Just finished my first build!

Awfully-Caj · May 2011

Bike began life as a black and yellow Carrera TDF from Halfords. Bought it second hand from a friend for £120 with the intention of building a roadie for under £600. The total build is currently under budget at £480 however I still have parts to sell of off it including Wheels, Tires, Saddle, Handlebars, and a Full 8sp Gruppo. Message me if anyone's interested.

I rawed and Hand polished the frame recently and graced it with a new set of full carbon Controltech Lightning forks. These are the specs of the bike at the moment.

Groupset:
Shifters: Sunrace R80
Fr Der: Shimano 2200
Rr Der: Shimano 2200
Chain: SRAM PC890
Cassette: SRAM PG850
Crankset: Prowheel Gloria 170mm 50/34t
BB: Shimano UN26
Brakes: Tektro R510

Wheels:
Shimano R500 Wheelset
Michelin Air Stop Butyl Tubes
Schwalbe Ultremo R1 tires

Frameset:
Carrera TDF 7005 Alu frame
Controltech Lightning Forks
Alloy Stem/ Handlebars/ Seatpost
Selle San Marco Race Gel Seat

Misc:
Goodridge Cables
Cinelli Milano End plugs
Bike ribbon elegenza bar tape

Total weight is around 8.8kg (yet to be confirmed) What does everyone think? I am thinking of upgrading the gruppo to a Shimano 105 set. After I have sold the parts that came off of the bike (which includes a full 8sp gruppo) I should only run slightly over my budget to £620 and the total weight should fall to around 8.27kg

TMR · May 2011

Good effort sunshine - get out and enjoy it!

Thunder1 · May 2011

Nice one
Great minds think alike

I've just completed a very similar build for £420

saintdracula · May 2011

f***ing AWESOME

petemadoc · May 2011

IMO you've taken a "run of the mill" and rather boring bike and turned it into something quite special and personal.

Well done that man!

marusches · May 2011

one of a kind very unique

Anonymous · May 2011

Nice work. You say under £600. What was the total you spent in the end?

P.S. If you want a chainset I have a nice SRAM Rival for sale here... PM me a offer if your interested,

Awfully-Caj · May 2011

Thanks for all the feedback guys!

Just wanted some kind of an idea of the general view of the build. So far it seems rather positive

Thanks for the offer on the chainset but the cost of the the SRAM components puts it out of my price range a bit. I reckon the bike has cost me around £480 at the moment so I came under budget but I was planning on upgrading it from an 8sp to a 10sp which I have yet to do.

What's everyone's views on the Shimano 5700 105 gruppo? I am thinking of upgrading at the end of the summer when I have a bit more cash floating around. I've managed to cost the entire gruppo at around £350 on Ribble.

I am trying to keep the cost of this bike to a minimum to build up my Summer bike, of which I currently have the frame and the forks. As can be seen below.

It's a BeOne Pro Black Carbon Frame w/full carbon forks. I'm hoping to grace it with an SRAM RED gruppo and some Mavic Ksyrium Elite wheels so I am trying to save as much as possible for this build.

A full run down of how I polished my frame and other stuff about my bikes can be seen on my Pinkbike profile at: http://awfully-caj.pinkbike.com/

Thanks for all the feedback once again guys!

Awfully-Caj · May 2011

Just thought I would upload a picture up of the bike from the front

saintdracula · May 2011

That works f***ing nicely

8.8 kg isn't far off some carbon bikes.

How does it ride? Is it pretty (laterally) stiff?

Awfully-Caj · May 2011

saintdracula wrote:

That works f***ing nicely

8.8 kg isn't far off some carbon bikes.

How does it ride? Is it pretty (laterally) stiff?

Thanks man, yeah the ride is pretty decent, obviously with it being an Aluminium frame I do get quite a lot of road noise off of the back end but the carbon forks soak up most bumps nicely.

Its really laterally stiff and even under heavy climbing I haven't felt any flex and the bottom bracket (despite it being a cheap Shimano one) manages to keep the chainset straight and I don't get any play.

It looks like by the time I've played around with the gruppo a bit and changed some other components the weight will come down to about 8.3kg.

Thunder1 · May 2011

Those Carrera Steel forks weight about 1100gm :shock:

Heres mine just before it was finished & i changed forks too carbon

Bet you have black hands now

it's more rewarding doing it yourself 8)

Awfully-Caj · May 2011

Thunder1 wrote:

Those Carrera Steel forks weight about 1100gm :shock:

Heres mine just before it was finished & i changed to carbon forks

Bet you have black hands now 8)

That's absolutely stunning! Did you hand polish? If so which polish did you use or did you go for a finishing kit and buffing wheel? I used Autosol metal polish and it brought the frame up gleaming, and yeah.... my hands were pretty black

What chainset are you running there? its nice to know what my bike would look like with a silver gruppo on as I've always wondered if it would go with the chrome finish.

My Carrera forks weighed in at just under 1200g! The 325g Controltech ones I've put on make the bike so much more responsive and somewhat less 'clunky' feeling when cycling at low speeds

Ben6899 · June 2011

I'm very impressed with both bikes. Good work, lads!

And yes; it's much more rewarding when you ride something you have built.

mrbrightside · June 2011

Nice bikes! target of £600 should be a higher spec though..

I'm building my first proper road bike up from scratch, using parts sourced from here / ebay.

I'm going to finish at 7.7kg's with full 5700 105 10spd on a look carbon frame, total projected cost £630 at the min including all p+p

Just need the shifters and bars and it's build time, will post up some pics when its finished.

Awfully-Caj · June 2011

MrBrightside wrote:

Nice bikes! target of £600 should be a higher spec though..

I'm building my first proper road bike up from scratch, using parts sourced from here / ebay.

I'm going to finish at 7.7kg's with full 5700 105 10spd on a look carbon frame, total projected cost £630 at the min including all p+p

Just need the shifters and bars and it's build time, will post up some pics when its finished.

Sorry, I should of edited my original post to include the fact that it came in under budget at £480 as it currently stands.

I have priced a full 5700 105 gruppo (as mentioned in one of my previous posts) at around £350 brand new. By the time I have sold the old parts that came off of the bike which include two almost brand new Vittoria Rubino Pro tires, Wheels, saddle and full gruppo (after the 105's are installed). I shouldn't fall too much outside the £600 budget.

That will bring the expected build weight down to about 8.3 kg which I guess isn't too bad for an Alu road bike?

Evil Laugh · June 2011

Great stuff, i like a raw bike.

I've been using 5700 for a while and like it. It's a bit clunkier than old shimano but hasn't let me down. You can normally find a second hand 7800 for £350 or 6600 for less, personally that's where my money would go re groupset.

saintdracula · June 2011

Cannot wait to see the finished article especially since I'm a bit interested in 5700 105 as well

saintdracula · June 2011

Cannot wait to see the finished article especially since I'm a bit interested in 5700 105 as well

Thunder1 · June 2011

Awfully-Caj wrote:

Did you hand polish? If so which polish did you use or did you go for a finishing kit and buffing wheel? I used Autosol metal polish and it brought the frame up gleaming, and yeah.... my hands were pretty black

What chainset are you running there? its nice to know what my bike would look like with a silver gruppo on as I've always wondered if it would go with the chrome finish.

My Carrera forks weighed in at just under 1200g! The 325g Controltech ones I've put on make the bike so much more responsive and somewhat less 'clunky' feeling when cycling at low speeds

I used the same method that you did, sanding & more sanding

but i did also use steel wool extra fine 0000 before & with the Autosol for the final finish

It's fitted with all Shimano Tiagra except for a 105 crank & BB & RS20 wheelset
I replaced the steel forks with some Specialized Langster Carbon FACT Forks (ebay bargain) 550gm

Here she is with the forks fitted

still need to cut the fork steerer

total cost £421 & a free bottle

Best thing i did was not to rush things & wait for the bargains

Keith1983 · June 2011

You should get some custom graphics made for it. I think it looks great but a bit bare. Just my opinion ofcourse. I've got an old virtuoso which will be redundant soon and I'm tempted to strip and rebuild it to teach myself a bit about cycle maintenance. I'd like to find some cheap carbon forks! Don't suppose you have many bits left over that you took off the TDF that you're looking to get rid of?

Awfully-Caj · June 2011

Keith1983 wrote:

You should get some custom graphics made for it. I think it looks great but a bit bare. Just my opinion ofcourse. I've got an old virtuoso which will be redundant soon and I'm tempted to strip and rebuild it to teach myself a bit about cycle maintenance. I'd like to find some cheap carbon forks! Don't suppose you have many bits left over that you took off the TDF that you're looking to get rid of?

I was considering getting some decals, its just finding ones with a clear backing is quite difficult, even then I would only be looking for something simple to add a dash of colour to the frame. I think rebuilding your Virtuoso sounds like a great idea. It's thoroughly enjoyable and extremely satisfying once you've finished, much more of a buzz than buying a ready built bike!

I've got quite a few parts left from the old bike. A quick run down of the parts are as follows:

Carrera FLX wheelset ( fairly good condition - stickers could be removed for a plain black wheelset and they need truing slightly but other than that they are fine)

Carrera TDF forks (fairly heavy and are partially stripped for repainting)

I was also planning on selling my entire 8speed groupset that I am running, as can be seen from earlier posts. I would also consider selling some of the components such as stem / handlebars/ seat/ seat post if I can sell them as a lot.

If you wish to see more check out my pinkbike profile:
http://awfully-caj.pinkbike.com/ which has a few pictures of the parts, however some things are missing from the album. If you want to know more or are interested in the parts you are more than welcome to message me or make me an offer.

Just finished my first build!

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