After being informed by my doctors that my long love affair with DF bikes (touring, commuting, racing) is over (cervical stenosis diagnosis, AKA: my neck, as we say in Scotland, is buggered) I quickly gravitated to the S40 as my only realistic route back to happiness on two wheels!
DAY ZERO: A box arrives! Ordered on a Thursday afternoon, received four days later, amazing! I'm officially in the Cruzbike family! Unpacked box - "Wow, it's beautiful!"
The S40 will initially be replacing a large collection of DF bikes. My N+1 habit got me to around nine bikes (I recently did an unthinkable N-1 and sold my TT bike) so this will be the first time I've been at N=1 for about 50 years! Consequently, I'll be riding it year-round, commuting on it, doing club rides, gran fondos and generally riding around my local hills. I live in the Scottish Borders, home of the "Tour'O'The Borders" - here's a two minute film of the event to give you an idea of my beautiful, deserted, local roads!
I feel it may just be a matter of time before the pull of a V20C may drag me into its gravity - I have a lovely set of deep section wheels that would be perfect for it! Anyway, I digress. . .
My plan is to build the frame up with SRAM Force 1x11, starting with a 150mm crankset from AliExpress (Thank you AK-Tux et al) with a 40t and an 11-46 cassette. I'll get a Croder crankset once I've settled on the best crank length. Hopefully that gearing will see me okay up my local terrain which has plenty of 10% climbs and some 12-15% beasts, with a handful of steeper ramps! I've got winter and summer wheels picked out from my garage and I'll be fitting fenders at least for the next few months. And Exposure lights - it gets dark very early here!
DAY 3: Continuing to collect the parts
The main components of the frame are now assembled (thanks to Robert's excellent videos) but I'm awaiting the crankset and BB so I can do an initial fit. The crux of the job will be the hydraulic brakes, I've heard that SRAM can be a bugger to bleed with that DOT 5.1 so I've bought the proper SRAM bleed kit to give me the best chance. The other issue which I'm crossing my fingers about is the length of the rear brake hose. The longest kit SRAM sells is two metres long and I think I'll be right on this limit according to what some of you guys have told me. I'll find out once I have the boom slider in its correct position!
To be continued. . .
DAY ZERO: A box arrives! Ordered on a Thursday afternoon, received four days later, amazing! I'm officially in the Cruzbike family! Unpacked box - "Wow, it's beautiful!"
The S40 will initially be replacing a large collection of DF bikes. My N+1 habit got me to around nine bikes (I recently did an unthinkable N-1 and sold my TT bike) so this will be the first time I've been at N=1 for about 50 years! Consequently, I'll be riding it year-round, commuting on it, doing club rides, gran fondos and generally riding around my local hills. I live in the Scottish Borders, home of the "Tour'O'The Borders" - here's a two minute film of the event to give you an idea of my beautiful, deserted, local roads!
I feel it may just be a matter of time before the pull of a V20C may drag me into its gravity - I have a lovely set of deep section wheels that would be perfect for it! Anyway, I digress. . .
My plan is to build the frame up with SRAM Force 1x11, starting with a 150mm crankset from AliExpress (Thank you AK-Tux et al) with a 40t and an 11-46 cassette. I'll get a Croder crankset once I've settled on the best crank length. Hopefully that gearing will see me okay up my local terrain which has plenty of 10% climbs and some 12-15% beasts, with a handful of steeper ramps! I've got winter and summer wheels picked out from my garage and I'll be fitting fenders at least for the next few months. And Exposure lights - it gets dark very early here!
DAY 3: Continuing to collect the parts
The main components of the frame are now assembled (thanks to Robert's excellent videos) but I'm awaiting the crankset and BB so I can do an initial fit. The crux of the job will be the hydraulic brakes, I've heard that SRAM can be a bugger to bleed with that DOT 5.1 so I've bought the proper SRAM bleed kit to give me the best chance. The other issue which I'm crossing my fingers about is the length of the rear brake hose. The longest kit SRAM sells is two metres long and I think I'll be right on this limit according to what some of you guys have told me. I'll find out once I have the boom slider in its correct position!
To be continued. . .
