perspiration

Thanks everyone for the replies and thoughts. This is my first build, so all these little nitty-gritty details are cool to learn about.

Is this a requirement of the VO fenders, or what measurement clues you into this issue? I think I actually changed my mind to the Honjo smooth fenders right after I posted this. Is that still an issue with them?

I'm on a 56cm frame and my shoulders are pretty wide. I'm hoping the steering won't be too squirrely, but the 42mm bars I tried out felt sort of narrow.

I've heard good things about tubeless, but also some bad things about tubeless....maybe I'm off-my-lawn'ing it a little bit, but I don't feel like I encounter punctures very much anyways? But I have been running Schwalbe Marathon Pluses for years, so maybe BSP's are different.

re: the ISO mounts on the frame/fork itself, it is interesting that Soma chose to go that way. I wasn't aware of the different mounts before I sketched the build. I think it'll be OK with an adapter but I'll make sure the bike shop has thought about this as well.

What clues you in on the rack sitting high? Does the VO rack do that in general? The Compass rack looks nice, but what sort of decaleur could I combine it with?

Hadn't thought about this. I'll make sure the shop knows, too.

Any example bars I could take a look at? I end up riding on the tops a lot and I think the "ergo" bend would be good for my elbows. I often want to turn the hoods a little inwards as well.

kingston 

Are you sure rival will work with a 40-26 crank even if the rings are the right size? I'd check that. You may either have to go with bigger chainrings like a 46-34 or a different shifter/derailleur setup to accommodate the little rings.

I have mechanical disks (BB7's) on one of my randonneuring bikes and they are easily my least favorite component on that bike. They always squeak, and I constantly have to adjust them. If I ever get disks again, I'll suck it up and get hydros, but honestly, I'm completely satisfied with rim brakes for randonneuring so it's extremely unlikely that my next bike will have disk brakes at all. Seems like you’ve already made up your mind about that, so I’d go hydro. It’s only money, you’ll make more. It’s not like this is turning out to be an economy build anyway.

I also don't like the aesthetic of ergo handlebars, so I'd go with something else. I prefer compact drops with brifters since I seem to spend more time on the hoods than with bar-ends. I have nitto-M151F’s on my only brifter bike, but that has a quill stem so I needed a small diameter bar. There are tons of options available in 31.8. Handlebars is a pretty personal thing so you'll have to figure that one out for yourself. Rando bars could work for you since you like to tilt the brake hoods in, just find some without an egro bend. There are several out there. I have Nitto B135’s on my fixed-gear and like them a lot. I wouldn’t worry so much about the diamete. Threadless stems come in different handlebar diameters or you can easily use adapters to size up a smaller bar to a bigger stem. It’s not an issue, so just look for some that have a shape that you think will suit your riding style.

I don't see the benefit of running tubeless tires for randonneuring, but I guess more and more people are going in that direction and seem satisfied. Flats are pretty rare for me or brevets. I think I had 3 last season, and I’ve had seasons with zero. I run compass EL’s and can replace a tube in under 5 minutes, so I just don't see any reason to bother with tubeless. I was on a brevet last year with a guy riding tubeless who got a flat and there was sealant all over his bike and clothes, and it took him over 30 minutes to put a tube in there and get going again. I can just imagine how long it took him to clean up that mess when he got home. No thank you. I get it for off-road, but for brevets tubeless solves a problem that I just don’t have.

I also wouldn't recommend that VO rack you have in mind. It either fits on your bike or it doesn't. I bought one and it didn't fit so I sold it on CL and bought a Nitto M1 and a Nitto Zao decaleur which works better for my bike. Racks and decaleurs are tricky because there’s really no way to tell for sure how they’ll fit on your bike until you actually install them, at which point you’ve already bought it. The Nitto racks have a lot adjustability while the Zao decaleur has none.

As long as I'm nit-picking, I like A-600 pedals better than the M540’s you have picked out. Although I’m mad at Shimano right now, I still think SPD is the best clipless choice for randonneuring all things considered.

I love the WI rear hub you have picked out, but I’ll encourage you again to check out the VO rear hub. Definitely not as sweet as the WI hub but probably good enough and field serviceable with no tools which means you can replace a drive side spoke without any tools other than a spoke wrench. Just something to think about. I built a new wheelset this off-season and went with the VO hub for that reason, and it's a lot cheaper than the WI hub. OTOH, I’ve never broken a spoke on a brevet so there’s that.

unterhausen

I use a Shimano CX-70 with my 42/28 crank and SRAM Apex shifters. I bought a sram mtb fd, but couldn't get it to work before I got tired of futzing with it.

perspiration

Y'all are good at fueling the indecision goblins.

Gonna make sure the bike shop feels good about the 40-26 gearing with the derailleurs we currently have chosen.

I'm gonna see what the apples to apples cost comparison is of the hydros vs the mechanical. I think the hydros came as a full set, so $600 or so for the hoods, calipers, and rotors, but the mechanicals are like $430 for all three separately. That price difference isn't as great as I thought, and would let me go hydro. It's my only real "regret" potential for the build right now.

I don't see a huge aesthetic difference btween the Soma ergo brevets and the Nittos, maybe the slight bend on the tops? Maybe my taste isn't quite so discerning

Not going tubeless to start with, if tube-flats are a huge issue for me then I may consider it, but gonna go with what I know on this for now. Everything fails at some point, and a basic tube failure sounds less miserable than the tubeless failure. I'm sure this is a topic that has filled pages upon pages of different threads...

Looking at different racks now that a few votes against the VO rack have been brought up - the Nitto one looks nice, simple, and very adjustable. Gonna recommend to the shop we go with that and see what they think.

The A-600 are one-sided, right? That's no-go for me, I find it kind of annoying and am pretty much never not wearing bike shoes. Agree that SPD is pretty much what's up as far as clipless goes for now

How well does that Zao decaleur work with the M1 rack?

perspiration

The lack of fixability on hydro brakes is a big negative for me, to be sure. How often do hydro brakes actually fail, though? I guess the question is sort of a moot point because everything fails eventually.

kingston 

Maybe disks are the tubeless of brakes and hydros are the sealant that hasn't been invented yet that doesn't evaporate every couple months or spray all over everything when your tire splits open.

clasher

I wouldn't worry about hydraulic brake failure on the road. I imagine damage during a flight would be more common than anything else, but that can happen to any part on a bike. On my MTB I can use either brake for effective stopping and it's pretty easy on the hand compared to using cable-actuated brakes. On the road I don't brake nearly as much as I do on the MTB so of course the braking demands are different between each kind of riding. My next rando bike will likely have full shimano hydraulics.

I have the a600 pedals and they are pretty sweet. The non-spd side isn't even a proper flat and wouldn't be comfortable in flats for a long distance, but it's okay for going down to the corner store or something. I toured on them and it was nice if I needed to nip down to the store after arriving to my hotel. I think the a600 is designed around being light, hence the one side. I've always used one-sided spd pedals for randonneuring, there's not a lot of unclipping on most brevets I've done.

If ever end up doing a brevet in goathead country I'd like the option to run tubeless... and worst case with tubeless you can just put a tube in.

kingston 

I just recently installed my handlebar bag/rack/decaleur (Christmas present to myself) so I can’t report on how well it works IRL. The fit is good, and it seems solid enough in the shop. The Zao only works with a nitto pearl/technomic stem so you wouldn’t be able to use it. You’ll need to find something that works with a threadless stem.

Soma has two randonneur bars, one with an ergo bend and one with a round bend. The ergo bar has a flat spot where the curve is supposed to be on the drop. If you look closely at the side profile shot of both you will see the difference.

I don’t have any bikes with hydraulic brakes, but I have a few motorcycles that are almost 20 years old and the brakes are still fine with regular maintenance, so I wouldn’t worry about it. Even if they do fail on a brevet, it’s really unlikely that both brakes will fail at the same time, and you will be able to finish the ride with one brake. Everything I hate about my mechanical disk brakes, people tell me is solved with hydraulics, so that decision would be a no-brainer for me.

CliffordK

Oof...

I scrounge a bit, so I'm not quite sure what my "favorite" is.

For basic DROP bar shapes:

https://www.somafab.com/parts/handlebar


Roundwise:
This is more of a convential bar shape. Round on front, flat on the bottom. If the brakes are mounted in the middle of the curve, they end up in the middle of the bars. Or, if mounted at the top of the bars, they're at really odd angles. Plus, many modern brakes aren't rated for these bars.


Brevet Randonneur Bar - Ergo Bend
A tight curve at the top of the bars move the brakes up so they come out flat with the tops of the bars. Good for riding on the "hoods", as well as reaching them from the drops.
I use this design, but I object to it for a couple of reasons. If riding in the drops, I'm often on the flat bottom part, which unfortunately is very short. The hand just feels cramped when reaching up towards the brakes.


Soma Highway One
These are a typical "Compact" bar. Tight curve at the top to help position the brakes. And, then smooth curves for the rest of the bars.
Probably a good compromise bar, but everything comes out a little cramped. Still, it may be good for someone who rides from the the tops/hoods most of the time.


The winged profile aero bars are most common in carbon fiber bars, but also are showing up in aluminum bars.


Lots of direct Chinese import bars, often with fake logos on them.

I'm not sure what the perfect bar is that combines all the elements. As I mentioned, I scrounge a bit, so I've picked up a few bars that I like that are close, including a discontinued IRD Blackbird, as well as a couple of Specialized Zerts Aluminum bars.

There are also various flared and raised bars, and different shapes. Butterfly? Which I haven't experimented with yet.

Oh, keep in mind, some of these bars very much lack real-estate for round add-ons.

perspiration

talked to the shop

- going with the hydros. YOLO
- going with the round bend compact handlebars - I totally had the "ergo" section wrong. Definitely prefer the aesthetics of the rounded ones more, going to try with the Soma to start with and see where we go from there.
- going with the nitto rack, the bike shop doubly recommended the change.
- gonna stick with the M540's....they're familiar and I commute enough in stop-and-go that flipping the pedals around would micro-annoy me over long periods of time.

*edit* the shop says they've had good experience with the SRAM front derailleur on that crankset gearing, but suggested I might look into FD's with 'yaw' to help micro-adjustments when cross-chaining, which might be good if I plan to mostly "work" in the 40t ring. No clue what to actually research here, though.

Thanks all for the input here. I'm excited about the build and will keep posting updates.

gugie 

Some notes:

1. Front racks for handlebar bags should ideally be as low as possible, and attach directly to the front fork. This gives you the lowest center of mass for the bag, and just looks better, IMO. Doing that with a production rack and a production frame is difficult. In reality a bit of spacer isn't that big a deal, especially since a custom rack will easily be twice what VO sells them for.
2. Decaleur fit can be an issue, if the VO one works for you, it's inexpensive and works for many. Anything else will be 3X the price or more.

joewein

Good choice on going with the hydros after all :-) I have one bike with mechanical and one with hydro (which also had mechanical disc brakes at first) and it's no comparison. Never having to adjust brakes for pad wear until the next set of pads is due is great. So is the light action of the levers, especially when your hands are cold and you have a long, wet descent. With hydros your hands don't have to work against a spring that tries to pull the cable back when you let go of the levers, so all the work your hands do is to provide brake force. I'm very happy with my BR-RS785 hydraulic calipers!

If you want a crank that works for a sub-34T inner ("compact plus") with 11 speed, I can recommend the Sugino OX601D (mine is a 42/26). I use it with a CX70 FD and Shimano ST-RS685 shifters. I like my gearing as low as 22 gear inches and as high as 100, 42/26 + 11-32 works for that. With a 105 R7000 GS rear derailleur (or R8000 GS) you can go as high as 11-34, more with a Wolf Tooth RoadLink but with the 26T small ring 32T at the rear is enough for me.

Take a look at my build list for my Elephant Bikes NFE.

perspiration

The SRAM derailleur was a bit too long for 26t small ring so they ordered a IRD Sub C and are gonna try that.

https://www.interlocracing.com/shifters-derailleurs/sub-c-front-derailleur-double

Can I ride the bike yet!?

clasher

Can't wait to see some pics when it's done.

unterhausen

If the IRD doesn't work, get a CX-70

microcord

I have a Dixna brand 43/27 crankset, 105 FD, 11-32 Tiagra (I think) 10-cog cassette, and Tiagra RD. Not so expensive, and it all works together well.

perspiration

​The steerer will get cut after I ride it more and confirm fit, but too excited not to post some pics

unterhausen

nice build, thanks for posting the pics

Tourist in MSN

You can flip the stem upside down, that would allow you to move some spacers from above the stem to below it. The reason for that would be that you could cut off less steerer tube, then later if you decide you wanted the bars higher, you could flip the stem again. For that reason, I also like to leave an extra 10mm spacer above my stem, just in case.

Is that a taillight or reflector on the rear fender? I do not see mention of a taillight, but it looks a bit like a Secula. If it is a taillight, it looks like it might be aimed too high for the traffic behind you to see the brightest part of the beam, in which case there are a couple holes drilled in your fender in the wrong place. If it is a taillight, it should have a stand light so after riding it to charge up the capacitor, you can get off the bike and see where the brightest part of the beam shines.

Great looking bike.

clasher

Yeah, the tail light is set up incorrectly. I don't remember if mine came with instructions or if I just remembered reading them on Peter White's site... the back of the light should be at 90° angle from the ground for ideal setup...

It is a pretty sweet looking rando rig, I am really considering 650bx48 for my next rando/gravel bike.

kingston 

That really turned out great. Aside from the previously mentioned tail light angle, I would add some mud flaps and move the headlight to the front of the rack. Very nice build. Cool to see that the collective wisdom of the BF was able influence some of your design decisions.

jlaw

I agree with your drive train concept. FYI - SRAM has MTB double cranks in 40-28 or 39-26 with various BB options (except square taper) that are affordable. Shimano and others have similar set-ups. I also suggest that if you are not going to use brifters that you consider indexed bar ends or DT shifters - trying to friction-shift a 10 speed (or more) cassette could be a challenge due to close spacing. There are some on BF who find this not to be a problem, but I am a little biased because I use a 10 speed indexed DT shifter and love it - no fishing for gears just a simple click-click-click.

Also, the Pacenti Brevet 650b is a good rim - I have 1200 miles on a set of wheels that use this rim - still true and round.

perspiration

Thanks guys, I'll ask the bike shop about the tail light. That sucks about the unneeded hole drilled there....HMMM!

Thanks for all the suggestions, this was my first time through this process and I learned a metric ****load with all your help

Tourist in MSN

Tell them that you expect that they will put the taillight in the correct place on the replacement fender that they install. You should not be expected to accept a brand new fender at brand new price that has cosmetic defects. And a couple holes in the wrong place is a pretty serious cosmetic defect.

When the shop has to eat the price of the fender, every mechanic in that shop will learn the lesson that you have to aim taillights properly.

I saved about $100 USD on my expedition bike frame by buying a cosmetic second. But the dent in the frame was so minor that it took me five minutes to find the defect.

kingston 

Totally up to you on how you want to deal with the shop, but I'd just have them move the light to the right location on the fender and cover the holes with a sticker. I have that same light on two bikes and use HVAC foil tape on the inside of the fender to hold the wires in place so the extra holes in the fender would have no effect on the functionality of the fender. Of course that's easy for me to say. I would have installed the fenders myself so would only have myself to blame if something was screwed up. There are several things I would have done differently on that fender installation.