My new ride - Boardman Team FS
Comments
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The othe reason for adding the stem was to take the basket total over £100, to use the 10% discount code from the Votec build thread, but the code had expired, unfortunately.
Should get 2% cashback from Quidco though, better than nothing (although I had to pay £5.99 for guaranteed next day delivery, 'cos I'd fannied about and not placed the order earlier in the week, stupid boy). 0 -
I'd be interested to know how you find the wider bars. I've adjusted to the standard ones now but I think they felt a little narrow at first.
I'd also be interested to know how you get on with setting your sag and use of travel. I found that I was putting in a fair amount less air than recommeneded for my weight (13st ish) to get the correct sag. Even with 30% sag on the rear shock I'm still not using all the travel. Possibly an indication that I don't ride "hard" enough. I'm more X-country than downhill though to be fair.
Here's mine anyway
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I like your green spacers, I was debating whether to go with green spacers and/or bars myself. The green grips look much better than the 'orrible white ones (the white ones make it look like an Essex slapper in white stilettos, lol).
I had 680mm bars on my Kraken until recently, until changing to 750mm. On that bike the 680s felt ok, but on the Boardman they just feel really narrow, and my hands just naturally want to sit further out. If anything the 750s on the Kraken now are a tad wide (I might cut them down slightly). The Spank Spoons (great name, lol) I've ordered are 740mm, and my Superstar grips are the Size Zeros (which are 150mm wide), which will bring my hands in a few mm, so i reckon they should feel bang on. The bikes I've test ridden recently all had bars 720 to 740mm wide, which felt good. They have a 20mm rise (looks like the OE bars are maybe 10/15mm, so that should offset the slight drop from the shorter stem nicely. Hopefully should have a nicely sorted cockpit, and with the saddle around the middle of its adjustment I should have a similar reach measurement to my Kraken (that's a 20" frame, but the saddle's slammed right forward), while being pretty central over the bike.
I see that yours came with the same wrongly routed front brake hose that both mine and the MBR test bike have too.0 -
yeah I've been meaning to sort it. Might do it this evening if i'm bored..0
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I've not set the sag properly yet - it's just on the very rough setting I had for trying it out in the shop. I don't weigh much, so will need to run low pressures (the forks are currently at 50psi, which is around 30mm sag). I'll probably start at 25% front and 25-30% rear, and see how that feels. I may find that I need to run a little less sag than ideal, 'cos with the low pressures my weight needs to get sag right it seems to be giving up a fair bit of travel just trying it for size in teh street and bouncing on the suspenders.
I'll reroute the hose along with adding the new parts (caliper alignments need adjusting too).0 -
Blimey, you can't weigh much with 50 psi! That said I'm only using about 80 where as the recomeneded pressure for me is 100 ish.
I tried 100 psi and it felt awful.
With the rear shock i think ive dialed in just the right amount of rebound now. I had it set half way and now 2 clicks towards more damping seems to be just right. Can't feel it trying to "buckaroo" me off now .
Still trying to fiddle with the front fork but can't really decide how much damping it needs.0 -
johnsav wrote:Blimey, you can't weigh much with 50 psi!
Nope, not a lot, lol. I'm a lightweight both figuratively and literally.
I've not played with the fork rebound adjuster yet, but had a quick look at the shock rebound - just a very brief play, but first impression is that for me one click faster than middle feels about right.
I've just been outside having a look at the bike and I'd guess that they did check at least some of the suspension bolts - the muppets have managed to round off the allen head on the left side main chainstay to frame pivot bolt ffs... I should've just taken the bike home boxed.
Re the bars, I'm thinking around 720mm could be right for me. The 750s on my Kraken seem to be putting more weight on the outsides of the heels of my hands, which is making them sore. I didn't get that with the 680s, or notice it on any of the bikes I test rode.0 -
Damn.. That's a shame about the bolt. I chose to take the second bike I had in the box to eliminate Halfords from the equation. Was actually quite surprised that it comes pretty much fully built. All I needed to do was attach the front wheel and stem, adjust calipers and remove lots of cardboard. Even the gears were indexed properly!0
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After my Kraken was so shoddily thrown together I said that if I bought another Halfords bike I'd take it boxed, I should've stuck to my word. They've not even got the stem properly straight, or bars properly centred, and there's enough grease on the seatpost for about thirty bikes. Where do they find these monkeys?
The bolt head's nicely chewed up (they obviously didn't insert their allen key properly), but hopefully there's still enough purchase on it to take it out with a good quality 3/8" drive allen bit and replace it with a stainless steel equivalent (I'll need to get it out to measure it first to know what size to order though - I've got loads of stainless allen caphead fasteners, but probably nothing countersunk that size in my stock. It looks like an M8, but don't know what length). Hopefully the right side's properly tightened, since you can't get to that without taking the chainrings off. If I can't get it out then the bike's going back and it can be their problem to remove it.0 -
Nice ride Kowalski. Ive never seen one of these in store for some reason. But it looks nice none the less. You should do what john did and go for the green grips. I think it looks a million times better than the white.
If the bolt head for the top cap is aluminium then it is well worth switching it for a proper stainless steel countersunk one. The aluminium one i had was crap, the head sheered off without barely any force. Luckily i managed to twist it out with some mole grips to get a stainless steel one.
I cant believe that Halfords did all that to your brand new bike...sounds like a job that someone would do if they had never worked with a bike before or something.0 -
I wouldnt use 3/8th's on a bike myself, tend to find 1/4 is more than good enough. Try a Torx T25 bit in the bolt head to see if you can get some extra purchase on it - usually works quite well with 4mm allen fixings.
The main pivot bolt seems to be a "through bolt" in that one side is a male and the other is female and they screw into each other. Looks stainless to me as well, like all the pivot bolts.
You can just get a 4mm ball head allen key through the chain rings if you rotate the crank round to line the teeth up. I found you've just enough purchase to be able to do the other side up tight enough.0 -
For a damaged bolt like that I'd rather use one of my 3/8" bits on a short breaker bar, for better leverage and feel. If it feels like it wants to round then I'll try the old torx bit trick.
I did wonder what the bolts threaded into, given that the pivot is presumably hollow. Which side is the male piece? If the damaged one's the female then I won't be able to replace that from any of my standard fastener suppliers. I don't think they're stainless (there's no grade markings on the head), but I could be wrong. I'm not keen on using ball head allens for tightening anything tight (they don't grip very well compared to a full hex bit), but at 6Nm it should be ok.0 -
Yeah agreed, I only mentioned a ball head as you access the fixing at a slight angle.0
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Aye, sometimes they can be useful for access when you don't need to do something up really tight, but they need to be used carefully in smaller sizes. I use my set of ball end T bars all the time, but if it's for something tight I'll just spin it up finger tight with the ball end then use a full hex head for the final tightening. Do you know which side of the pivot is the male bolt and which the female? I don't want to try remove the bolt until after the weekend, 'cos I only want to remove it once, given the damaged head.0
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The male end was on the non drive side on my first FS. I'd like to think they're all assembled the same but you never know!0
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Hopefully mine's the same then, and the damaged bolt is just a regular fastener.0
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GT-Arrowhead wrote:Nice ride Kowalski. Ive never seen one of these in store for some reason. But it looks nice none the less. You should do what john did and go for the green grips. I think it looks a million times better than the white.
Cheers, I've only just spotted your post, must've skipped past it somehow yesterday. Pay attention though, lol, I already said I'd bought green Superstar grips (with black anodised lockrings and end caps) - the white OE ones are gash. The white saddle's coming off too. Bars and stem arrived this morning, so i should be out in the garage in the sunshine now.If the bolt head for the top cap is aluminium then it is well worth switching it for a proper stainless steel countersunk one. The aluminium one i had was crap, the head sheered off without barely any force. Luckily i managed to twist it out with some mole grips to get a stainless steel one.
I'm not a fan of ally fasteners at all for anything that needs to be more than finger tight, and certainly not in any application that's remotely load bearing. The top cap bolt is steel (and looks rather ugly - gonna pop in the rubber plug that HAlfords didn't bother fitting).I cant believe that Halfords did all that to your brand new bike...
I can. They're monkeys.0 -
The front cable routing is funny, though I'm now gonna have to apologise to my mate as I took the wee wee out of him for doing it when he brought his bike round to be set up.0
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The rear brake hose routing seems daft too, tbh. It runs to the right side of the head tube (with the gear cables), but then crosses back to run down the left underside of the down tube. Think I'll reroute it on the left side of the head tube while I'm fitting the new bars.0
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Some numpty must have done your cabling then! Mine is correct for the rear brake. Can't really blame halfords for that though as its all set up in the factory.0
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The other bikes I've seen are routed the same, as is the bike on their website:
Looking at your pic, it looks like yours is routed with all three cables to the right of the headstock too?
Couple of boxes arrived from CRC this morning with the bars, stem, spacer, tubes and new knee pads. Assembled goodness:
This evening I've fitted the QR seatpost, centred the calipers on the discs and fitted the new Bonti tyres and schraeder tubes. Believ eit or not, at 40 years old, those are the first bicycle tyres I've ever changed, I had to watch a youtube vid, lol. The OE wired Contis put up a struggle, they didn't want to come off the rims (even snapped a tyre lever, lol). The folding Bontis went on much more easily. I was going to save the Contis and refit them when I sell the bike (or maybe put them on my Carerra when that needs tyres), but I don't fancy wrestling them back on with their wire beads. They're surprisingly light for wire tyres though (740g each). The Bontis are 620g, and the new tubes are 20g lighter each, so I've saved 280g of rotational weight, and they look nicer too.
Then I fell off my Carerra and hurt myself quite a lot. I'm typing this in quite a bit of pain, trying to move nothing but my fingers...0 -
Will have to double check my cables now lol
The first bike I had a few weeks ago had folding contis on it. This new one I've got now had wire contis and likewise they were tight coming off. Awful tyre though. I'll stick with my trusty marmite fire xc's!
Some good looking kit there, hope your injury doesnt stop you from riding for long!0 -
By all accounts the wired Contis are scarily bad in the wet, with tests of bikes fitted with them saying bin them before you leave the shop, so I figured better to put something decent on straight away and either keep the Contis to refit when I sell the bike, or sell them. I don't fancy wrestling with those beads again though, so I reckon I'll sell 'em, should get £20 for the pair, I reckon. The XR3s were a bargain at £20 each (reduced from £35) and I've ridden on them on demo bikes, so I know they're pretty good - grippy all rounder, but pretty fast rolling and light. I was tempted to go for the 2.35 front, but I got the 2.2s front and rear in the end. If I'd not found those cheap (and just down the road, conveniently) I would've tried the On One Smorgasbords.
My knee and back are sore today, but a lot better than last night (I looped a wheelie stood on the pedals and landed heavily flat on my back on tarmac). My insides feel ok now and I can move around, so hopefully I'll be ok to ride tomorrow, albeit sorely - I'll have to try not to crash, lol. Just had my bacon sarnies while watching a Top Gear rerun on Dave (they had the Ariel Atom on and I've got an opportunity to drive one of those, but can't decide between that, a Nissan GTR or and Aston Martin Vantage V8), now I'm gonna go back out to the garage and fit the rest of the new bike goodies. Spank Spoon's such a great name, lol. Helicopter tape arrived this morning too.0 -
Quick update. New parts all fitted:
Tyres - Bontrager XR3 Team Issue 2.2 TLR, with Schwalbe schraeder valve tubes
Bars - Spank Spoon 740mm (20mm rise)
Grips - Superstar Size Zero (with black anodised lockrings and end caps)
Stem - Raceface Ride XC 70mm (8 degree rise), with black anodised FSA spacer
Saddle - Madison Flux
Pedals - Wellgo B54
Muccy nutz Bender Fender
Cycraguard crud catcher
Renthal chainstay protector
Bontrager bottle cage
Specialized QR seatpost clamp.
Weight 13.96kg
Cables rerouted (front brake hose switched to inside of fork leg and untwisted, rear brake hose moved to left side of head tube and cable tied more neatly at bottom bracket. Shifters and brake levers switched round Brake calipers centred on disks and front pads advanced to reduce lever travel, pads bedded in. Front mech cage straightened, Maxle spindle greased, all fasteners checked (a couple weren't tightened properly). Riding position set up, suspension twiddled with (sag set to 20% front and 30% rear to start with, rebound adjusters set in the middle).
Some quick snaps from this evening (apologies for the shite background, they were just quickies):
Looks good now, much nicer than stock, and feels good too, based on just messing about in the street. So, those are the good bits. Unfortunately we've had to have a trip back to Halfords to complain about the bad bits. Firstly the aforementioned rounded off pivot bolt, scratched stem (not a big deal since I've taken it off anyway, but still annoying), and generally p*ss poor PDI, which are all small things and fixable (I've sorted all the poor build issues myself), but here's the real bummer - the morning after fitting the new tyres I got the bike out to apply the helicopter tape and when I parked her in the sunshine I spotted that there's a small dent on the left side of the downtube (between the M and A of Boardman). I'd not spotted it under the shop lights, but noticed it with the sunshine highlighting it. Grrrrrrrrrrr :evil:
Unfortunately there's no new bikes left (only ex display ones, which I don't want) - one store had a boxed one, but had just agreed to send it to another store for a customer - if I'd spotted teh dent a day earlier I could've had that one. So, the Bikehut manager reckons he can get me a warranty frame. There's none in stock at head office though. I assumed that meant there would be no more, since the bike's discontinued, but he reckons that they'll still make some frames for warranties, but it could take a while. I told him that as long as he can guarantee me that there will be a new frame coming at some point then I'm happy to keep the bike and use it as it is for now. That was on Saturday afternoon, he was supposed to check the situation and call me back today, but no call - poor service. I'll have to chase them up tomorrow, which annoys me - I shouldn't have to chase him.0 -
johnsav wrote:I'd be interested to know how you find the wider bars. I've adjusted to the standard ones now but I think they felt a little narrow at first.
I haven't ridden it off road yet, but first impressions are that they're bang on the money. They're 740mm, but very similar rise and sweep to the OE bars. With the 150mm Size Zero grips on, and my hands in the centre of the grips, my hands sit about 25mm closer together than on the 750mm bars (with 130mm grips) of my Kraken, and they sit just where they feel they naturally want to be - close my eyes, reach for the bars and they're just right. Just riding around in the street messing about they feel just right straight away - they feel so much better than the overly narrow OE bars, but without putting too much weight on the outside of the heels of my hands and causing them to get sore, like my Kraken bars do (I reckon I'll be cutting those down to 740mm and fitting the same Superstar grips).
The grips feel really good too - grippy compound and soft, without being overly squishy. The 70mm stem feels good too, and the new saddle's way more comfortable (and much less Essex) than the original. Switching the positions of the shifters and brake levers round was a massive improvement too - both now sit just right, the shifters within easy reach of my thumbs and my index fingers contacting the brake levers just right, just inside the end crook of the lever. First impressions are that we now have a thoroughly sorted cockpit all round - big improvement.0 -
Looks good that mate, Im looking at a new stem (same as yours) and saddle, so this gives me some buying confidence
Paracyclist
@Bigmitch_racing
2010 Specialized Tricross (commuter)
2014 Whyte T129-S
2016 Specialized Tarmac Ultegra Di2
Big Mitch - YouTube0 -
I have never known anyone to do so much to a bike and analyse it before even riding it.
I would lose the dork disc, fender bender and crud catcher until winter too, looks gash.0 -
rapid_donkey wrote:I have never known anyone to do so much to a bike and analyse it before even riding it.
This is nothing - you should see how much I spent modifying my Street Triple before I'd even ridden it, lol (first purchase was a £750 race exhaust system, but that was the first of many). I'd ridden a few miles on my mate's Team FS, so knew that the bars needed changing straight away, and the white grips and saddle were just way too Essex slapper. The rest's just stuff you'd do setting up any new bike to suit yourself (and correcting issues from the shoddy build and PDI).I would lose the dork disc, fender bender and crud catcher until winter too, looks gash.
Dork disc? Is that the pie dish? That's coming off, when I can be bothered spending a minute attacking it. The bender fender and crud catcher are staying on - bender fender keeps fork seals cleaner and the crud catcher stops stone chips on the frame and keeps muck off my bottle. It's not there for its aesthetic properties, lol, but it doesn't look offensive, and the colour matches the frame. It would've had its first outing last weekend, if I hadn't hurt myself falling off my Kraken. I want to know what the score is re the warranty frame too - if it's only going to be the main triangle then i'll put some of the helicopter tape on the rear triangle of this one before taking it off road, but if it's going to be a full frame then I won't bother wasting the tape.0 -
Nice looking bike.... But how much did it end up costing on top of the price paid ?0
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Nice. I've got a team HT and I love it.0
