Steel is real.

Is it wrong of me to love a big brand bike amongst so many hand made bikes? Simon Yates is 172cm tall, but chooses to ride a size 48 Cervelo S5 with a long stem, full stack of spacers and a 0 offset seatpost with his saddle pushed all the way forwards.

On paper, SCOPE wheels are the fastest on the market. The 3D printed hubs are insanely light!

Wooden wheels, gold leaf. Less is so much more. We got to meet and chat with the amazing Takashi Iijima from Yokohama Japan based Maruya Cycles.

This PROVA, painted by Steve from Velocraft was art.

Matching helmet? Yes please!

Down, but now out! SO hung over after yesterday’s amazing ZEN EOMM, but Gina got me out of bed and on the bike for a few laps at the park. “It’ll be good for you!”. We then dropped in to SPOKEN 2025 at Carriageworks.

Now with lighter 28C Pirelli tyres on there. I do think they roll a little slower than the Conti GP5000 TT and Aero 111 setup. They sure feel stickier, but I did a 3 lap blat around the park yesterday and my average speed was 30.7kms/hr which I’m happy with. Would the average speed be higher if I had the deeper Roval wheels on? Maybe?! Either way I’m really happy with how these CRW 4045’s make my bike feel so I’m sticking with them!

Custom Brisk wheelset is in!

Took a long time for these wheels to get to me, but god damn am I impressed. The wheels came in an insane hard flight box that far outweighs the wheelset weight! And to my (and Brisk’s) surprise these custom order wheels came it way lighter than expected.

They’re basically their tubular only Ultralight wheelset, but in a clincher version as I didn’t want to much about with tubulars.

Quite determined to now get the SL6 to sub 5kg. I just need some rim tape, then I’ll take more photos and share a ride report soon after.

Seraph Bikes Superlight X68.

I made this post this morning on the Chinertown forums in regards to counterfeit bikes:

Long time lurker, but long story short; my Dad was Chinese, and passed away when I was a teenager. In homage to him I’d really love to build a full Chinese build where every single component is not only made in China, but sold by Chinese brands. Up until now the groupset and the tyres were the only thing stopping me, but it’s looking like some performance tyres are now coming out of China, so I feel like my project can finally begin.

On the topic of replicas; I’ve been a graphic designer for most of my career. I put a LOT of blood, sweat and tears to get to the top of my game, and having individuals and companies rip off my work really pissed me off, so much so that I spent countless hours trying to take them down (IE: a lot of energy, time and stress fighting them). When I quit graphic design I started shooting photography full time, and again. I’ve had countless people rip off my photography with no credits, or worse yet taking credit (not to mention a lot of AI “artwork” using my photography as the source).

Morgan Freeman the actor said something interesting in an interview once, when asked about how do we end racism he simply stated that we stop talking about it. Whilst I’m aggressively against replicas and counterfeits I value discussion a lot.

Do I think any less of my friends who buy counterfeit goods? Maybe, but not enough to unfriend them! I live with it by telling myself it’s their problem, not mine. And as I’ve said elsewhere, am I at all tempted to buy a replica SL8 frame? Yes I am because I’m curious to see how it compares to my genuine SL8. I’ve never been one to read other people’s reviews, but instead would prefer to try things out myself. That said I struggle in this case with knowing the end result before even starting (IE: that the fake SL8 will be fine, but not as good as the real thing).

On a technical point; I do think I would be more impressed if genuine OEM SL8 parts fit the counterfeit frame. Why? Well it would show a greater level of care and craftmanship, and most of all it would allow me to put aftermarket SL8 components onto my replica frame, which is crazy important to me as I love tinkering with bikes and trying out new components as they come out.

1141g for the set.

My CRW wheels came in super quick from Panda Podium and I was even faster getting them on the SL8. Since they have a 24mm internal width I had to give up the 26C Pirelli’s I just recently fitted to my Roval CLX II’s, so for now I’ve put on a 29C Aero 111 on the front, and a 28C GP5000 TT on the back.

Front Inner width: 24
Front Outer width (brake track): 29.5
Front Outer width (widest point): 31.6
Rear Inner width: 24
Rear Outer width (brake track): 29.5
Rear Outer width (widest point): 31.6

SL8 weight has now dropped down to 5.68kg’s! Do I miss the look of deeper wheels? Yup, but after one ride on these I can confirm that they feel radically different to the Rovals. Just some initial first ride notes below:

– The first thing I noticed was the sound the front wheel makes. A pleasant hum which I put down to the carbon spokes.

– In the saddle all low gradient hills just feel that much more effortless, but the biggest change is in out of saddle sprints. The bike just accelerates so much faster and feels so much livelier and more playful than ever before. It’s actually quite addicting.

– I didn’t at all feel less discomfort from the extra stiffness of the carbon spokes. I put this down to running lower (60PSI) pressure on wider (29C/28C) tyres vs. 75PSI in my previous 26C tyres.

– The freehub sound is VERY quiet which was a bit of a surprise (and a little bit of a disappointment as I actually like loud freehubs). The Roval CLX II’s were dead silent when I first got them and only started to make sound when I took apart the hub to remove some grease. I could probably do the same to the CRW’s but I’ve decided to just leave them as is and see if they’ll get louder over time.

All in all I’m really happy with the purchase and more than happy to leave them on the bike. I’ll gather more data over the next few weeks, as I know that what “feels” fast isn’t necessarily faster, but right now I’m pretty excited at just how much more lively and fun the bike is to ride.

PS: I’ve got some slightly lighter Pirelli P Zero Race RS Clinchers in 28C (would only save me 40g over my current setup), but figure the TT and Aero 111 setup probably has lower rolling resistance so I’ll leave the setup as is.

Quality hangs with Sam at CCACHE who installed a custom set of JUIN ETF-A brake calipers on my SL8.

Also got to meet Rob from RIDE Media and lucky enough to get a copy of his labour of love, the official 2025 TDF guide.

For the Dogma F.