Flounder's ExPo Build: Form Cycles - COMPLETED

[Flounder]

The parts are slowly rolling in. My UPS guy has become a welcome pal at my door.

MRP BLING RING
This is a really slick innovation. This is a one-piece ring and spider that bolts directly to a SRAM X.O carbon crank. This eliminates four bolts for chainrings. This is nothing new in bikes, but what is new is the dished arms of the machined spider. This improves chain line. Pretty sweet. I also will retain the 2x10 chainring set up that came with my cranks.
mrpbling.jpg

Selle Italia SLR XC
I simply cannot build a bike without at least one Euro-branded part. Here it is. Lorica leather, kevlar wings, 165 grams. Mama mia!! I know...looks awful, but I like racing saddles, even for long rides.
slr_xc_gel_flow.jpg

Easton EC90 SL carbon stem and carbon bar
I'm trying to make this bike stiff in all the right spots. This stem should do the trick. Darn stiff for just a scant 110 grams. Gotta love carbon fiber.
ec90sl.jpg
ec90bar.jpg

Chris King ISO Hubs
It's hard for me to build without King hubs. I chose pewter anodized hubs. It should look great with carbon rims, ti tubing and black Sapim CX Ray spokes.
ckhub.jpg

[Flounder]

I'm as excited about these rims as I am the whole bike. Trailsurfer has been raving about these hoops for a while now. So, here we go.

ENVE 29er XC Tubeless Carbon Fiber Rims
At well under 400 grams per rim, these are light. Not crazy light, but light. What they are - is stupid stiff.
ENVE.jpg

[Flounder]

xo.jpg
I'm not a huge fan of SRAM in general, but these are pretty nice cranks for the weight. My ambitions to run Rotor cranks were thwarted by an excess of common sense. Rotor cranks with BB and rings are almost $950. Uh...pass.

[Jay H]

This is going to be a really nice build.

My only beef with SRAM cranks is that the shimano / profile method of attaching the arm to the spindle with pinch bolts is better than press on and allows for very fine tuning of the bearing preload. I would also choose SRAM over FSA.

I really want to hear about the wheel build. Carbon is an ideal material for rims. I suspect that those enve will be a very easy build since they ought to be perfect radially and laterally. I keep wondering if there is any thing special about lacing a carbon rim other than being able to bump up the tension. Enve is so far out of my budget but there is now a more affordable carbon rim. Light-bicycle.com has been getting rave reviews. Of course enve is the rim by which other carbon rims are judged.

[Flounder]

This is going to be a really nice build.

My only beef with SRAM cranks is that the shimano / profile method of attaching the arm to the spindle with pinch bolts is better than press on and allows for very fine tuning of the bearing preload. I would also choose SRAM over FSA.

I really want to hear about the wheel build. Carbon is an ideal material for rims. I suspect that those enve will be a very easy build since they ought to be perfect radially and laterally. I keep wondering if there is any thing special about lacing a carbon rim other than being able to bump up the tension. Enve is so far out of my budget but there is now a more affordable carbon rim. Light-bicycle.com has been getting rave reviews. Of course enve is the rim by which other carbon rims are judged.

These X.0 cranks may be temporary until I can muster the nerve to pull the trigger on Rotor cranks. $1000 for cranks is insane. That bill piled on top of the others for this project was one big bill too many.

ENVE rims really are unique. These rims are so beyond my budget it's stupid. But, I figured what the hell. The objective here was to build the ultimate high performance bikepacking machine for my ride on the Colorado Trail Race. I do get a little knot in my gut when I think about the price, though.

[bluedog]

These X.0 cranks may be temporary until I can muster the nerve to pull the trigger on Rotor cranks. $1000 for cranks is insane. That bill piled on top of the others for this project was one big bill too many.

Since you are going BB30/PF30 have you considered Cannondale Si cranks?

B

[Flounder]

Light-bicycle.com has been getting rave reviews. .

A local rider bought a set of those rims. They look super sketchy. The rims appear to be molded in five small sections and then bonded together with an outer cosmetic layer of carbon to dress up the aesthetics. They also have a highly glossed epoxy outer which has to look like hell after the first few rides. They also had some pretty rough looking edges around the eyelets and valve hole. They look spooky to ride. His frame...same story. Lots of rough finish details.

Bluedog, I did kick around the idea of the Si cranks. That option is still on the table.

[slowtwitch]

This is going to be a really nice build.

I keep wondering if there is any thing special about lacing a carbon rim other than being able to bump up the tension.

Be careful with more tension and King hubs. It's a common thing for the hub shell to actually stretch out due to 'too much tension'. The fix? After paying to ship it to King, you get to pay to have an oversize bearing pressed in.

King headsets are tops, but the hubs are not up to par with high end cup and cone offerings with cold forged shells (XTR). Too much drag, too many issues with the rear hubs, non forged shells.

st

[Flounder]

Be careful with more tension and King hubs. It's a common thing for the hub shell to actually stretch out due to 'too much tension'. The fix? After paying to ship it to King, you get to pay to have an oversize bearing pressed in.

King headsets are tops, but the hubs are not up to par with high end cup and cone offerings with cold forged shells (XTR). Too much drag, too many issues with the rear hubs, non forged shells.

st

King admits they let some of their machining tolerances slip a bit, and by that I mean within fractions of a mm. That, combined with some over tentioned wheels, and I agree they had a bit of mess on their hands.

I also agree with you about the advantages of cup/cone systems. I understand the axial forces on hubs and the theory that cup/cone handles those loads better. However, I've got one set of Kings on my road bike with over 25,000 miles on them. My current King mtb hubs are five years old and have been flawless. I think as long as I keep the tension under 115kgf I'll be fine. I'm building these up with 32 spokes which should reduce some of the tention demands.

[Jay H]

Almost every time I have adjusted any hollow axle quick release hub I have found it to be improperly adjusted to start with. A perfect adjustment accounts for the force of the quick release clamping closed. When just held loose i.e not mounted in the frame it ought to have some play that goes away when clamped. I use washers and the skewer to check this. Take a hub that feels perfect i.e as loose as possible with our play and then put some washers on it and clamp down a skewer, it will suddenly feel notchy and too tight. I am sure a lot of king hubs have extra drag because they are adjusted to tight.