Winter Project - Part 4 – It's Finished, It Could Be The Start Of Something Beautiful

And finally. It is done. The last pieces of the puzzle quickly greased and slotted into place whilst “Four In A Bed” was on. Seatpost, bars and stem all from the same manufacturer, collar and cuffs people, collar and cuffs. 3T supply the Dorico Pro seatpost, Arx Pro stem and shallow drop Ergonova Pro bars with a nice flattened top for gripping and chewing on. Rumours that they were chosen for the fact that their simple black and white graphics matched the black and white theme of the bike are pure conjecture. Ahem. Favourite Fizik Arione saddle bolted on, white to match the Pro bar-tape, collar and cuffs, collar and cuffs.

Fitting cables into the Hope V-Twin to make it work was a whole bunch easier than I thought it would be although I had to pop down to local bike shop Rayments Cycles with a box of muffins and ask them to tidy the long flappy brake hoses for me as I’m not so confident at that sort of thing. And they let me have a rummage in their quick-release bins for a pair of matching black QR skewers. Take cake to your LBS and they will take care of you.

Routing the rear brake hose along the top-tube using stick-on guides isn’t ideal in any way, at some point in the future the bike will have to go to a local titanium frame fabricator to get the brake cable guides drilled out, and if possible those redundant cantilever mounts ground away. Obviously if I was ordering this direct from Litespeed rather than build up a spare prototype I could spec whatever cable options I wanted. So not really complaining, well, only the aesthete in me is.

Here’s the full spec. list for those that like that sort of thing…

Frame – Litespeed CX 3AL-2.5V Ti tubing
Fork - Kinesis CXD
Headset - Hope
Shifters – Shimano 105 10spd
Chainset – Shimano CX50 46-36T
Bottom Bracket – Shimano 105
Rear Derailleur – Shimano 105
Front Derailleur – Shimano 105
Cassette – Shimano 105 12-27T
Chain - KMC
Brakes – Hope X2 caliper via Hope V-Twin
Rotors – Shimano 160mm
Hubs - Novatec
Rims – Stans Iron Cross
Tyres – Vittoria Cross XM Pro (front),  Vittoria Cross XM Pro (rear), tubeless
Skewers – Shimano
Stem – 3T Arx Pro100mm +/-6deg
Handlebars - 3T Ergonova Pro
Bar Tape - Pro
Seatpost – 3T Dorico Pro 31.6 x 350
Saddle – Fizik Arione
Pedals – Shimano XT

Weight without pedals is bang on 20lbs (9.18kg) which is fine for something that’s not been built up with a race-ready BMI, the Litespeed CX has more of a purposeful demeanor than that, some of those Ti tubes are pretty stout. Idly sitting and staring at the bike a long list of possibilities are queueing up in my mind, even if the cyclo-cross season is officially over. There’s the Morvélo CityCross for starters, a certain long-distance itch that needs scratching and a large muddy bucket of the usual mix of ride, race and mucking about inappropriately that I tend to do on a ‘cross bike. Should be just about perfect.

www.evanscycles.com

www.kinesisbikes.co.uk

www.stradawheels.co.uk

www.hopetech.com

www.madison.co.uk

www.i-ride.co.uk