Merlin Inferno

whyamihere

Aero is apparently everything, so I thought I'd try it...



Large Merlin Inferno, Prime Wheels, Etap gears/brakes. Unfortunately I got it just as the weather's turned, so I've not had a chance to ride it yet. I know already that I need to drop the front end a bit though.

Currently just under 8kg. I should be able to get it down to 7.5, but that may be about it without going for some serious exotica...

Beatmaker

Thats nice! I saw one at the Eddy Soens on Saturday, looked really smart.

whyamihere

A few changes...



The new wheels are Light Bicycle 56mm rims on Novatec hubs. They're deeper, wider, lighter and cheaper than the Prime RP-38s I had on before. Total no-brainer of a swap. Also fitted new cranks and went back to round rings, Etap really doesn't like the ovals very much... Sorted the front end stack height out as well, more for the looks than anything else.

The weight is about 7.8kg with discs, power meter, electronic gears and aero bits. I won't get this one near the UCI limit, but I have another bike for that which I'll be making a topic on soon...

isotonik

With them deep wheels you must get wobble at high speed...

imposter2.0

isotonik wrote:

With them deep wheels you must get wobble at high speed...

why must you?

ps - bike looks great

whyamihere

No wobble at speed was detected - Speed wobble tends to be related to geometry or holding on too firmly, not the wheels. I assume you may mean movement due to wind, but this is ok actually. My ride on Saturday was fairly windy, and while there was a small amount of movement in cross-winds, it was easy to adapt to and control.

It goes pretty quick too - I racked up several PRs despite being too cold and quite blustery

bradsbeard

Nice I like. Any issues at all?

Mine the headset has gone kaput after 3 weeks

Not liking the hose coming out of the frame on the downtube.

Also first frame cracked!

Decent ride for £600 but if anyone paid £1800 :shock:

zeee

whyamihere wrote:

Aero is apparently everything, so I thought I'd try it...



Large Merlin Inferno, Prime Wheels, Etap gears/brakes. Unfortunately I got it just as the weather's turned, so I've not had a chance to ride it yet. I know already that I need to drop the front end a bit though.

Currently just under 8kg. I should be able to get it down to 7.5, but that may be about it without going for some serious exotica...

Very nice. I have the Nitro Aero and can't fault it.

whyamihere

bradsbeard wrote:

Nice I like. Any issues at all?

Mine the headset has gone kaput after 3 weeks

Not liking the hose coming out of the frame on the downtube.

Also first frame cracked!

Decent ride for £600 but if anyone paid £1800 :shock:

The only thing I had to sort was that the seatpost clamp bolt was made of a particularly soft kind of cheese, and the socket for the hex key was very shallow. Replaced it with an appropriately sized M5 steel bolt and it's been fine since. No other issues yet, but it's only done about 200km so far. I'll keep an eye on the headset.

I agree about the price... For £600 it's good, I hope nobody actually bought one at £1800.

sloppyschleckonds

Nice bike, apart from the discs obvs.

whyamihere

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Nice bike, apart from the discs obvs.

Weirdly, the frame can also take rim brakes... There's a direct mount fitting below the chainstays and a standard mount hole on the fork. The hardest part of converting it would be finding (or building) wheels with thru-axle hubs and braking surfaces on the rims.

sanspoof

Nice, How would you rate the Light bicycle wheels? Specced with Novatec hubs, they are very reasonably priced....

Bike looks nice though!! Good job

whyamihere

sanspoof wrote:

Nice, How would you rate the Light bicycle wheels? Specced with Novatec hubs, they are very reasonably priced....

Bike looks nice though!! Good job

So far, the wheels have been excellent. They were perfectly true out of the box, don't weigh a lot and make it look fast. The tubeless tyres inflated incredibly easily with just a track pump, and feel secure when trying to push the bead off the rim. The one small point is that the supplied tubeless tape was very narrow for the rim width, so I ended up using one wrap of that just to cover the spoke holes, and a second wrap of wider tape to go up onto the bead seat.

I've only got a couple of rides on them so can't comment on their longevity, but as it's got discs, the only thing to think about really is the bearings (I got the Novatec hubs too), which are easy to replace if they do go. Light Bicycle are good to deal with as well - They sent an email after I placed the order to check everything was right, were happy to accommodate my request to use the lightest rims they had available at no extra cost, and show the status of your wheel build on their tracking page.

These particular wheels are very wide, so you need to make sure they can fit in your frame. The 25mm Hutchinson tyres blow out to around 28.5mm at 70psi, and the rims are about 30mm at their widest point. That's about all I could accommodate in this frame, and many frames are more restricted.

I ride Velo Birmingham on it at the weekend, and it was excellent. I'm glad I swapped back to the round rings. With the ovals, I was always a bit hesitant to perform front shifts, just in case it threw the chain off, and it still sometimes did. Looking back over the rides since I've had Etap (it's paired to my head unit so I get shifting stats out), I would only do 10-15 front shifts over 90-100km, and I would be incredibly gentle with it. At Velo Birmingham I did 71 front shifts, and gained the confidence to front shift without really thinking about it, which is how it should be. Anyone want to buy some oval chainrings?