Author Archives: Justin Fox

155mm XMCS carbon crankset came in the mail.

Not so light 1 by narrow wide 52T chainring (chainring bolts were 6g).

All assembled.

Assembled weight.

Almost UCI Illegal.

I got my XMCS crankset today, with carbon spider and 52T 1 by narrow/wide chainring.

I’m running on Dura-Ace on the S5, so using a waxed Dura-Ace 12-Speed chain, and the Shimano quick link is “sticking” to the chainring causing the chain to stick on some but not all rotations.

I had to bail out of my test ride, but on the stand I can see the quick link is too narrow for the narrow/wide chainring teeth (it doesn’t engage completely thus causing the chain to lift off the chainring).

I did some googling and found that Stone narrow/wide chainrings state: You have to replace the 12s shimano original quick link to other brand 12s quick link like KMC YBN SUMC any brand. as the Shimano 12s quick link is too narrow.

It’s after hours now but I thought I’d raid my parts bin and run a few experiments:
– ZTTO 12-Speed chain quick link, same problem.
– ZTTO 12-Speed chain + ZTTO quick link, same problem.
– SRAM Red E1 chain quick link, no go (stiff links).
– 10-Speed KMC quick link, perfectly smooth (but the link is loose/felt too easy to install).
– 11-Speed KMC quick link, perfecty smooth, and again, felt a little too easy to install.

I’ll try to track down a KMC 12-Speed and/or YBN 12-Speed quick link tomorrow when the shops are open.

Every gram counts.

I was a weight weenie with my car builds, and naturally I’m a weight weenie with my bike builds too.

In all seriousness though, weight-weenie-ism and the relentless obsession to shave grams is a terrible disease so I’ve started a FB Group for all those who suffer. Let’s suffer… together!

Weight Weenies FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1104629935091496

Sam has a background in BMX.

Secretly a Specialized fanboy.

Random Ostro frame near the bins outside.

These 150mm LEESE cranks look great in the light.

Sam putting on the 34cm Quick Pro cockpit on Gina’s SL8.

Little people need love too. Can’t wait for Gina to try out the shorter cranks and bars (if only it stopped raining!).

Bar to frame integration is pretty nice taking the lines of the speed sniffer into account.

Dropped in to Sam’s cave for hangs today and he installed the new Quick Pro bars on Gina’s SL8 (bleeding brakes is something I haven’t bothered to mess with!). Always mad hangs with Sam, he’s a living legend.

Five Black.

Feels like home again.

Dropped in to Wheelhaus Bicycle Boutique in Enmore to pick up some 38cm bars to replace the way too wide 40cm bars on the S5. Store owner Greg Chalberg runs a beautiful little shop. Lots of Factor bikes and he had the new S5 on display too (a complete Dura-Ace build in my size and one that I seriously considered buying before picking up this 2023 S5). He put the new S5 on the scales whilst I was there and it came in at 7.4kg’s (without pedals), so for sure, it’s lighter than the model I have out of the box, quite impressive as the head tube is SO much deeper on the new model.

Got home and got the bars on right away. They feel right! Burgh Lightning bar tape (IMHO the best bar tape out there) and hey… I’m getting damn good at wrapping bars (I’ve learned from the best! IOW: Sam Mingle).

PS: It’s not even been a day since I got these bars on, and without mentioning names (I don’t want to get into trouble) I’ve been offered an aftermarket 36cm bar for the S5 that should come in significantly lighter than these OEM bars (as the brand making these new bars are known for making very light bars!). I’m happy with the 38cm bars on my SL8 though, but do have 36cm bars on the way, so maybe I’ll get those on the SL8 and see how I get along with them first.

Quick Pro Can Win.

285g. Not bad. Not bad.

150mm LEESE cranks also came in today. They look good.

Quick ZEPHYR-SSL handlebars in 340 x 70 with SL8 specific spacers came in the mail today from Panda Podium. They were the only bars I could find in this spec for Gina. Packaged well and they look great! LEESE 150mm cranks came in too. Will get this stuff on her bike ASAP.

It’s the little things.

I’ve been using ELITE FLY water bottles for over a year now. I love them. They’re super light and squishy and the nozzle is easy to use. That said I’ve had to buy black bottless, and clear bottles to swap the black bottle cap over to the clear bottles (to replace the white bottle caps that come on the clear ones) and it kills me that their logos are red as that introduces another colour to my builds.

I was browsing Pushy’s and stumbled upon a clear bottle with black lid version and holy shit! The logos are black! I wasn’t sure whether or not it was a greyscale product shot, but I bought them, and hey hey! Black logos, happy days!

Go tubeless they said. It’ll be good they said.

28C Conti GP5000 TT’s.

UCI Illegal or bust.

I confirmed that the ENVE 5.6’s are clinchers so I ordered some 28C Conti GP5000 TT TR’s and 19g RideNow TPU tubes. I was determined not to make a mess with the conversion, but man, what a mess! Front wheel had a lot of sealant in it, and the rear wheel had hardly any, again confirming that you just don’t know how much sealant you have in there at any one time.

Surprisingly the GP5000 TT’s both came in at 239g. The ones on my SL8 weigh in at 248g and 247g so I took those off the SL8 and put them on the S5, and put these new lighter tyres on the SL8.

Whilst I had the rear ENVE off I took apart the rear hub to clean up some grease and I removed the dust cover too (I also did this on my ENVE 65 Foundation wheels on my Allez Sprint) and the hubs are now obnoxiously loud! I thought I’d weigh the wheels whilst I was at it too, and sadly they come in at a hefty 1590g.

The wheels specs on these ENVE 5.6’s is pretty weak; The front wheel is 54mm deep, rear is 63mm. External width is 28.75mm front and 28mm rear and internal width is 19mm.The 30C tyres that came on the bike blew out way past the rim (big time mushroom), and the 28C TT’s do too (but not by much), but hey they look awesome, and now they sound awesome too so I’m keeping them on, for now.

Now waiting on narrower 38cm bars, XMCS 155mm crankset, 1 by chainring, Direct mount hanger, Hylix seatpost (just restocked today TF for that!) and Ti bolt kit to replace all the bolts in and around the cockpit and headset.

Non-drive side, small chainring, cranks not horizontal… Epic fail.

Jordan who owns and runs UNO STUDIOS has started joining us for laps at the park and he brought out this lovely Cannondale roadie on his second ride, sadly he was having major issues with the gears skipping around everywhere, so naturally I pounced on the opportunity to put some love into it and at least get it going again.

Turns out his chain was WAY too long. I raided my parts bin and threw on a 9-Speed Dura-Ace cassette I had lying around and an 11-Speed super light gold chain too. Shifting is bang on now. Fuck I love working on older bikes!

Gong down.

ZTTO Gen 3 cassette.

OK a couple of rides in now and a couple more thoughts:

I’ve never felt any kind of knee pain when cycling, but I’m feeling my knees when I ride this bike, and post ride I feel my knees too. It’s not knee pain at all, but if I stay on these 170mm cranks it might develop into knee pain so I’m really looking forward to getting my XMCS cranks (Peter will be sending me out my order for 155 cranks + spider + 52T 1 by chainring next week).

With the hoods turned in I’m actually not finding the 40cm bars to be too much of an issue, that said I just bought some 38cm bars to replace them. I ran into a kid at the cafe who’s been looking for 38cm bars for his S5 for ages, so he’ll happily buy the 40cm bars off of me.

I felt soreness after riding on my new Berk Dila. I’m sure if I played with the saddle angle some more I’d be able to get comfy on it, but today I put the Berk Lupina Short back on and instantly felt more comfortable, if anything I want to push the saddle back a little (bike came with a 0 offset seatpost). Almost no point getting the fit dialed in until I get the shorter cranks though.

I raided my parts bin a little more thoroughly and replaced a few more parts:

Bar Ends: CarbonWorks (2g)
Brake Rotors: Galfer 140mm/140mm (79g/79g)
Brake Pads: Shimano K05TI-RX (12g/12g)
Cassette: ZTTO SLR Gen3 12 Speed ​​11-28 (117g)

WEIGHT: 7.38kg

The CarbonWorks bar end plugs were a free gift when I ordered a cage replacement (a mate broke the cage as it got caught on his pants when he was hopping off the bike :lol: ) so they went right on. I now have 140mm rotors both front and back instead of the 2 x 160mm rotors and I have the lightweight Ti backed pads on there too.

Surprisingly the ZTTO Gen 3 cassette is shifting well. Yes it was annoying to tune, but where I couldn’t get it to work without noise on some cogs on Gina’s Ultegra SL8, there’s no noise at all on the Dura-Ace S5. Upshifts are smooth in all cogs, downshifts are clunky but totally acceptable. Maybe it’s the waxed chain making a difference? Who knows.

All in all I’m really happy that the S5 feels completely different to the SL8. The S5 feels like a plank of wood (similar to the Dogma F in that way). It’s so planted and focused on doing nothing but going fast. My SL8 feels much more comfortable, nimble and playful and it’s just as happy cruising with mates as it is on solo efforts, but I’m thinking the S5 will be the bike I choose on days when my mates can’t join me.