Lynskey Sportive Disc Project

[trevisl]

I had one of those moments a few months back that comes along to all of us from time to time - I want my next bike to be the perfect bike; one that will last as long as me and is custom to my needs and style. Thus the project was born.

I knew that I wanted titanium, something that would last but didn't weigh a ton. Having ridden Di2 for the past two years on a carbon frame I know that I didn't want to lose that as it is just so reliable and smooth in shifting. And it needed to allow for mini touring, commuting, and weekend speed. Not much really, just a bike that does everything... Oh, and a kind of retro feel.

What I came up with was:

- Lynskey Sportive Disc Di2 frame
- Lynskey titanium seatpost
- 11 spd 6800 group (50/34)
- Shimano R785 Hydro disc brakes
- SON dynamo front hub
- White CLD rear hub
- Tange prestige disc forks
- Chris' Rando handlebar
- Grand Cru headset


And so it began with an order from Bikepro for the frame and wheels in April. I thought I would be done by May. It has taken a little longer, but I am now enjoying putting it all together and thought it might be worth documenting my failures and successes...

[trevisl]

It took quite awhile to get hold of the frame and wheels for reasons I shall not go into right now. However in the meantime I took the opportunity to start collecting the various bits. I was being particular in that I wanted a specific look and feel, lots of chrome/silver, leather trim, retro'ish, but still with the comforts of modern cycling.

I have sourced nearly all of my parts from outside of Australia sadly, for a couple of reasons. There are few really good online parts shops in this country, the costs of delivery are exorbitant & slow and the prices in general are just too high. I would be prepared to pump money into the local economy if it was there and thereabouts, but it isn't even close. And don't get me started on customer service. My vendors of choice have been Evans Cycles in the UK, Ben's Cycles and Velo Orange in the US and Bike24 in Germany. In general I can get stuff from the UK in 3-4 days a lot cheaper than buying it from Melbourne or Brisbane.

I really felt I was getting somewhere when my wheel arrived. That's right one wheel... Luckily my balance is pretty good so I will persevere until the second arrives . So my first real building was putting a tyre on my new dynamo front rim. Nothing quite like the satisfaction of actually starting putting stuff together, even if it does only equate to changing a tyre.



This is a H plus SON TB14 rim with a Fyxation Session tyre. Love the session tyres for looks, lots of colours and that classic whitewall styling. And in the middle is the SONdelux hub, centre lock version to provide power to my lights and possibly phone. A Rolls Royce of dynamos.

[trevisl]

Next came some serious stuff which I have never done before, installing the headset into the frame. As you may tell by now I can be a bit frugal when it comes to some things (strangely the $2000+ frame doesn't worry me) so I wasn't about to buy a headset press that I may only use once or twice. After a bit of research I put together my own contraption which worked a treat.

A long piece of threaded rod from Bunnings with two bits of structural pine drilled through the centre, a nut and washer at each end and voila, a headset press.



The frame has a 1 1/8" headtube and I have the old school, Velo Orange Grand Cru Headset. A little bit of anti-seize grease (I am using Penrite Copper Eze) on the outside of the headset cups and then slowly start screwing the bolts at either end to pull it together. You need to do these one at a time. So I did the bottom cup first and took my time until it slid nicely into place. It's important if you use this method to get the bolt centred down the headtube and the wood blocks sitting flat. It doesn't need to be forced when tightening, just ensure there are no gaps between the headtube and the headset cup when you are done and have just come together. Wipe up any stray, vile anti-seize which seems to get everywhere, then move to the next one. I thought this was a preferred method to whacking it with a hammer which I thought could lead to uneven installation.



Then a quick test fit with my forks - Tange Prestige Lugged Disc Forks, and the Velo Orange stem. Not nearly as difficult as I had imagined. Not forgetting to grease up the top of the cups before putting in the bearings (with normal grease) and clamping it all down. I shall be leaving the star nut and cutting down the steerer once I have put it all together and sized it for fit.

[gabrielle260]

Looking forward to the next instalment in the story!
Andrew

[trevisl]

Which brings me to running Di2 wires. Having ridden a carbon frame Giant Di2 for awhile I was never going to build a new bike without it, but I always wondered how hard it was going to be to run the cables internally. Turns out quite hard; or very fiddly at least. The frame comes with a number of 5mm holes in the relevant places on the frame - one at the top of the downtube, one at the bottom of the downtube, one at the bottom of the seat tube and one at the end of the left chainstay. Additionally where the tubes all meet at the bottom bracket there are some oblong holes no more than 10-15 mm across.

For those that haven't seen Di2 you basically have a wire going to each derailleur, one to the battery and one to each shifter. It is an ingenious piece of engineering where any wire can be plugged into any junction box and the system will be able to identify what is plugged in. That makes it hard to plug anything into the wrong socket as the eTube system all have the same plugs.

You have one junction box at the bottom bracket that takes 4 wires and one up at the handlebars that takes three to five (depending on how many shifters you have plugged in - eg. aero bars + STI). The trick is running the wires through the tubes and getting them to pop out the appropriate place at the other end. Now given the hole is no more than 5mm and the connector on the end of the wire is probably 3mm, there isn't a great deal of clearance.

I am using a battery that fits into the seatpost rather than an external battery, so the first cable was an easy one down the seat tube and out the bottom bracket. How easy is this I thought, be done in ten minutes.

An hour later I am still trying to feed some of the cables.

The front derailleur is fairly short and is pretty easy to push through. Always push the cable into the hole on the frame and feed it towards the bottom bracket. You will never manage to feed it the other way as it would take a miracle to make the wire pop out the 5mm holes.

When picking your cable lengths you want to ensure you have them long enough to reach easily with a bit of slack, but not so long you don't have enough space to store them in the frame. For example the seatpost battery cable needs to be long enough that I can pull the seatpost out to get to battery, so at least 15-20cms longer than the seattube. The chainstay cable needs to have a bit of play to loop it up and over the rear derailleur. And the downtube cable needs to be able to reach stem.

I ended up with 1 x 950mm (downtube); 2 x 500mm (shifters); 1 x 800mm (rear derail); 1 x 350mm (front derail) and 1 x 800mm (seatpost). That's for a large frame and probably too long on the rear chainstay, but I managed to stuff it in.

At the bottom bracket all of these plug into the junction box using the special plug tool. A tip to note, I got one of those tools with my R785 shifter set, so you don't have to put out the $4 for a tool depending on what components you are buying. And to be honest you can plug them in without the tool without too much trouble, but you wouldn't want to do it too often I suspect.



That will leave you with a number of wires hanging out of various holes.

[trevisl]

With the battery unless you have speccy seatpost that comes kitted out for Di2 with a mount you will need to be inventive to keep it in place and prevent it from moving around. Using the Lynskey titanium post I have had to sort out my own solution. I wrapped the battery in some dense foam that made it just a little wider than the seatpost diameter and fixed this at the top end with some electrical tape.



This gave me a good smooth slide into the seatpost and then I slowly worked it upwards into the post.



This provide a good grip inside the post. However just to ensure it was unlikely to drop I wanted to plug it in place. I bought a 25mm end plug that is used on stools and seats and drilled a hole in the centre just big enough for the Di2 wire.



On its own this was very loose as the seatpost is around 26mm wide. I bought some rubber O rings from Bunnings. They came in a pack of about 30 assorted sizes for $3. I pushed two of the over the ribbed end of the cap and this then provided a tight fit. Push the Di2 cable that is sticking out of the top of the seattube through the hole in the cap and connect it to the battery, then push the cap into the seatpost.



The seatpost can then be pushed loosely into the seattube for the time being and the excess cable will congregate in the tube.

The hardest cables to thread for me were the downtube and the chainstay. They are long and the opening in the bottom bracket not that easy to get into. Because the cables are delivered curled up you need to try and straighten them as much as possible before threading, otherwise they get caught on the sides of the tube. Push them down until you feel resistance and you think you have gone the correct length to reach the other end. You may then be able to see the end of the cable from the bottom bracket. I used a combination of tweezers, coat hanger and finger whilst pushing and pulling at the other end of the cable to eventually fluke it coming out. I am sure there must be a simple method for doing this (anyone?)

At the handlebars you then connect the downtube and shifters to a junction box EW-90A (for my 3 wire connection) This combines the charger port, junction box and battery indicator all in one. It comes with a little strap to connect it to the stem. You can also connect the aero barend shifters to a junction box and/or a shifter switch which could be mounted on the handlebar for when you are sitting up.

[Drizt]

Outstanding. Thanks for posting.

I'm looking at getting bike pro to build me something similar.

[Drizt]

Sorry if I missed it but which cassette are you going with?

I like the look of the 11-26 SRAM cassette myself (with compact cranks 50/34), but I'm not sure if you can mix and match with shimano di2 like that?

[MattyK]

Tip for feeding cables: push a length of (mechanical) shifter (or brake) housing through, then tape the cable to it and pull back the other way.

Another great tip I've heard is to feed a length of cotton thread into the hole, hold/tape down the end, then suck it through with a vacuum cleaner. Then tie your electrical cable to the thread and pull back through.

[trevisl]

Drizt,

I haven't got the back wheel yet to install the cassette but it has just been dispatched this afternoon I am told, so I should get it by next week. The cassette is an 11 spd 6800 and I am fairly sure I went with 11/32 (not at home at the moment). Combined with the 50/34 chainrings it should help my aging legs to continue to get up those hills and still maintain some speed... That extra cog has made this a feasible option over my existing 10 spd.

In terms of getting one built. Being diplomatic, I couldn't really recommend it. I put in my initial order for just a frame and two wheels in April and the last wheel is just being sent today. Keep in mind that the frame was in stock in the Lynskey factory in the US (this was checked prior to order). That's four months wait... The frame arrived after about 3 months and then I was told that the wheels hadn't even started being built, despite the long downtime. And then, the hub to be used was unsuitable despite being pretty clear on my requirements three months earlier. Now if they had started on the wheels as soon as I ordered them that extra month's wait would have been avoided... The quality is top notch, but the service and communication could be a whole lot better.

On a more positive note I would recommend building it yourself anyway, it's a fun thing that doesn't require a massive amount of technical skill. Certainly nothing that the Net can't help with. And you have the satisfaction of having done it yourself. And I suggest that the cost would be considerably cheaper.

TC

[trevisl]

Matty, love the cotton and vacuum tip!

[Drizt]

Thanks for the reply.

I'm more than happy to spend the extra money to have them put it together. My time and anger levels (keeping them down) is more important to me I understand others enjoy the diy route. I like the safety of being able to blame someone else if things go wrong :p warranty is also a consideration.

My wife's sportive disc should be ready to pick up next week from bike pro. Been a bit over 5 weeks wait. Hers is built with SRAM force 22 hydro disc group set.

Depending on how we go with my wifes bike (quality of build etc.) ... I'll reassess from there.

Edit: I think I saw your wheel being built while I was in store. Very shinny.

[Drizt]

I like the idea of the battery in the seat post, so much cleaner.

Nice work on your solution by the way.

Currently working out which way I'll go with the seat post.

Could go any old seat post and use an adapter / insert / mount like the following -> http://www.pushys.com.au/ritchey-di2-ba ... oCewnw_wcB" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Or get a seat post made for a di2 battery -> http://www.this link is broken/au/e ... lsrc=aw.ds" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[trevisl]

Depends whether you are a weight weenie or not. I am not a carbon fan, it makes lots of creaking noises and I always think it is about to crumble underneath me. Maybe I am old fashioned but give me metal any day. However, I liked the titanium Lynskey post because it matched my classic silver and brown theme. But they do a nice black carbon post as well. For all the hype the extra 500 gms you might add by using alloy or cromo posts are probably worth it for the difference in cost?

[Drizt]

My wife went with the Thompson elite seat post which is alloy I think. Might do something similar

[trevisl]

Once the cables are all hooked up you should plug in the derailleurs even if they are not mounted and give your levers a try. Better to find a connection problem now rather than after the bottom bracket and crank is on.

If all is good you can push the junction box up into the downtube. If not you will need to work out where the loose connection is, or if your junction boxes might be stuffed. Most likely a poorly seated cable.



One of the great things about the 6800 series Di2 is that you don't need to purchase a separate PC interface unit at $200+ per unit. The battery charger doubles as a PC interface. By downloading the eTube software from http://e-tubeproject.shimano.com/ you can upgrade the electronics firmware, do diagnostic checks and set the actions of things like what each button does, how fast it does it, and perform micro adjustments on the derailleurs. Pretty nifty and easy to use. So I upgraded all the firmware prior to putting in the bottom bracket. and checked operations. All good.



Then apply some anti-seize to the bottom bracket threads trying hard to avoid getting it on the cables. Mine is the BBR60 which is quite a bit smaller than the earlier Shimano efforts, nice and discreet. It comes with an adapter so that the older Bottom bracket tools can still be used to tighten it without investing in another tool. Push the right side in with the inner plastic tube and hand tighten. Remember the bottom brackets are reverse threaded so turn anti-clockwise to tighten. It might take a bit of wiggling to get the tube in and get the Di2 cables out of the way. Then screw in the left side of the bottom bracket. And start to tighten both sides with the spanner to the appropriate torque.

[Drizt]

Awesome info.

With regards to charging the Di2 battery.... what is your plan ?

[queequeg]

In terms of getting one built. Being diplomatic, I couldn't really recommend it. I put in my initial order for just a frame and two wheels in April and the last wheel is just being sent today. Keep in mind that the frame was in stock in the Lynskey factory in the US (this was checked prior to order). That's four months wait... The frame arrived after about 3 months and then I was told that the wheels hadn't even started being built, despite the long downtime. And then, the hub to be used was unsuitable despite being pretty clear on my requirements three months earlier. Now if they had started on the wheels as soon as I ordered them that extra month's wait would have been avoided... The quality is top notch, but the service and communication could be a whole lot better.

On a more positive note I would recommend building it yourself anyway, it's a fun thing that doesn't require a massive amount of technical skill. Certainly nothing that the Net can't help with. And you have the satisfaction of having done it yourself. And I suggest that the cost would be considerably cheaper.

TC

My experience with Lynskey was the opposite. I found their service excellent, and as the frame I ordered was due for a production run I knew how long it would be. Bike was shipped on time and arrived 3 days after shipping.
I had mine shipped unbuilt so I could do it myself, but due to time constraints I had it built up at a shop here in Sydney.
I can't fault them, and I am looking at a Sportive bike mid next year, so I will curious to hear the Sportive Disc performs. I haven't decided whether to go with rim or disc as yet. My Cooper CX commuter is discs and I love it, so I am leaning towards discs as I want a comfortable bike for Audax riding.

[Drizt]

I read it as he wouldn't recommend bike pro to build it .... now I'm confused.

[queequeg]

I read it as he wouldn't recommend bike pro to build it .... now I'm confused.

Me too! Lynskey did tell me to use Bike Pro, but when I pointed out that they were 1000km away from me, and they order from Lynskey anyway, Lynskey agreed it was better to cut out the middle man.

My next frame I am thinking of getting etched or painted, so I'll probably do the frame/fork from Lynskey and build myself.

[trevisl]

I used the Aussie dealer because 1) Lynskey pointed me to them and 2) if I brought in something of that value direct I would be up for customs duty more than likely and the hassles of customs clearance. Brought in a set of car wheels a little while ago and the hassle was not worth the savings.

What I am saying is that Bikepro have great quality, although I only have the one front wheel at the moment to gauge that by. My problem is there was very little communication. Remembering that I was told I could have this frame in 3-4 weeks. No-one contacted me until I rang them after 2 months'ish. Even when I emailed or rang it took a long time for them to return my messages (over a week in one case), leaving me wondering after 3 months what the frag was going on and whether I would ever see the bike. Just better customer contact would have made the world of difference and left me completely at ease. If I give over $2 grand deposit and then hear nothing for over 2 months I think its reasonable to be bit nervous...

Now it is here I love the actual goods, no complaints with the product at all - but it did take 4 months to get here.

Hope that clears it up a bit.

1000kms. I dream of being only 1000kms away More like 5000 for me.

[trevisl]

With regards to battery charging that's quite straightforward. The junction box at the stem has a port on it that sends the charge through to the seatpost battery. And it is a USB plug at the other end so you can either connect it to a USB power adapter or straight into a PC.

[trevisl]

Just put in the seatpost, seat and saddlebag. Following the retro theme I have a Brooks B17 saddle and the Zimbale 7 ltr saddlebag in duck cotton/leather.



Not sure about the support rack I bought to prop it up. I don't like the idea of the bigger bag slapping against my legs or drooping, but the Carradice support arm might just be a bit too restrictive. Maybe a little homegrown adjustment will be in order in a few weeks once I have given it a chance.

With the seatpost I greased the inside of the seattube with anti-seize and then a light coating along the seatpost. Without it, for my test fit, the post was very tight and hard to remove, but with the anti-seize it had just enough give to manoeuvre it into place.

[queequeg]

I used the Aussie dealer because 1) Lynskey pointed me to them and 2) if I brought in something of that value direct I would be up for customs duty more than likely and the hassles of customs clearance. Brought in a set of car wheels a little while ago and the hassle was not worth the savings.

Yep, Lynskey pointed me to them as well, but at the time they (Lynskey) were doing a promotion on the Cooper CX complete bike, and even with shipping + GST it was still almost $1,000 cheaper buying direct, and bike pro was going to add no value to me because I couldn't visit them anyway. I'd be ordering online from a store that itself orders them online.

Anyway, shipping & customs was hassle free. No Customs Duty on complete bikes, or bikes made in the USA (FTA). Clearance all handled by UPS on arrival with no paperwork or delays. I had delivery at my house the day after it arrived in the country.

Bike Pro would have to pay the same charges too, so you are not avoiding that cost buying from them.

[Drizt]

Bike pro buy frames in bulk so they get a discount.