Category Archives: Bike

Project 321 hubs.

They feature an interesting system to allow for the use of either centrelock or 6 bolt.

No need for tyre levers. Hands down the easiest tyre/rim I’ve ever had to set up tubeless.

Love how thin HT ME03 pedals are, super light too at 260g a pair.

Starting to look like a bike!

Custom silver Wingman rims + silver spokes and silver Project 321 hubs came in from The Brig. Heavy AF at 2263g for the set, but really happy with how they look, especially on the bike!

Fabric Scoop Elite came in the mail today. Hefty at 256g but I had to have silver rails!

Hope dropper lever with shifter mount to mount it to the brake levers.

Hope braided brake lines and blue Nissen mesh cables for the dropper and rear mech.

External cabling never looked so good.

Garbaruk silver cage + Garbaruk oversized pulley wheels. Finicky job but I got it done without issues.

As the sun goes down.

Goodridge braided lines made for Hope came in from the UK.

Patience is testing me so I thought I’d install the Chris King crown race onto the Lyrik.

I thought I’d try a pipe cutter instead of sawing the steerer this time, not as clean IMHO, but definitely faster.

Not often I get to hammer a star nut in these days.

I dug through the parts bin and found a 35mm clamp stem with the same stack height as the Starling stem I’ve ordered (will take a while as I’m getting Starling to paint it the same colour as the frame).

I’ve fitted it up for now with a 35mm Renthal bar but I will be running 31.8 Renthal bar in the final build.

Brakes are on, turns out the rear caliper won’t work with the Hope 180mm IS mount adapter I bought so I’ll have to go for a 203mm rotor in the rear (super annoying as I just ordered a silver adapter that won’t work with these calipers).

Still waiting on a wheelset from The Brig (been a few weeks and they’re not responding to my email with any updates) and coil shock + stem from Starling too. Patience you must have.

Spent some time dialling in the rebound and air pressure on the fork + rear shock too and finally feel like the bike is super dialled in now. Only took me 5 months, but we’re there!

Garbaruk 11-Speed cassette.

Very nice.

TRP RS01E 2.3mm 203mm/180mm (235g/183g).

Shimano XTR Rear RD-M9100-SGS (242g). Should be the same pull as 11-Speed, just waiting on a Garbaruk long cage + oversized pulleys in silver.

Nissen mesh cables from Blue Lug Japan (I bought a LOT of it in silver and blue, will decide which I’m going to use (or both?), later.

Chris King Threadfit 24 BB + #4 Fitkit (87g/5g).

BB went in real easy.

Chris King InSet 7 (143g).

Headset also went in real nice.

Middleburn RS8 165mm + X-type uno boost chainring 30t (597g).

Them old school vibes!

I went for a Velo Dynasty link over a Cascade as the Cascade link doesn’t work unless you use the 27.5″ flip chip setting when running a 27.5″ rear wheel. Like the Cascade, the Velo Dynasty link increases travel by 10mm (from 150mm to 160mm) and also increases the progression of the stroke.

Was a straight forward install as all bearings were pre-fitted to the link. Now to go out and play!

Saw that this PNW Loam Gen 2 Dropper Post is available in silver. Had to have it for the Starling Murmur build!

Hope Tech 4 V4’s.

Turns out the rear is IS mount (older V3 frame it seems as they have now gone to post mount and UDH). I’ve read that the Hope Tech 4 V4’s don’t fit with some brake adapters so I’ve ordered Hope adapters (only found them in black locally, but they’re available in silver in the UK so might look into that down the line).

More mucus made worse by beautiful weather and Eugene sending me photos from his ride this morning at Loftus.

But hey! Another delivery of parts for the Murmur!

I wanted to avoid as many black parts as possible and when I think of silver brakes I think of Hope. Couldn’t bring myself to spend $486 on the matching V4 vented rotors though so I’ll look into something else (probably 2.3mm TRP RS01E).

Love that the frame has cables externally mounted but the cables are meant to go through the (lovely) headtube gusset and guess what? You can’t feed the rear caliper or brake lever through the gusset which means you’ve got to bleed the rear brake regardless. All good as I’ve managed to find some Hope (made by Goodridge) stainless steel braided hoses on eBay UK in any case. Not for function, all for looks.

On the topic of looks I’ve also ordered a silver 175mm PNW Loam dropper post (150mm is out of stock world wide). 150mm dropper posts with the post fully inserted work perfectly for me but on research I’ve found that the PNW posts can be adjusted by 30mm so the 175mm post might work out as the max insertion on the frame is 280mm. Sux to have spent money on a new OneUp post that I might not end up using, but fingers crossed the PNW works out as I think a silver post would suit the aesthetics I’m going for so much more.