Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Team Planet X bros!

Bike Porn:)
This is Des's new bike which we built together 2 Saturdays ago. I am thankful that he trusts me enough to let me work on his new bike. Though I have been building my own bikes for a while now, it is the first time I am
working on someone else's bike, and I was pretty careful and meticulous about it too, cos I do not want the bike to fail and put Des's life in danger.

Frameset is Planet X SL Pro Carbon and groupset is 2011 Campy Chorus  which Des got off the Internet. Honestly, buying from online bikeshop is the way to go if you want a value for money bike build. To get a bike with such specifications in Singapore, he would have to pay >$1k more than what he paid for!

It was my first time working with Campy 11 speed and right away, I realised that it is a troublesome groupset to work with......if you do not have the right tools! Having bought a special chain tool and BB tool just for the job, I thought I was well prepared! Then I realised that the screws require a special star-shaped driver to fit in, and my regular toolset did not have any!! Luckily, I searched around the house, and found the appropriate driver in an old toolkit!

It was good to have Des around when I was building the bike cos really......2 heads are better than 1! Just having the extra pair of hands helped speed up everything, though there were a couple of times where we had to backtrack what we were doing cos we were 1. routing the gear cables wrongly 2. routing the brake cable to the wrong brake!:) 3. cutting the brake housing too short!! These are good lessons learnt which hopefully, I will not commit them again when I embark on my own bike build the next couple of days:)

Des had his first outing on his new bike on Tuesday and I am glad to say that everything on the bike is working beautifully! No inaccurate shifts or dropped chains!! YES!! Another step forward towards my dream!

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