cale

Due to unusual circumstances, I find myself suddenly in possession of a very nice gravel bike frame. What do you think?

cale

For the build, I'm transferring a Ultegra mech/hydro disc system (ST-R685) from my brand-new Motobecane Turino Team. A cockpit made up of light and strong aluminum parts from Performance's Team line and a nice light set of new wheels, American Classic 101 Disc 29" with DT Swiss 350 mountain hubs with black butted spokes, which I'm building up myself.

Fork pic.

whitehare

Really nice cale! Wanna Trade?

cale

Thanks! It still hasn't sunk in that I'll be riding this frame. It comes by way of my stolen Kinesis Tripster. Insurance company "forced" me to take it. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd be someday riding a Ti frame!

No trades, cash only.

cale

What a pain buying the wheels for this bike! 11-speed road cassettes don't fit on DT Swiss MTN hubs and the new 350 road disc (center lock) front hubs are nearly impossible to find except in straight pull or 28 hole versions. Doesn't sound too bad until you try to match them to a properly sized 29" rim available in both 28 and 32 hole (f & r) variants. So I went with the 350 MTN hub with 6-bolt mounts and a replacement 11-speed freehub. (That's two hubs plus a $65 freehub spare.)

The frame accepts 15mX100 thru axle in the front, 142 thru axle rear. DT at least makes adpaters for almost all their hubs as well as sell the varients already hooked-up.

Nearly every other disc hub is built with a freehub compatible with 10 speed HG cassettes or the new 11-speed mtn cassettes which are narrower than 11-spd road cassettes. Vendors are uncomfortable in this new environment and online ads mislabel (or leave out details altogether) making it impossible to get a handle on who offers what and which can be adapted. One trusted vendor suggested XT hubs and was unaware that they aren't available in thru axle (front) or 11-speed road compatibility (rear). It was like chasing black cats at night.

29" rims offer similar challenges. Matching hole count to hubs shouldn't be a big deal but it is! Interior rim width of 29" rims is too wide to run 25c tires in many instances, narrowing the choices of tires or rims substantially. There is a similar situation with hole counts. Vendors typically stock one hole count or another but not both, oversize charges abound and unless you're careful, combining pieces from a group of vendors can end up spoiling any advantage that building your own wheels brings. Vendors won't endorse road rims with brake tracks for disc wheel use so that limits options further.

It goes without saying that the availability of disc road wheels will improve in the future. After all, it really has no place to go but up! Haha The current offerings of factory built wheels is limited to high cost (the novelty factor, I guess) items or mountain 29ers and their accompanying 10-speed limitations.

Okay, this has been a bit of a rant. I'm excited to try the American Classic 101 Disc rims and I've always admired the simple functionality of DT Swiss hubs. The wheels are running me about $550 for anyone interested. Not inexpensive, by any means, but they will be unique! There was almost no way to get around THAT!!!

hup

Looking forward to following your build.
I'm a fan of DT Swiss hubs also. I have a couple of road wheelsets built on 240S hubs and just scored a set of wheels 240S disc hubs to Stan's Arch EX rims. Precision Swiss engineering

cale

Had to wear blinders when shopping for DT Swiss hubs.... Mmmm 240S!!! (with Homer Simpson voice, toned to "mmm beer!")

hup

All of my hubs were 10 speed. I swapped the freehub bodies to 11s road. I guess I wasn't aware that 11s mtn spacing was narrower. Doh! <-- Homer Simpson ref
I'm also surprised to learn that XT hubs can't be adapted to thru axle. That's just whack.
On another note, I like coming here because I learn a lot about new (and old) stuff all the time.
Henry

ColinL

one reason you're having a problem building this wheelset this is that DT Swiss is now selling disc-specific road / CX tubeless wheels. you don't need or want 29er rims, or hubs. but it sounds like that ship has sailed.

I am running a set of DT Swiss R24 Spline which are 15x100 front and 12x142 rear, but I have QR endcaps because my old bike is really lame.

ColinL

did you at least buy the XD driver freehub? it would have been helpful to be able to run the 10-42 ultra-wide cassette. but I guess a shimano 11-40 11 speed cassette is not bad.

cale

I'm not looking for that sort of versatility just now. But it could be worth exploring in the future.

SRAM's XD drive fits within the dimensions of HG 10-spd hubs. My build is contingent on transferring an existing 11-spd HG drivetrain.

One option available to widen the gearing (11-32 being on the bike) is to swap out the chainrings. The cranks will accept the cyclocross rings.

cale

And that ship sailed on a good course. Sure, the wheels are available but at what price and for what use? I like quality stuff but don't like to pay for something that provides me no benefit or, worse still, can't deliver what I need. I don't recall the spoke count on the road specific wheels but I deemed them "insufficiently strong" for my needs.

Once tossed into building wheels, for need reasons, a buyer is very limited by availability of the road disc hubs. Hence the frustration.

If I were building a strictly - road bike, I'd have been much more receptive to road wheels.

ColinL

Sounds like you're going 2x. That does work well with 11-32 cassettes.

If you run 1x, you would see value in 11-40 or 10-42 cassettes. Actually, I'm perfectly happy with 1x and 11-36 on CX/GG bike. I would want 10-42 on a MTB though.

ColinL

This is definitely true. It was just painful to read about the hub standard issues you traveled through.

FWIW, my DT Swiss R24 Spline disc were $265 shipped from Germany. 1775g, 24 front spokes and 28 rear. No flex under me and I'm a middleweight. They are skinny 17mm inner width rims which do say '35c max tire' and I run them with Nano 40s.

cale

They sound great. I wish I could honestly say I was a middleweight. I was hoping that I could find a good pair with a combination of 28/32. I'd have stayed with the 35c limitation (only slightly narrower than what the frame allows) but just didn't have the confidence that I could ride like a middleweight.

Now there are choices with the road disc hubs in a durable wheelset but those tend to be very expensive. I couldn't find anything under $700 that could stand up to the pounding of trail riding.

cale

My bad, I didn't make it clear.

cale

The bottom bracket and adapters came in today and found a home on the Litespeed. I fussed briefly over which BB solution to choose, there are a number of the options available to convert the PF30 BB shell to fit the 24mm axle diameter Ultegra crankset (all part of the transfer from the new Motobecane). I think that the Praxis bracket is very well designed, perhaps over-designed. At $85 it is a pretty good value compared the two-part solutions (bb + adapter) that compete with it. (The day has arrived when I actually thought $85 was an okay price to pay for a BB. Wow!) I guess Litespeed's intent behind offering the PF30 BB shell was to expand the drive component choices not limit them to what I consider the "logical" choice.

Speaking of choice, did I really have any? Litespeed publishes their "recommended" BB solutions for a variety of cranksets. Considering the rather significant value of the frame, I thought it best to go with their suggested components and learn from the experience. The man abides by the recommendation should anything untoward develop in that vicinity.

Enough gab. I shot some pics to try to reveal the combination of Sram PF30 BB with WheelsMfg adapters for 30/24mm conversion. Spins REAL nice. Haha

RocThrower

Looks good! I've been eying a few bb30 frames, and I would go with the Praxis as well.

FrozenK

My Yeti came with a Praxis pf30 conversion BB and I'm quite pleased with it. I would recommend it.

cale

Here's a new one for me. The fork contains a carbon fiber crown race! I should have called Litespeed first but instead drove all over town looking for someone to "cut/face" my steerer. Lucky for me, no one would/could do it.

Would you have thought this contained a carbon race?

ColinL

Quite a few road forks are that way now.

Good call on the PF30 -> English threaded conversion, btw. That's what I would do.

cale

The Litespeed T5gravel is finished, for the time being at least. I've let the build continue without pics or posts and I apologize for that. Here are some pics I took along the way.

The wheels are American Classic 101 29er rims, Wheelsmith DB black ano spokes, brass nipples, and DT Swiss 350 hubs. I had to return the first freehub body I purchased because the pawls didn't match the ratchet system in the 350 hubs, the right body was available from the same vendor which saved me from paying a restocking fee. Ahh, making mistakes is part of the process.

After the wheels, the assembly entailed mostly moving parts over from the donor bike, Motobecane Turino Team, to the Litespeed.

cale

Shimano hydraulic lines with in-line connections. This saves unwrapping the bars when making brake line changes.

















With my son and his Motobecane Turino Special.

ColinL

Nice build, congrats! Hope you're having fun

hefledthescene

drool. that's a great looking bike. I need to make sure I insure my bikes.