Monday, October 22, 2007

Labour Day - No rest for the wicked!

After yesterday's great ride up Makara Peak with my eldest son Kester, and against the whole ethos of today's public holiday, I spent Wellington's third consecutive sunny day in my cave building a Lynskey Pro 29er. I thought you might enjoy an insight into one of my builds, so here's a small sequence of pictures. You can easily see why I didn't mind working Labour Day so much...

1st Step: I use Tacx Dynamic Compound to fit the Thud-Buster seatpost, then use the post to clamp the frame in my workstand. Note the glimpse of sun outside my workshop door...



2nd Step: I check out the funky sliding dropouts, grease all threads and reassemble them to torque.



3rd Step: Now I have fitted the Bontrager Race Lite rear wheel (pre-built, although I fitted the Avid rotor), Sram X9 rear and Shimano XTR front derailleur, FSA carbon crankset and MegaExo bottom bracket, and Sram 971 chain.



Step 4: Now I have carefully pressed in the Chris King headset, cut down and installed the White Brothers forks, chucked in the front wheel, as well as fitted the AlphaQ stem and X Roc carbon riser 'bars, Sram X9 shifters, RaceFace grips and Avid Juicy Carbon front and rear disc brakes.



Step 5: Then I install the derailleur cables, give the gears and brakes a run through in the stand, recheck all torques and it's almost done!



The final step is to fit some flat pedals and test ride the machine. While not a true test (I didn't go off-road at all...) I found the handling to be much more nimble than I assumed, and the bike felt light and agile. I look forward to a proper test up Koru one day soon, as I'm sure it will be as sweet a ride as it was fun to put together...

Hope you enjoyed watching me build it as much as I enjoyed doing it! Cheers, Oli