Garthr

I ventured out on a Sportful road jacket haul recently. I bought many of the Fiandre series of jackets. A Fiandre golden yellow "Medium" jacket(that's the mode name, Medium !), a Fiandre Light golden yellow short sleeve jacket, A Fiandre Pro luminescent orange short sleeve jacket, a Fiandre "Warm" Sea Moss green jacket, a second Fiandre Light SS in bright yellow, and a Fiandre Light vest in the same Sea Moss green color as the "Warm" jacket. Some Fiandre NoRain arm warmers and Thermodrytex leg warmers too ! I already have the Fiandre NoRain leg and knee warmers and bib shorts.

This is the first time in my life I've purchased "nice" cycling specific jackets, and these I must say the Italian flair to these jackets is quite dapper ! Definitely for those who prefer very form fitted apparel. I'm on the "either/or" fence between a large and XL but chose XL's as I need the length more than I need it be painted on my torso. Not that the XL is exactly loose fitting, hah hah.

jaxgtr

Decided to build out a gravel bike. Ordered a Trek Checkpoint SL frame today.

bampilot06

Speaking of Checkpoints. Picked this up 2 weeks ago and forgot to post it here.




Swapped to an 80 mm stem and threw on some 42 cm road bars for now. I don’t know how anyone can ride with 44 cm bars. Anyways, with the bike purchase I also bought 2 cages, co2 kit with 7 charges, dyno plug, bontrager MTB shoes, Shimano Deore 8100 pedals, 2 11 spd chains…….. I think that’s it.

Sold my spare super teams, so now I need another road wheel set for spare that I can throw on this when I want to ride it on the road.

jaxgtr

Nice, I am glad I got a chance to test the bike out in different sizes, I was thinking I was going to order a 52 due to the top tube length, but found the 54 was the perfect setup with the 80mm stem. I think the 52, I would have needed to run a 100, but still would have been too cramped. I have been running 40mm bars on my bikes, but I might stick to a 42 on this, as I have a 42 carbon bars already not being used. I will be running some sort of SRAM 1x AXS setup, not sure if I want to run with a mountain RD so I can run a 52 tooth if needed or just the 44, but having the ability as needed would be nice.

bampilot06

Dude, The sizing for this bike threw me for a loop. My road bikes are all 58, but the 58 check point just seemed too big. This is the one time bikeinsights failed me. Anyways, brought the 58 home, and then it rained for 3 days so I couldn’t ride it. I sat on it, and I was certain it was too big. Day 4 spend 4 hours test riding the 56 and the 58, bring home the 56. Next day take the 56 for a 50 mile ride and it is way too cramped. Would need like 110 mm stem which would defeat the purpose. I take it back, grab the 58 and the shop gave me an 80mm stem for it. Fits like a glove. Thinking about getting some ritchey beacons for it, or taking the cervelo carbon bars with flare off of my emonda, putting those on the check point getting RSL for my emonda. Undecided. She’s fun to ride, the stock tires, holy crap are they slow on pavement. I understand that’s not what they are meant for but at 200 watts I could only do about 16 mph. Kind of depressing. I took it to the mountains last friday but put my Hunts off of my emonda on it. It was fun, only complaint, started to get dicey when the speeds hit 55 mph. I blame the short stem.

jaxgtr

Yea, I can understand that, as soon as I took the 52 out, I realized right away it was going to be an issue, when I got on the 54, I said, the same you did, fits like a glove. I had them measure the distance from center of bars to the nose of the saddle and it was within a couple of mm to my Emonda and Domane. I am not a fan of heavily flared bars, and I have been running Ritchey Carbon Streem bars on my two road bikes, but they would be much too narrow for this bike as I know you need some additional width to help with control. I have been eyeballing some of the Redshift stuff, especially the Stem and Seatpost, but was also looking at their bars, mainly the Kitchen sink version, has a nice bag that will mount to the bars and a gamin mount. One thing I like on the frame is the ability to get what I want versus be limited to Bontrager stuff. Especially in the Seatpost and Stem arena's.

Goosecheck 

Know Oi brass bell for my wife’s ride, and a trio of fall rain shell/jackets for myself. Been off the bike for too long, so old gear doesn’t fit as well as it used to :/. Need something that fits now so I can get back out on the back and start reversing the weight. Of course I’m keeping the old outerwear so I’ll have something smaller to wear again later, right?

Trying out a couple of “off brands” from Amazon
-Brand: 33,000ft Men's Cycling Jacket Long Sleeve, Waterproof Running Bike Vest Outerwear Reflective Windproof Sleeveless Jacket https://a.co/d/fVAwhAX-$55
and
-Brand:Hugut Men's Cycling Running Rain Jacket... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GNN2BX8?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share-$49).

Typically don’t buy down in cycling gear wasn’t willing to pay top dollar like I usually would. However, I did also pick up a Pearl Izumi Bioviz reflective shell from Cambria for half off.

Jughed

After smoking my stock rear hub and freehub for the 3rd time - and it always seems become apparent right before I have a big ride planned... this time the freehub locked up the day before my event.

I picked up some Roval C38's. Shaved 1# 2oz off the bike, rolls much better, rides better and my power levels seem a bit lower at speed. Not done enough riding to get a full picture of how much better the bike performs just yet...

SpedFast

I gotta ask, how do you 'smoke' a rear hub and free hub? Defective parts? 3 times? Really curious about this. TIA-Smokey

Jughed

Cheap stock wheels on a bike that has been otherwise flawless. This is my all purpose workhorse bike - mountains, 1200w+ sprint workouts, intervals, miles... and the cheap hubs/freehubs just don't hold up for me.

@6500 miles, been thru two sets wheel bearings, now the third are shot. The freehub paws have a tendency to bind up when I do a deep clean of the bike. They will "grab" when the hub is spinning, sometimes they grab and don't let go. I've taken apart and regreased the free hub a number of times, the last time I found the bearings to be shot as well. I had the shop replace freehub and put new bearings in the wheel about 1500 miles ago - all under warranty. The last time was just before my trip to the Blue Ridge/Mt Mitchell - I got the wheel back the day before I lefr.

I did a deep clean, tune up of the bike last Friday. Had a century on Saturday. Found the freehub to be in real bad shape, and the wheel bearings were grinding again. The freehub was binding up, and was essentially frozen into the rim. So, after 1500 miles on a shop rebuild with OEM parts, and they were failing again. I took it into the shop Friday afternoon - they confirmed it was smoked... so I bought the wheels I've been eyeballing for a year now.

For what its worth, I keep the bike clean/lubed, don't use heavy degreasers (just simple green) and no pressure washers.

rekmeyata

Cheap hubs? What brand and model of hubs were these cheap hubs? Geez, I have cheap Deore Hubs on my touring bike that I ride loaded, the hubs have held up fine, it's the frame that hasn't held up! Thankfully, Haro bike company stands by their warranty, and they acted fast with my problem.

bampilot06

It’s a trek alr 5 stock wheels would be the borntrager stock wheels. I would say he got his money out of those wheels. I don’t think trek had his riding in mind when they marketed that bike. I had the same bike, and took those wheels off as soon as I brought it home.

SpedFast

Thank you for the reply. I really was interested in knowing, Smokey

Jughed

Bontrager alloy. Not even a model number…

I have a base model Giant TCX cyclocross bike, same issues with the hub on that bike.

Trek stands by their warranty, but parts are typically 3-4 weeks out.

anyhow, new wheels that don’t suck!!

mstateglfr 

You dont think the stock wheels should be able to last 5000 miles without having 2 wheel bearing changes and 6500 miles without needing 3 wheel bearing changes?
Yeah, the guy mentioned 1200+ watt sprints and miles, but the wheels are crapping out every 2200 miles. Thats an absurdly low amount of miles, even if 1200+ watt sprints are being done multiple rides multiple times a week.

bampilot06

I would be more surprised if he didn’t have the issues he had. Interested to know if he had to change his BB out as well. I had to replace mine twice with less than 3000 miles on it.

jaxgtr

So I decided I am going to run a mullet setup for my Trek Checkpoint gravel bike build.

Ordered the following
Rival AXS Shifters \Brakes
Force 1 Wide AXS crankset with 46 tooth and the AXS spider power meter
SRAM X01 AXS RD
SRAM X01 AXS 10-52 cassette
SRAM XX1 AXS Chain in Oil Slick. Should work well with the frame color.
Bontrager Pro Stem 80mm Blendr capable



I already have the following so I am going to give them a try first to see how they work.
Handlebars - Bontager Pro IsoCore 42cm
Bontrager RSL 27.2 330mm
Bontrager Verse Elite 135mm
Shimano MT800 rotors (160 F\R), not a fan of SRAM rotors.
Bontrager Pro 37's
Pirelli Cinturato Gravel H 40mm - Depending on how these work, I might swap them out for the RC versions.

Jughed

BB is holding up just fine.

Do I think the wheels bearings should hold up longer - sure! I would hope they would hold up forever.

But they didn't.

cweb99

Just got an Ergon VLCS seat post. Expensive but holy crap it’s so comfortable. Can’t wait to take it on a long ride tomorrow

rekmeyata

Let us know how the long ride felt, I was considering the less expensive Canyon version myself.

seedsbelize2

I bought a couple CST inner tubes last week

ussprinceton

TMonk

Splurged on the UK version of the Giant integrated handlebar when I put together my new TCR about a year ago. I've finally decided that I don't like it, it's just a bit too stiff/uncomfortable and has 1 cm too much reach. It is pretty sexy though. I think I'll keep em and use them when I eventually upgrade my race bike, a 2016 Venge.



Since the brake lines are routed internally, I now get to learn how to install and bleed shimano brakes. So, I purchased a few barb/olive sets and the shimano hose insert and cutting tool, and a bleed kit. For the cockpit, I went with the XLC 1 1/4" stem (light and cheap) and some used enve carbon bars on ebay.

SpedFast

I got several of these in charcoal during the pandemic and have been using them for winter riding ever since. They're stretchy enough to pull the mouth piece down and tuck under your chin when you don't need it up and they're porous enough to let your head breathe.

cweb99

Worth every penny. It’s a soft bump on the @$$ instead of a jack hammer. I have some issues in that area due to a hemmroid (I know TMI). It dampens the hits Installing is simple but takes a few extra steps to align everything right