Carbon frame is home

The carbon frame arrived back at the office today! Yea!!!!

I was to give blood today, so I dropped the box off at home, unopened, and headed off to the blood center. They have me use some complex machine that only takes part of my blood, but a lot of it, so I only go every 16 weeks. The nurse today apparently put a leak in my vein. I don't usually have problems, my veins seem to be easy to find. But, part way through the process she started to get concerned and sure enough, blood was leaking under the skin. So, the process got shut down and I was sent home for another 16 weeks. But....this means time to work on the bike.

Tonight the bottom bracket cable guides went on. The rear brake (Cane Creek 200SL in black) was mounted. The cluster from another wheel set got mounted on the Campy Zonda's. The fork was installed with a Cane Creek IS-8 integrated headset, with the long carbon spacer, and a Deda Newton 26 (11CM) pointed up.

Then an FSA Isis platinum bottom bracket went, and a Deda D-Power compact carbon crank. The Deda crank bolts didn't seem to be working with the FSA BB - I'll try again tomorrow. This is too bad because the crank comes with a set of steel bolts to pull in the arms and a set of fancy Titanium bolts to replace the steel and hold the crank on. Maybe I'll have to get a Deda BB?

An anatomical Deda 215 bar mated up to the stem, and then some Record Carbon Ergo levers went on top of this. The rear brake cable is hooked up and the rear brake seems to be centering fine. The brakes are used and I think I'll pick up some new shoes as they look a bit more worn than I remember. Anyhow, this is when I discovered that I have an acute shortage of derailer cable - so it's off to the store tomorrow.

The Black Drive fork matches up nicely with the paint. The headtube is painted black, as is the top of the fork which then fades to carbon. In the back, the seatcluster and bottom bracket are black, and fade to carbon on the stays - so it all ties together. Because the fork is designed for an integrated headset, it is very deep from front to back (I'd say about twice as deep as the typical steel fork crown). It does have a fairly deep countersink to accommodate the brake nut, but unfortunately the brake bolt is still too short to reach. OH NO!

The ideal of just drilling a deeper countersink is unappealing to me. It seems like it might be easy to damage the integrity of the fork crown. So I have an inquiry into Deda. Hopefully they can respond fairly quickly.

I won't hazard a guess at weight, but without pedals, chain, bar-wrap, or all the cables and housing, it does feel very light. I'm hopeful of ending up in the 16lb range - but we'll have to wait and see.

The fit of this bike, naturally, is a bit different from my usual. The blue bike has the handlebars at an even height with the saddle. Here the bars are somewhere about 2-3 inches below. It's going to be interesting to see how/if I adapt to this. But, for the bike's purpose, a racier position seems a requirement. I wonder I I should mount TT bar? Rest my weight on my elbows, eh? :)

That's it for tonight. Photo's soon of this bike and of Sarah's frame.

Cheers,