Wheel-y exciting

So, I wrote last time that the stock Giant SR-2 wheels on the project bike are fine and run true but seem heavy - you can certainly feel them when you try to spin up to speed quickly (like cresting a hill, for example).

Decent, light, robust wheels are expensive though, and I'm trying to build something half decent on a budget. So what to do?

What to do is act fast when you see something half-decent being sold secondhand, that's what.

That said, time will tell whether I've been wise, lucky or foolish but, for now, let me just report that I saw a Mavic Aksium Elite wheelset going secondhand, lightly used and in good condition, for £100. And I jumped in.

For comparison, the SR-2 wheelset run out at 2,130g for the pair, bare apart from rim-tape. The claimed weight for the Aksium Elite is 1,735g. So not super light but, in theory, offering very nearly a 400g weight reduction that will hopefully translate to better acceleration. And who knows, I might even save a gram or two on the skewers :)

I haven't fitted them yet though, so we'll see. I'm waiting on a delivery of a new tyre for the back wheel because, as I've mentioned before, the existing tyre has been flattened, presumably by lots of turbo trainer mileage. All I can tell you for now is that they have very cool bladed spokes. Other than that, watch this space to see how the new wheels (and tyre) go, and if I can feel the weight difference afterwards.

As a footnote, I should add that Mavic don't make the Aksium Elite any more. I'm hoping the fact that it had such a short shelf-life is all to do with the trend towards wheels for disc brakes, and the fact that the clincher market could no longer support both the Aksium and Aksium Elite, and nothing to do with some design flaw or inherent crappiness. I guess we'll find out...

Project bike green run

You'll remember from last time that I've bought a project bike for £200 rather than spending upwards of £2k on something new and fancy. My goal is, through judicious upgrades, to turn it into something to rival at least the Boardman SLR 8.9 105, the cheapest bike (at £1,150) on my original "What should I buy?" post. I'm calling this the Bargain Bike Challenge. Anyway, here's the bike as bought - the only thing I've done to it thus far is raise the saddle:

I say only but even that was a bit of a job - the composite D-Fuse seatpost is not round in cross-section but, as the name suggests, D-shaped, which means you can't really twist it to get it out if it proves stiff ... which it certainly did. I was just about to break out some form of lube, in the hope that I could channel some down into the seatpost, when it finally budged. Anyway, let's not digress. So this is the bike, a 2016 Giant Defy 2, in mostly original condition, as far as I can tell. The only thing that might not be original are these brakes which, correct me if I'm wrong, don't look like the original Tektro set that were on the spec sheet. Indeed, these are unbranded, and are shod with solid blocks rather than cartridge brake shoes. Having been out for a green run over the weekend, I can report that these are not very good at all, and will be getting replaced at the earliest opportunity.

The other thing to notice from the picture above is the state of the tyre. Now the project bike has come to me shod with Continental Gatorskins (great) but the back one, as you can see, is very worn. Indeed, it is worn flat, in a manner that suggests it has either been run woefully under-inflated or, more likely, has spent a fair time on a turbo trainer. Either way, new tyres will also be high on my list of things to do early doors.

What else? Well, I can tell you from my green run pootle around the village (in figure of eight loops, to even out the effect of head- and tailwinds, of course) is that the gearing is okay, and well indexed. Yes, it's only 2x10 Shimano Tiagra, 50/34 at the front and 11-32 at the back. But look, there's a long cage there, which provides some scope should I want to make incremental changes in the future. I think my ultimate aim, budgetary constraints permitting, is 2x11 105 or Ultegra, with 11-34 at the back, but that's a bigger job, for further down the line. Maybe I could experiment with 52/36 at the front too, although I fear this may be beyond the financial limits of the project. Just as well, then, that for now, at least, I'm happy to report that the Tiagra set-up here works well, and certainly well enough to see off a lot more miles. Plenty of life in that cassette yet, I hope.

Another thing you can see quite well in this photo is the stock Giant SR-2 wheelset. Again, I can happily report that both front and rear run pretty true, so there's no urgent imperative to swap them out. They are quite heavy though, and you can feel that when you try to spin up to speed quickly (like cresting a hill, for example). So in time I will look to replace them if I can find something equally robust but significantly lighter without blowing the budget. That just might be the biggest challenge of all. Either way, it's something I'd probably only do when I was ready to change the cassette too ... and that's a little way off yet.

The other obvious take-home from taking the project bike out for a green run is that I'm not going to be immediately comfortable on it, even though the saddle has been raised to something like the right height. Sure, it is basically a comfy machine, with a supportive saddle, a well-padded (if slightly ragged) handlebar, good damping from the seatpost and fork, and more. But I think I might need to shift the saddle back a little, and there are changes needed in the cockpit, for me - the stem is only 100mm, and I think I might benefit from 110. Plus the pitch is perhaps too low - I might start by flipping it over and seeing if that feels any better.

And whilst we're on the subject of stems, why, oh why, do Giant bikes of this age appear to have a coffin shape around their stem logo? Hardly inspires confidence in the exposed road cyclist, does it? Ride fast and die!

Of course, the other painfully obvious finding from the green run is that I have to adjust and get comfortable (and confident) too - I haven't ridden a drop-bar on the road since 1992, and it really shows. I'm depressingly timid around corners and in descents, and that'll have to change; after all, there's no point building a rocket if I ride it tamely.

So, the post green run verdict? Well, it's not a bad little bike, as it stands. My first priority is to swap the brake calipers for something better, and then to clock up some confidence-building miles. Check back here again to see how that goes...

The Bargain Bike Challenge ... or #bargainbikechallenge if you prefer

You may recall that I wrote recently about wanting to buy a new road bike and, specifically, comparing the options. Turns out that it's a fraught business - I have quite a specific list of requirements (light, fast, endurance-focused, hill-friendly gear ratios and aesthetically pleasing, to name but five). Indeed, the conclusion I came to was that the bike that best met my needs was the one most out of my price range ... and even that wasn't a perfect match.

Speaking of a price range ... yes, I accept that to some spending upwards of £2k on a bike is chump change but the reality of all this is that I am a middle-aged man on a modest salary, with a family to support, a mortgage to pay and a somewhat limited amount of disposable income for non-essentials. In other words, I can't really justify £2k on a bike. In fact, forget really, I can't justify it at all, or even the £1,150 current list price of the most affordable bike on my shortlist (the Boardman SLR 8.9 105).

So, what to do, what to do, what to do ...

What to do, it turns out, is comb the used bike market until you find a bargain that, with careful upgrades and judicious spending, can be transformed into something the equal of that Boardman, but without spending £1,150 ... of course! And so (drumroll please) begins the Bargain Bike Challenge! Or #bargainbikechallenge if you prefer.

The first, and arguably hardest, part of the challenge is finding the right starting point, a semi-decent used bike at an affordable price. Immediately I had to forsake the idea of a carbon frame - a carbon fork is the best I could do. Turns out that I also had to forsake a Shimano 105 or higher groupset, and internal cable routing. And note my earlier requirements about the bike being aesthetically pleasing. Anything that looked ugly was immediately discounted. And why, oh why, are so many used bikes black, white and red? If I wanted a bike that looked like a teenage boy's duvet cover from the mid-80s, well, I'd be spoiled for choice. But most of my cycling gear is blue or black with blue accents, and these things are important...

The upshot of all this is that I've just bought a secondhand bike - yes, today is n+1 day!

After a long search, I managed to find a 2016 Giant Defy 2 in metallic blue. Originally it was up for £350 but had been reduced to £275. I offered £200, on the basis that I'd had to travel a bit to get it (not too much though, under an hour) ... and to my surprise the offer was accepted.

So what have I got to work with? Well, the 2016 Defy 2 would have cost £799 when it was new - that equates to about £900 in today's money. Now even the most basic Defy in the current Giant range is £2,099 but then it's a very different beast these days - all carbon frame and disc brakes for a start. So perhaps a fairer comparison would be ... well, that's tricky, because of the current vogue for disc brakes. Maybe the Contend SL 1, albeit that has 11-speed 105. But it's close enough otherwise, and would cost £1,299; that's the kind of ballpark my new bike, henceforth the project bike, will have to operate in.

Of course I did my research before offering up my cash. This review, from the ever-reliable BikeRadar, proved very instructive, even though it was for an earlier incarnation of the bike. This article from Road Cycling UK also gave some good contemporaneous background.

My first impressions of the bike, having just ridden it to the end of the road and back? Well, it's completely stock, as per original spec, for starters, so that's 2x10 Tiagra with 50/34 on the front and 11-32 on the rear. It could benefit from some lighter wheels at some point, and a definite brake upgrade, replacing the unbranded block brake set-up with some cartridge-based calipers. New bar tape is a given, as is putting on my lighter saddle. I need to be a bit more scientific with weight reduction than I was on my current road bike though, as I made the front-end of that so light it got a bit skittish under fast cornering. But swapping the saddle out will probably save 150g at the rear, and that's no bad thing. Oh, and I'll put my SPD pedals on to replace the current flat pedals, of course.

Talking of scientific, I used the time-honoured method of standing on the bathroom scales with and without the project bike to determine that its baseline weight, pedals on, is 9.6kg - 600g more than the Boardman I aspire to rival. Still, I can work with that.

Bottom line: after comparing all those lovely carbon bikes that cost upwards of £1,150, I ended up buying a six year old mostly alloy bike for £200 instead, and called it a project. Watch this space to see what I do with it, and whether the project is a success or abject failure ... after all, what could possibly go wrong?

When the bike was new, it looked exactly like this ... just look at those dropped seat stays ...