Chinese race build

fivethirtyonepm

I fancied building something a little more aggressive than my Cinelli Pro Best Of' and newly acquired Giant TCR Advanced (thread for that one coming once I finish 'tweaking it').

I picked up a bargain build off this forum with a view to running it as a winter bike (so as to preserve the Cinelli), but found the riding position quite racey for winter commuting. Having picked up a pair of 50mm carbon tubs (which were on the Giant), I decided to have a play about with the bike without breaking the bank. The carbon bars/stem are talked about on a thread in the road section of this forum and I'm pretty chuffed with them.

Anyways... spec reads as follows:-

FM-001 carbon frame – 56cm
Full carbon fork with carbon steerer
Neco integrated headset
Carbon integrated bar/stem (from China) 420mm c-c / 110mm
Lizard Skins DSP bar tape
Cinelli Milano bar end plugs
Ultralight alloy headset spacer
Deda Drittissimo carbon seat pin
Aerozine Ultralight Ti’ seat collar
Prologo Scratch Pro Ti’ saddle
Planet X 50mm carbon tubular wheels
Vittoria Evo Corsa tubular tyres
Vittoria valve extenders
Planet X Carbon/Ti’ skewers
Sram Rival groupset (compact chainrings)
Onza alloy chainring bolts
Jagwire Racer cable set
Shimano 105 SPD-SL pedals

(alternative wheelset – 38mm carbon clinchers on Novatec hubs with Vittoria Evo Corsa CX tyres)

Plenty of scope to save lots of further weight if I decided to spend a bit more money (pedals, wheels, chainset, cassette, bars & stem), but I think that rather defeats the object of having a Chinese frameset.

pease

very nice build indeed! did you source the frame yourself or was it second hand?

I'm currnetly bikeless and toying with the idea of a china stealth wonder as the next bike.

fivethirtyonepm

your for a bag of sand old chap (picked up, cash in my hand)

badly_dubbed

looks the balls....out of interest....what was the build cost?

fivethirtyonepm

badly_dubbed wrote:

looks the balls....out of interest....what was the build cost?

if you buy all the bits new using internet shopping (rather than retail), it would be about £1,800-1,900

It stands me in at a grand on the nose which is what i would sell it for if someone wanted it (i would simply embark on another project)

badly_dubbed

shit! wish i had a spare grand i snap that up!

Paul 8v

Liking the bar/stem combo

fivethirtyonepm

Paul 8v wrote:

Liking the bar/stem combo

i'm quite chuffed with it too... have a genuine Cinelli Ram 2 setup on the Cinelli Pro Best Of' which weighs in at north of £400. This was somewhat less (have a look on ebay), but appears to be almost identical.

i will say however that having spent almost all of yesterday evening fitting the Jagwire cables, the integrated cable setup makes life very hard work indeed! the cables exit on either side of the bar very close to the hoods and then have to go into the levers. the cables don't run freely though the bar & stem (it's quite a job to push or pull them through), so it's a case of lining up about 8 different things and then squeezing it all together at the same time (not least adding in the faff with threading gear cables through the double tap levers!). got there in the end though and the result is quite spectacular.

Paul 8v

Where's the stem from? I couldn't find your post in the road section :-(

fivethirtyonepm

Paul 8v wrote:

Where's the stem from? I couldn't find your post in the road section :-(

have a snoop on ebay... it came from a fairly new ebayer called 'cycling-cycling' in china... bit of a punt, but i was paying via paypal, so worth the shot... was massively impressed with the results... arrived within 10 days, well packaged, no customs charges and no nasty surprises in terms of finish or functionality.

FrancisScotland

Are the wheels (50mm and 38mm) chinese too? If so how have you found riding them? Looking to buy new track and road wheels for next season without braking the bank :P sweet bike you've got there as well

fivethirtyonepm

FrancisScotland wrote:

Are the wheels (50mm and 38mm) chinese too? If so how have you found riding them? Looking to buy new track and road wheels for next season without braking the bank :P sweet bike you've got there as well

the 50mm tubs are from planet x (i think they are taiwanese).
the 38mm carbon clinchers are chinese

as for riding them... haven't turned a single wheel with either set yet!

Sharpy_lad

Like it, but too much red going on randomly.

For me drop the red cables, insulation tape, bar ends and chain ring bolts the rest of the anodised red can stay.

FrancisScotland

fivethirtyonepm wrote:

FrancisScotland wrote:

Are the wheels (50mm and 38mm) chinese too? If so how have you found riding them? Looking to buy new track and road wheels for next season without braking the bank :P sweet bike you've got there as well

the 50mm tubs are from planet x (i think they are taiwanese).
the 38mm carbon clinchers are chinese

as for riding them... haven't turned a single wheel with either set yet!

If you could post on here how you get on that would be awesome

Paul 8v

fivethirtyonepm wrote:

Paul 8v wrote:

Where's the stem from? I couldn't find your post in the road section :-(

have a snoop on ebay... it came from a fairly new ebayer called 'cycling-cycling' in china... bit of a punt, but i was paying via paypal, so worth the shot... was massively impressed with the results... arrived within 10 days, well packaged, no customs charges and no nasty surprises in terms of finish or functionality.

Blimey, they're a little bit less expensive than the cinelli ram! Can't argue for that price!

fivethirtyonepm

Sharpy_lad wrote:

Like it, but too much red going on randomly.

For me drop the red cables, insulation tape, bar ends and chain ring bolts the rest of the anodised red can stay.

each to their own... i had it built up in total stealth black and it bored the hell out of me... i admit that the red insulation tape is debatable and i may well change that out for black, but the rest works for me.... makes it a bit different from the current plethora of dull-as-dishwater all-black builds.

joe.90

Be careful with those bars, I had the exct same and they eventually snapped on me.

M Velo

Nice bike build. I really liked the naked carbon frame.

badly_dubbed

too much red?

theres hardly any red there lol

Sharpy_lad

badly_dubbed wrote:

too much red?

theres hardly any red there lol

There is! To me, certain parts of the build just look a little bit random. I like the red seat clamp, spacers and QR's, but the chain ring bolts look out of place and the cables draw unnecessary attention and are just the wrong red to go with the anodised stuff. Black cables, chain ring bolts back to standard and it'll look stealthy with a splash of bling, all nice and subtle 8)

HOWEVER, it's the OP's bike and he obviously loves it and that's all that matters. I'm all up for bike love!

Paul 8v

Sharpy_lad wrote:

I'm all up for bike love!

I've heard about people like you... :-P

pinarellokid

joe.90 wrote:

Be careful with those bars, I had the exct same and they eventually snapped on me.

i have exacty the same bars, even fron the same seller, no customs charge,

put 800 miles on them now and they are solid and light.. and no flex in them at all.

i love them for the money

how on earth did you manage to snap them ??

joe.90

Mine did 2000 miles before they snapped.

A crack developed where the integrating stem to bar part is, I was aware of it and when I was climbing a hill basically they snapped off into my hands.

fivethirtyonepm

so, you saw a crack on your bar/stem and carried on riding with them?

joe.90

I saw it develop whilst on a ride and carried on, yes.

It was initially small, and i thought it may of just been the lacquer coating and that they would last the journey home. I was wrong. Could of killed me.

Paul 8v

joe.90 wrote:

I saw it develop whilst on a ride and carried on, yes.

It was initially small, and i thought it may of just been the lacquer coating and that they would last the journey home. I was wrong. could have killed me.

That's worrying, I've always thought what the quality control is like with these kind of products, are all the big companies products not made in Taiwan too? I would hope they were to a higher standard but then agaion you might just be paying for the name. Would be interesting to see if anyone else had had any problems with say a Cinelli Ram or similar integrated unit.

joe.90

Well exactly, I initially thought "bloody cheap Chinese crap" but then calmed down and thought, it may not be anything to do with that, it may just be one of the dangers of these all in one carbon bars. I live in a hilly area so there was a lot of tugging on the bars whilst climbing.

Like I said 2000 miles is a fair amount...I now have Ali stem and carbon bars only.

pinarellokid

maybe 2000 miles of climbing teratory took the bars to the end of their life???

not sure but it made me have a damb good look over my bars.. all seems well

and i would still buy another set for going on my new bike for sure

joe.90

pinarellokid wrote:

maybe 2000 miles of climbing teratory took the bars to the end of their life???

not sure but it made me have a damb good look over my bars.. all seems well

and i would still buy another set for going on my new bike for sure

Perhaps, but personally I would never trust a set of integrated Chinese carbon bars again. Im pretty sure a genuine set wouldn't of broke, and even if they did you would have some sort of comeback unlike these Chinese ones.

They shouldn't break in only 6 months use. Hills or no hills.

At the end of the day, again in my personal opinion. genuine or not your better off just getting aluminium stem. It's all good and well the pros using them, but they hardly get much use before being replaced.

Harley35

Not enough Red