Bike Check: Fairwheel Bikes’ 5.1kg Factor O2 disc brake road bike

Once STI/Ergopowers were introduced, bar shape had to evolve to something more like these Deda Piega bars from the 90s:

BUT the drops were still fitted level. That's why the 'ramps' are 'ramped'.

Hmmm. Must go and check my handlebar setup now.

Just yesterday, I was watching a video about hand positions and the alignment of your wrists when on the hoods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9jq4WBrKOY

I was talking to the poster above who was complaining about the spacer above the stem, so you can wind your neck back in and figure out how to follow threads without needing to quote the post directly before

Presumably they will want to be able to sell the bike to someone, or just the frame. Slamming the stem and cutting the tube short is fine on your bike if that fits you, but they’d just be limiting their chances of a sale here 

Freds are a right sensitive bunch, it seems

Well, now I'm confused.

@Nick T - that picture is roughly how I have my bars setup and it feels right for me. What's the issues with that kind of setup?

@Don Simon - I agree in principle, but that bike doesn't have a front brake and we all know where that can lead.

Alright settle down 

Do it as wrong as this if:

a) you don't give a shit about rules.

b) it encourages you to get out of your car and on to a bike.

And here’s an example of how to get it wrong. That’s how bike fitters set up their customers bikes now though, because all their customers are Freds

Alu Recon cassettes are like biscuits, you only need give them a hard stare and the teeth snap, 'race day' cassette that has a high % of not lasting a hard stage race, durability my arse.

Stronglight and SRAM make lighter 50T rings than the Carbon-ti, I had a check of my records and 84g was the lightest 52T ring I used (Stronglight), 29g for a 33T Stronglight, Fibrelyte combo (50/34) are supposedly 77g a pair however.

I was going to buy some Corima 24mm tubs and build them onto my FRM carbon axled hubs, with DT aerolites they were going to be 880-890g for a 24/20 wheelset that wouldn't be anywhere near as flaky as that in the build. Certainly wouldn't want to ride 'prototype' rims with ti spokes unless I was under 65kg and just out for a genetle pootle on smooth roads!

These builds are utterly pointless, certainly isn't practical nor durable in any real way, wall art if you like ugly.

I had the Ashima rotors on a couple of MTBs and they were fine.

Maybe not the same kind of speeds as on an open road descent but unless you seriously drag the brakes I reckon it would be pretty hard to boil brakes even with the lack of material on these rotors.

I've still got them but been too lazy to fit them to my current MTB.

This is wrong...

It looks like Fairwheel Bikes do not know what they are doing.

I had these rotors on road bike and they just heated up and faded

24 titanium spokes + disk brakes will feel flimsy and wobbly under heavy breaking.

Good luck on long, steep descents!

That looks really nice. I thought 8kg was light weight. Congratulations.

Why save all that weight and fit it with a compact crank?

A bike you could race on? Not until they scrap the 6.8kg weight restriction, unless you are not in a UCI governed event. The only thing it's good for is hill climb events (in which case you don't need discs, inner ring, front brake, drops etc.).
I don't understand the obsession with building these things. The only benefit of a lightweight build is if you are racing the rest is just showing off how much excess money you have. Of course it's always satisfying to drop people on superlights

You can definitely get lighter frames than that. Trek's top end Emonda is 665g for the disc brake version - forks add another 350g.

Quote:

Also, I'd have thought that titanium would be an almost ideal material for spokes except for it's tendency to bond with other metals (stuck nipples).

It isn't - itr's very stretcy and makes it very difficult to build a wheel to a decent tension. Proper pain in the arse. I'd much rather have a wheelset a few grams heavier built with normal triple butted spokes and brass nipples. Alloy ones being another example of the "more trouble than it's worth" school.

A sub 821gram wheelset is mightly impressive! 

If anything the frame is the porky part @ 854grams... 

Really bored of the obsession with weight saving. I'd prefer if the bike industry concentrated on reliability instead.

Give me a 8.5 kilo bike with components that last 20,000 miles and I'd be much happier.

If you look carefully, you can see that the body of the ring is carbon but there appears to be a metal outer ring that has the teeth machined into it.

Carbon chain rings just seem wrong to me in terms of durability

 Don't like this bike. I think it looks like a dog dinner (although that's just personal taste...) especially the weird positioning of the bars. Looks like it was to get the hoods level because they fastened them on too high.

 Wheels could be far lighter, the rims are quite heavy - even aluminium Mavic OpenPro's are only 430g and they have a brake track. Plus that many spokes seems over kill for a lightweight road bike. My road bike only has 16F/21R and I'm yet to break one and I'm an 82Kg track rider, so no lightweight. Also, while I appreciate they may want the spacers, they could atleast trim the steerer to get rid of the one on top.