Yesterday I built my first hardtail (first bike I ever built too) under guidance of my mechanic. The plan was twofold; to learn many of the various jobs that I haven't attempted yet like gears, cables, headset, bb etc and to make a bike with as many English parts as possible (as this will probably be my last bike purchase prior to immigrating to Vancouver) and it was pretty successful. Whilst I watched the bb faces and the brakes posts being reamed I did pretty much everything else and what a sense of acheivement.

We couldn't go English with the zero stack headset, bottom bracket (as didn't want square taper), rims, tyres, chain, shifters or derailleurs but everything else was.

Just to bore you the build ended up as Pace RC303 frame with RC40 100-130mm forks, USE Atom bars, Orange grips, Hope mini mono brakes, Hope XC stem, Hope spacers and seat clamp, Hope Pro 2 hubs and rotors, Middleburn RS7 cranks and rings, USE Sumo carbon seatpost, USE pro elite saddle, (syncros headset, SKS XC600 bb, 2007 XT derailleurs and shifters, whippermann teflon coated connex chain, Stan's ZTR olympic rims and SS eggbeaters).

Some of the parts are pieces of beauty like the Middleburn chainset:

or the Hope billeted stem :




sweet front end:


Very apt headset cap given our destination;-)





Finished product prior to riding this morning: It's a very different ride than my iDrive 4 but is very rewarding with very surefooted handling, the combination of the short riding position and the adjustable fork making it a rapid ride. Unfortunately my rear tyre was shredded by a flint and we had already used up our spare inner tubes so I have yet to ride longer than an hour but things look promising.

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"How bad can it be?" - SimpleS