Liege Newbury Liege

woolwich

This is the latest project. A bike to attempt the full Liege Bastogne Liege Sportive and then take racing in the Newbury CX summer league. A hybrid of Reynolds 853 Pro Team and Columbus Life tubing TIG welded. Painted at home in Waterbased Pearlescent.

Taken for a shake down ride in Wednesdays glorious sunshine around The Barbury Bash, a 210km hilly audax taking in the Lambourn Downs, Marlborough Downs and bottom of the Chilterns. I arrived home sunburnt and grinning from ear to ear.



Fork is Columbus Disc Mud.
Wheels are handbuilt homemade Stans Alphas on Hope Evo's running tubeless Schwalbe 25's.
Groupset is Sram Red levers, Sram X9 clutch rear mech for running single ring and Ultegra CX top pull front mech.
Crankset is a classic MTB set of Middleburn RS7's. Currently running compact chainrings for Liege. I will single ring to race.
Braking is provided by TRP Spyres.
I'll put full details of the build up on my blog soon.

ugo.santalucia

Freaking awesome...

... and I love your paint jobs... (is that a rude thing to say? :shock: )

moefoemil

V V V V V V V V VERY NICE!!!!!!!!!!!

term1te

That Sir is an exceptional bike.

oldbazza

Nicely

SPROCKET30

That's really nice.

woolwich

Thanks for the kind comments Folks, much appreciated.
Here is the full build for those interested http://locksidebikes.co.uk/?p=385

southdownswolf

Lovely looking, little things like the bands of colour on the seat stays really finish it off nicely.

jameses

Beautiful! Is there a reason why the rear brake cable isn't internally routed? Looks so neat with the derailleur cables through the top tube.

woolwich

Thanks guys.

JamesEs wrote:

Beautiful! Is there a reason why the rear brake cable isn't internally routed? Looks so neat with the derailleur cables through the top tube.

James, Although I have done quite a bit of internal cabling ( mainly low pro time trial bikes), this is actually all external.
I constantly fuss about little details and have never been really happy with cable routing on CX bikes. I dislike running cables under the bottom bracket on bikes taken off road. Mainly as I am lazy and I hate having a little mud trap underneath that needs cleaning if you use traditional routing.
Often CX bike run the cables along the top of the top tube. This has merit but I find I catch my bibs on them and its easy to rub the cables against the paint.
So as you look at the top tube cross section, one cable is at approx. 10 o clock and the other approx. 2 o clock. The aim is not to be able to catch them from above or below or the sides. So far so good, Big ride in Liege at the weekend and it seems to work really well. Might try 4 o clock and 8 ish on the next one.

I could have internally routed the brake cable in the Down tube. This involves drilling a small hole in the tube in the right location, ovalising it then routing a small usually brass tube inside and capping it with the cable stop. Done correctly it shouldn't compromise the tubes strength as the stops sort of work as reinforcement. However in order to have as light a Down tube as possible, I have really short Butted (thick ends). For durabilitys sake I would not feel comfortable drilling holes and messing about anywhere except directly into the thick part of the tube, definitely not the thin part or butt transition. So to be safe on this occasion, I though best to go external.
I left the cable fully enclosed in outer as I have had build up of grass cuttings sometimes on wet freshly cut courses on down tubes and around cables. It affords a little extra protection.
Mostly I go for function over form and try and make it look pleasing if possible.
Cheers

jameses

That was a more thorough answer than I was expecting! Appreciate the thought process that has gone into this, and I didn't realise you had built it yourself - very nice job indeed!