chaadster

It’s been about a month since I set my mind on —and won the auction for— this ‘19 T-Lab X3 all-road bike, and man, the COVID supply problems have been drawing out the completion of this build and making me feel anxious, so I thought I’d let off a little excitement by offering up this build thread to the forum. There’s not a lot of info out there on these bikes either, so perhaps others will find it interesting for that reason as well.

T-Lab make Ti bikes in Montreal, Canada, and are essentially the phoenix from the ashes of Guru. They’re quite young still, and I think starting their fourth year, but with their engineering, fabrication, and business experience from the Guru years, they’re throwin’ down some sweet, smart bikes right out of the gate. I was really attracted by their tube shaping and sub-frame style dropouts; it’s a different looking frame!

My plan for this bike is, primarily, to handle fast gravel club rides. For me, that means good stretches of pavement and mostly hardpacked dirt roads. I don’t do any of that trail riding gravel thing that’s going on, and don’t really plan to, so the build spec is more focused on the road side of things.

With that, here’s what I’ve got so far:




Spinergy GX wheels - light at 1475g, and wide at 24mm internal. They’re not aero (20mm rim depth), but they’re interesting for their fiber spokes.

Herse Bon Jon Pass Extralight 35c tires — the first pair had pinholes in the sidewall along the mold release lines, but RH replaced them under warranty and quickly for me, so we’re rollin’ with ‘em.

Paul seatpost and stem — in purple! I have a tendency to go kinda wild with color schemes, but the matte black/bead blasted combo on the X3 frame had me thinking to respect the stealth theme, so I’m trying to do that by avoiding my typical fittings like white stems, white bar tape, and color anodized bits and bolts, but I needed a little flair! The Tall & Handsome seatpost and Boxcar stem both fit the rugged, gravel theme and satisfy my nostalgia for ‘90s MTB.

Easton EA70 AX handlebar — my first flared drop bar. I wanted to check out the style; will the drops feel too wide when I’m struggling to keep the fast kids in sight? Will it be super comfy and allow me to put down an extra 100w? Who knows!

A Fizik Argus Vento in their Les Classiques finish and purple Supacaz Fly cages round out the kit so far. Well, there are some purple anodized bolts in there, too.

I’m awaiting a complete SRAM Force eTap groupset, and will wrap the bars in grey Supacaz Kush. Aside from an expander wedge and top cap, that’s it. Hopefully I’ll get the final bits soon and be able to hit the road in a couple of weeks to give my first Ti bike a whirl!

Thanks for letting me get some of my excitement off my chest!

jebfour

Congrats! That looks like it will be a unique, fun ride.

veganbikes

Paul parts in 3DV on a Titanium frame...can't go wrong!

tangerineowl

Aerozine Taiwan does a 'blast purple' Sram direct-mount road spider. Just saying

chaadster

Whaaat?! Googlin’ now! Thanks!

veganbikes

Also look at Garbaruk, they do some purple chainrings (for various standards)
https://www.garbaruk.com/

GrainBrain

Gosh that will be super nice!

chaadster

Thanks! I was trying to visualize how a new spider would look with the sculpted SRAM Force chainrings, and I’m not sure it’d be nice, so new rings would be better in that regard.

I’m not in a position to throw down for all that right now, though, but I’m filing the crankset ideas under Next Mods!

shoota 

They might feel strange at first but they won't slow you down. I love the flare on the drops. I'll probably put some cowbells on my road bike at some point.

veganbikes

Save up and you will be be there soon.

mstateglfr 

You serious, Clark? I thought you were firmly in the 'road bars for gravel' camp and didn't do flare.
I've been thinking of changing out the 0 flare ritchey bars on my main road bike to get a bit of flare and extend the drops towards the saddle(not sure what the term for this is).

shoota 

Yeah I think that was my "this feels weird" phase. Going back to regular bars feels weird now. (Even though I'm probably going to have to for vintage Worlds.)

chaadster

Finally got the bits to finish it up last night; what an ordeal! It was three months to get the Force AXS gruppo, so I scrapped that approach and did the drivetrain bits piecemeal. Pricing worked out to be the same, so at least I didn’t have to wait and pay more.

I stuck to the plan laid out in the OP with the exception of the bar tape, and wound up using Cyclovation tape in a metallic, prismatic purple. Interesting tape; feels very vinyl at first touch, but has quite a bit of tack and really nice cushion. Don’t love the color, though.

Anyway, it worked out to be 18.5lbs without pedals, 19.1lbs with Assioma power meter pedals. I didn’t make any concessions to weightweenie-ism, except for the tires, so I’m quite happy this large size (~58cm) came in that low.

I’ve not done more than a shakedown ride as of yet, but it feels spry and on point, so I’m excited to get it out on the dirt. I’ll post handling impressions once I log some miles.

Sy Reene

Looking forward to your ride impressions. I've been looking at their R3 Omni

chaadster

Ooh, the R3 Omni is a cool looking piece of kit.

The Omni’s max 35c tire clearance is probably all I’ll really use given the type of gravel around around here, and it’s slightly steeper angles, shorter stays, and lower trail should make it slice and dice pavement with alacrity, so had I bought new and had the option to choose, the Omni would probably be the perfect bike for me. X3 retires just one bike, my Racelight 4S, from gravel duty, but Omni could have retired not only that, but probably both the super sport Venturi and endurance Gladiatore2 roadies as well.

That said, I’m not at all unhappy to be dialing-in my gravel experience with X3, nor is there anything other than money stopping me from getting an R3 Omni. I’m gonna win Lotto some day... ☺️

Sy Reene

I'm curious what 'auction' you were in for your X3 -- just an ebay seller who decided against keeping his purchase, or does the manufacturer do these directly from time to time?

chaadster

No, I just got lucky and tripped across it on eBay, listed by the original purchaser, and fresh back from a factory re-paint. I got in touch with T-Lab to see if the listing rang any alarm bells, and apparently he bought it with Ultegra from them, then rebuilt it with Chorus only to crash after a technical fault due to some kind of chainline/FD incompatibility. No one else bid on it, despite the opening bid being what I thought was very attractive.

Relatedly, the folks at T-Lab were super helpful to me, and even hooked me up with some of their latest-and-greatest bits, including new, low-profile axle carrier bolts and a pair of improved through-axles, both made locally in Montreal. The originally fitted bolts were regular stainless, and the Robert Axle units had silver graphics on the axle heads, while the new stuff is all black, which really smooths out the look. They also gave me their latest, beefier T-One dropouts after I somehow managed to gall the DS one with the axle, probably because of a manufacturing fault in one of the pieces. Dunno. Real people, though, and good folks IMO.

ericcox

That's a beautiful build.

chaadster

Thank you!