I chose 3x lacing all around. With 28 & 32 spokes the MTB wheels are only 1311g.

Larry the Swiss Stop pads completely transform the brakes!

The bike is built for speed & comfort; it won't see any racing. A few things may change but overall I'm very happy with the bike.

no joke, that stack height makes it scream "speed". be safe out there!

Is that spoke pattern similar to the Campy wheels lacing?

The only thing that scares me with that (I have a Khamsin wheelset that I'm less worried about as its heavy and has 27 spokes) is breaking one spoke and inducing a massive wheel wobble on a downhill decent. But that that could happen with 24 spokes with any lacing pattern. I probably weigh too much to ever consider that few spokes myself (78kg atm).

Adam the lacing is like the Khamsin but without the triple spoke grouping at the rim. I thought your 27 spokes was a typo but it makes sense with 18:9. A broken NDS spoke on such a wheel would cause a huge wobble. Broken spokes are rare on a well built wheel so I don't worry about it. Butted spokes generally have a much higher fatigue life and bladed spokes like CX Ray are higher yet.

Yeah if you are keeping it pretty light and rebuild your wheel before it gets too old you should be fine.

The bearings are silky smooth. The front spins for a few minutes in the truing stand!

this one still spins away

Awesome I had Nuke Proof hubs back in the day!

Awesome, I like Your bike.thanks for sharing your such a nice bike with us.

How's the overall quality of the frame/fork look to you? Everything straight and finished well, BB threads, etc. good?

I've heard about Hong Fu and thought about one but have been hesitant because I've yet to see a frame in person.

Thanks.

And by the way, nice ride…it looks like it puts a lot of pricier bikes with big names written on them to shame.

Bender, great job, she looks great!