It was overdue... time for a new mountainbike. A light full-suspension Cross Country racer.
Rear Derailleur Shimano XTR RD-M 972. 180g, as spec'd.
Shifters: Shimano XTR Rapidfire ST-M970. Weigth should match spec (245g), as the above includes the cables.
Crankset: Shimano XTR FC-M970. 8g over vendor spec.. ok, maybe 6, deduct the plastic bags.
Cassette: Shimano XTR CS-M970 11-32. 2g lighter than vendor spec.
Fork: Rock Shox Reba Race, including the poplock remote. Shaft already shortened a bit so it is way under the vendor specified weight. Shaft should lose another 30mm soon.
Rear wheel: DT Swiss 240s hub, DT Swiss Comp spokes, DT Swiss XR4.2d rim, standard Schwalbe rim band.
Front wheel: DT Swiss 240s hub, DT Swiss Comp spokes, DT Swiss XR4.2d rim, standard Schwalbe rim band.
Rear brake: Magura Marta SL. Total weight with 160mm disc and screws: 357g
Front brake: Magura Marta SL. Total weight with 180mm disc and screws: 358g
Quick release: Tune AC16 + AC17, 53g, 2g over vendor spec ;(
Handle bar: Syntace Duraflite Carbon, 131g. 3g over the vendor spec'd weight ;(
Stem: Syntace F99 120mm with titanium screws, 104g. Forgot to take a picture somehow...
Tires: Continental Race King 2.2. Both exceed the vendor specified weight by about 15g each :(((.
The Schwalbe SV14A XXlight tubes are slightly lighter than the vendor says.
I stronly consider going tubeless (not the heavy heavy heavy UST shit, the kits consisting
of a special rim band and latex milk work fine). But first I'll verify the Race Kings are
the tires I want to keep using.
Frame: finally, I got the frame. Got really lucky... great deal on it.
Includes a FSA headset, DT Swiss 190L rear shock and some seat post clamp.
The fantastic LRS suspension system is unfortunately not the lightest, but the carbon frame
compensates this a bit, and teh dt swiss shock is light too. So in total the frame with shock
weights about 2460g.
Remote Control for the rear shock. Add 62g for the bowden cable and shell.
The FSA headset that came with the frame. Weight is perfectly fine.
Assemble and mount wheels.
Crankset
Handle bar, shifters, brake levers, remote controls for front- and rear shock.
Now the fun begins... route cables, cut shells for them, etc etc... takes a while.
Also, the hydraulic brake cables need to be shortened - not too hard, but takes time.
Done with the cables!
Unfortunately, that's it for the moment, since I don't have the remaining parts yet... expecting them within the week after.
Rear suspension detail.
Few days later, been to the bike shop, had them plane mill the brake caliper mount and remove the useless cantilever sockets.
Grmpf. Bike shops didn't really arrive in the internet era yet. Ordered friday. None of the two shops I ordered stuff at offers any form of immediate payment, like, paypal, credit card or the like. I did the bank transfer immediately, but since banks aren't all that fast, friday evening transfer means it is really done monday evening (banks are closed on weekends, no need to keep the computers running?!?) and the shops see it tuesday morning on their accounts. So I expect the postman on wednesday. Especially at cycle-aix, where they listed everything I ordered as "in stock".
Welcome to shop reality. It is thursday. I mailed them. Cycle-aix: contrary to what their shop system says, they didn't have the seat post in stock. They got it today, they say. And... ship on monday? Hello? Aside from that, they did not notify me. That would be the minimum, plus an option to have all the otehr stuff shipped first...
Slightly better - bike-components.de. Still dog slow, but they didn't claim they have everything in stock. Answer I got today is that they are ready to ship, but today's shipping is already done, so it will go out tomorrow... which means - arrives saturday. They changed the shipping address for me so that it now goes to my personal address instead of to my company, where no delivery takes place on saturdays.
bike-components.de delivered. package arrived on saturday, so the last minute change of the shipping address was a very good idea.
160mm disc for the rear brake. Don't think I need 180mm there, extra adapter
and heavier disc sum up to approx 80g.
Bar plugs, so I can mount bar ends
Ahead cap: Syntace Litecap
Front derailleur: Shimano XTR FD-M971 (the down swing variant)
Chain: Shimano 7701. Shortened by 4 links later, so 270g total.
Cycle-Aix was not able to deliver seat post and torque tool. Got the Syntace P6 post elsewhere. Bike is complete now, did a 3 hour ride in the Harburg Hills last weekend, IT ROCKS!
Finally found the fork I always wanted at a price point I found acceptable:
Magura Durin MD100R black disc-only.
weight out of the box, unshortened. Shortened at 1426g.
The great thing about standards is that there are so many to chose from... unfortunately also true for bike stuff. My old fork had IS2000 mount points for the brake caliper, the new one has Postmount. There are adaptors, but they add 20mm so I would have to use a 200mm disc... ugh. no way. So I got a new PM brake caliper and changed it. Unfortunately requires another adaptor for 180mm disc which adds 38g :(( I will get another 160mm disc and try out wether that is enough, by removing the adaptor and using the smaller rotor the weight goes down by 60g.
After almost 1500km the old one lengthened to a degree where it was time to exchange it. Not all that spectacular :)
Saves 58g and I don't need the 180mm rotor.
Incentive: they save 148g and supposedly work as well as the shimano XTRs
I had before. Downside: require different cleats.
After the first real ride I am totally sold. They work way better than the XTRs, almost unbelievably well.
While I usually use a Camelbak, for shorter rides I kind of often went
without, and thus completely without hydration. So I finally added a bottle
cage for these situations.
ok, update. I didn't use a camelbak again, yet.
Finally got me a Speedneedle. Assmeter likes it. Took a while to find the
right setup tho.
Handmade by coparni. Carbon with titanium bolt. Very light :)
Procraft Superlite, save 82g
This wheelset will finally be used for something else, but as long as my hubs
from the original wheels are at the wheel builder of choice, I use them
here.
Rims NoTubes ZTR Olympic, Hubs DT Swiss 240s, Spokes Front DT Revo,
Back left DT Revo, right DT Comp, Nipples DT Alu. Set at 1465g.
Rim Tape: Stan's yellow tape, 5g per wheel.
Since it was clear that my pretty worn Race Kings would not be good for
today's ride in mud and snow and ice I put my new Rocket Rons on.
Selected Rocket Ron 2.1: 391g and 396g. 203g lighter than the pair of
Race Kings.
On the 23th I received my hubs back - as shiny new wheelset!
DT Swiss 240s 6-bolt, Sapim CX-Ray spokes, Sapim alu nipples,
selected NoTubes ZTR Olympic rims.
In the days after I mounted the tubeless kit (NoTubes yellow tape,
NoTubes sealant).
when mounting the brake rotors I used titanium screws. Saves 7g per rotor.
On April 12 I noticed that the total km counter on the bike computer indicates
a new chain should be about due. Then I checked, and it was beyond the limit.
Since I wanted to ride a lot more in the next days and shops were closed
(easter) I decided to take the chain from the old univega as an intermediate -
only a HG93, but well, better than a overworn CN7701.
On April 14 i received a package from a bike shop where I ordered stuff for
the Hardtail I am currently building - including a CN7900 chain, that was
supposed to go to the hardtail. Of course I took it and mounted it on the
fully. The 7900 is 10 speed, but works fine on 9 speed. In fact I notice no
difference to the 7701. The HG93 was slightly worse in shifting performance
than the 7701. The 7900 is a bit over 20g lighter than the 7701 and comes
with a quick link. The last 7701 lasted approximately 1300km.
Another magnet for the computer speed sensor: Tune Pulsar, super light
The cassette's 14T sprocket is completely worn out after 2900km - yes, could be more, but I ride quite hard and do shift under load when I wanna get up somewhere. The bigger sprockets on the Al-Spiders look pretty good still, including the titanium ones. I still had an older CS-M960 11-32 laying around, which only ran a few hundred kms, and the CS-M970 uses the same 11T, 12T and 14T sprockets, so I used those. Let's see how long that delays the need for a new cassette - the 16T shows a fair bit of wear too, but is different between the 960 and the 970 (960 has a single one, 970 has it on a spider).
| planned changes | |||
| Frame | Merida Mission Carbon Team 2008, 18"/46cm, with DT Swiss SSD190L shock, Cantilever sockets removed | 2465g | |
| one pair of bottle cage screws removed | -2g | ||
| Remote Lockout for rear shock, with cables, shell, caps | 99g | Durin lockout, bit lighter and doesn't look like a UFO | |
| Fork | Magura Durin MD100R black disc-only 2008 | 1426g | |
| Remote Lockout for Durin, with bowden cable, shell and caps | 33g | ||
| Headset | FSA, came with the frame | 57g | |
| Aheadcap + Screw | Syntace Litecap | 10g | |
| Ahead clamp | standard | 10g | |
| Spacer | carbon | 2g | |
| Stem | Syntace F99 120mm, titanium screws | 104g | |
| Handle bar | Syntace Duraflite Carbon | 131g | I have a 114g Duraflite, -17g |
| Bar plugs | Syntace CRB | 15g | |
| Bar ends | XLC Pro lite | 58g | |
| Grips | Procraft Superlite | 17g | |
| Seat | Tune Speedneedle | 98g | |
| Seat post | Syntace P6 Carbon 31.6x400 | 232g | shorten by 6cm; -15g |
| Seat post clamp | custom, by coparni | 5g | |
| Quick releases | Tune AC16 + AC17 | 53g | |
| Front wheel | Hub DT Swiss 240s 6-bolt, Rim NoTubes ZTR Olympic (selected), Spokes Sapim CX-ray, Nipples Sapim Alu | 632g | |
| Stan's Yellow Tape | 5g | ||
| Stan's Valve | 6g | ||
| Stan's Tire Sealant, 50ml | 50g | ||
| Rear wheel | Hub DT Swiss 240s 6-bolt, Rim NoTubes ZTR Olympic (selected), Spokes Sapim CX-ray, Nipples Sapim Alu | 755g | |
| Stan's Yellow Tape | 5g | ||
| Stan's Valve | 6g | ||
| Stan's Tire Sealant, 50ml | 50g | ||
| Tire front | Schwalbe Rocket Ron 2.1 selected | 391g | |
| Tire rear | Schwalbe Racing Ralph 2.1 selected | 478g | |
| Crankset | Shimano XTR FC-M970 175mm 44-32-22 | 788g | |
| Bottom Bracket | crankset integrated | ||
| Pedals | Crank Bros Eggbeater 4ti | 177g | |
| Cassette | Shimano XTR CS-M970 11-32 | 222g | |
| Chain | Shimano CN-7900 | 247g | |
| Shifters | Shimano XTR SL-M970, w/ cables | 250g | al screws |
| Rear Derailleur | Shimano XTR RD-M972 (shadow, carbon cage) | 180g | some al screws |
| Front Derailleur | Shimano XTR FD-M971, spacers removed since I need the bigger 34.6 diameter | 150g | FD-M953 tuned, -25g |
| Bowden shells | Something I had - should be Shimano SP41, with sealed caps | 45g | |
| Front Brake | Magura Marta SL 2008 PM | 213g | al/ti screws |
| Magura Storm SL 160mm rotor | 95g | ||
| Rear Brake | Magura Marta SL 2008 IS short tuned | 228g | al/ti screws |
| Magura Storm SL 140mm rotor | 75g | ||
| Bottle Cage | Tune Wasserträger | 9g | |
| Computer | Speed sensor and mounting stuff for Sigma BC2006, magnet Tune Pulsar | 25g | |
| Total Weight | 9897g |
Undated comments from December 2008, after most of one season, 1800km since june (not measured before). Injuries prevented me from riding more :(