0-Carb (Javelin Amarone) No Carbon Fiber - 6.35kg (14lb)

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2lo8
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:32 am

by 2lo8

About the cranks:

Cranks used to be pretty basic things, made out of steel, and attached with tapered cotters adapted from other machinery. Some were fluted like I-beams, but I-beams or channel (U-beams/C-beams) suffer from lack or torsional rigidity, and because the pedal is offset to the side, a crank arm should be torsional strong and stiff, which limited weight reduction from fluting. You still see the channel design on a lot of modern cranks though, because it is stronger and lighter than a solid crank arm of the same size. The ideal place to remove weight from a crank is the core, the ideal shape, a hollow tube. There were in fact, hollow steel cottered cranks in the 40's. The design is quite clever, and uses the cotter to cover the hole drilled into the arm, so the hole does not interfere with the spindle interface. However, gun drilling is a relatively expensive and difficult process. These got sidelined as lighter aluminum cotterless cranks (square taper) took over for performance applications pretty much through the bike boom, which is why the fluted design of Campy NR cranks is so classic. Those straight fluted arms have been around in one form or another for a long time.

Following the bike-boom, there was a small Renaissance of boutique parts makers in the 90s, churning out all sorts of exotic CNC parts, and several of these companies again saw the crank as a place to innovate, but this time using new materials and construction techniques to again attempt a hollow crank arm design.

With the advent of TIG-welding technology being used on frames, some tried to weld up cranksets made from metal tubes, such as Sweet Wings and Bullseye among others. However, these were prone to failure and when made light weight, skilled labor intensive, making them expensive. You generally only see this design still used with heavy duty BMX cranks, where the high-strength to weight is used to maximize strength rather than reduce weight and the heavy construction makes welding easy and cheap.

However, many of the small shops specialized in CNC, allowing the small scale production of meticulously (or not) engineered parts. Among these designs were the bonded metal cranks, like Magic Motorcycle, in which two carefully hollowed out halves of crank arms were glued together. This allowed for the precise control of thickness and shape along the entire length of the crank arm. Cannondale adopted this technology with their CODA brand of components. These however, were again prone to failure and debonding, and Cannondale had to recall many of them. However, they have presumably gotten better at it, because they still make them, the SiSL is still made in the same way and is among the lightest cranksets.

In the late 90's Shimano caught on (it would be a while until Campagnolo introduced hollow cranks, or even ventured away from square taper) and created a process to forge hollow cranks, leveraging their large size, high capacity and industrial might. Forging requires extremely expensive tooling and machines, but in many ways creates an optimized design with optimized grain (if not cast). However, it is only cost effective with large mass production. This technique is still used for many forced hollow cranks. Some bicycle mechanic authorities claim that two halves are forged like the CNC bonded designs, but then welded together. I am extremely skeptical of this claim however. My personal experience and research indicates crank arms were either cast or forged with a hollow cavity open on the pedal side. The die or the sand filler is removed, and the pedal side is forged and pinched shut sealing off the hollow cavity and giving a place to drill the pedal eye.

Note cut-aways of Shimano FC-9000 and FC-6800 seem to indicate a different construction with visible seams and don't have the taper normally found with pinched designs, and look to be bonded (I don't keep DA 9000 cranks on hand for destructive testing). Silver FC-5800 would either be painted over in matte silver paint or use the pinched forging method.

Modern carbon designs give no regard to this kind of construction, and because of how carbon is laid up, usually require less ingenious construction. However, no carbon on this bike.

The crank I'm using uses none of those methods to achieve hollow construction. Like those 40's Duprat steel cottered hollow gun drilled cranks (although I doubt these makers knew it existed), these cranks are also drilled lengthwise through the length of the crank. One of those small CNC boutique companies by the name of Ay Caramba tried their hand at an aluminum version of a gun drilled crank. To prevent interference with the square taper interface and the pedal eye, the holes were offset, and the material between the two bores fluted creating quite the unusual look. However, as I noted before, gun drilling is a relatively difficult process. Their double Barrel crank was known for a very flashy appearance and light weight, but prone to failure because of the poor quality of the gun drilling, leading to bored that were not straight and uneven wall thicknesses, which again led to this construction method being sidelined.

Much later, KCNC released a similar design, but with the bores going through the pedal eye, and stopping before the spindle interface, and plugging the ends of the holes with aluminum plugs, which allowed them to tap the pedal eye to accept pedals, resulting in a fairly straight conventional look and a single flute on the front. The Rotor Agilis, like the Duprat long before it, has a single bore coming from the other side as to not interfere with the pedal eye, and used an unusual septagontal taper to compensate for the fact that the spindle interface had a hole in it, requiring only a cosmetic plug instead of a structural plug like the KCNC.

Enter the Rotor 3D(24) and the eecrank. No, they are not copies of each other. Yes, superficially, they look the same, both have 3 bores, and 2 flutes. There are people who curse Rotor for the failure of the eecranks. The bike industry had already made cranks wider than they were thick for decades. It was not at all unusual to arrive at this ratio of width to thickness. Both prototypes were made around the same time. eecranks came up with a design to optimize weight where all 3 holes were drilled from the spindle side as to not interfere with the pedal eye. The way the spindle way attached to arms, the bores only interfered with the bolt to tighten the arms. The bores were kept clear away from the actual spindle interface by putting the bores next to the interface instead of through it. (Given that I don't have an eecrank, I can't say how negatively this impacted u-factor, but rotor doesn't have a great u-factor either).

Rotor looking to increase stiffness to weight arrived at 3 as the logical conclusion and natural evolution of their Agilis. They took their single bore on the spindle side, and flanked with with bores coming from the pedal eye side which did not interfere with the pedal eye and stopped before interfering with the spindle interface. This allowed the bores to be on the same level as the spindle interface, and accommodated a Shimano style pinch bolt design.

That led to the 3DF and 3D+ designs which use a long BB30. This design is a lot closer to the eecranks than the 3D24. All 3 bores are from the spindle side and plugged. It's easier to do all bores from the same side, and it allows you more flexibility on the size of the bores. Since aluminum spindles aren't particularly accommodating to pinch bolt designs, Rotor uses a tapered splinled interface meant to deal with the holes and a SRAM style BB30 adjuster. From my estimation, it still isn't like the eecrank that avoids bore/spindle interference. In developing their power meter, they realized they could just stick everything inside the spindle. Thus the Inpower.

So knowingly or not, Rotor has a design with roots reaching back to the earliest hollow weight weenie cranks.
[14lb(6.35kg) of no carbon fiber]
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2lo8
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:32 am

by 2lo8

Again, no pictures. I haven't bothered to demount the tires from the previous build they were on, I will reweigh the wheels when I get new tires.

Off the top of my head:

Bitex RAF10/RAR9: 260g
Kinlin XR-200 x2: 765g
CN424 spoke x44: 190g
Alloy nipples x44: 15g
~1230g for the wheels

Veloplugs x44: 8g
Forte Light Tube x2: 134g
Forte Pro Lites x2: 390g

That makes for a very light wheetset, but on the other hand, it's really not a stiff wheelset.

The RAF10/RAR9 is lighter than the standard Bitex hubs, but at their normal price, not really worth the money, considering they use smaller bearings. Cartridge bearings let small manufacturers produce high quality hubs, because they don't have to make the bearings and leave that to firms that specialize in only ball bearings. That means a lot more variation from the traditional sizes found in cup and cone hubs, and if you've ever rebuilt a cheap cup and cone hub, you'd realize why every small hub maker that doesn't have the production volume and machinery of Shimano and Campy makes cartridge bearing hubs. Even way back, some boutique hub makers like Maxicar used SKF bearings, although they used an adjustable angular contact bearing, not the kind of cartridge bearings popularized by Phil Wood. Still, Bitex hubs don't always have the bearings set in perfectly and they have aluminum Shimano freehubs, which were designed for steel, but so do most lightweight hubs. Campy at least realized they could make a spline pattern meant to be aluminum, although with the newer alloy freehub designs with a single steel spline, it's not so much a problem anymore. The reason why Shimano freehubs are designed for steel is because the old freehubs have bearing races and the pawl ratchet ring machined into the inside of the freehub body. Cartridge bearing freehubs modeled after the Campy freehub don't.

XR-200s are flexy, and light and flexy. But they're cheap and light, and work adequately if you aren't too heavy for them and don't mind pinned rims.

424 spokes are of mixed quality. They're definitely not as nice to build with as a brand name spoke, and I completely understand why most wheel builders don't want to waste their time on them. Threads are not great, but it gets you something similar to a CX-ray at Laser price, and when comparing them to Lasers, at least the fact that they're bladed helps their buildability compared to the wind-up prone Lasers.

Veloplugs are very light, and an excellent $/g upgrade for non-tubeless clinchers. If they fit. Since they're made by Velocity for Velocity rims, they don't fit all rims or may require modification. I used yellows, although apparently not all XR-200 rims are drilled the same.

Forte Light tubes (same as Nashbar) come from the evil non-IBD chain store in America. But when they're on sale, they can be had from $3-4 each, and rival many latex tubes in weight at only 67g each. As a bonus, you also get that weight reduction for the third tube in your saddle bag.

Forte Pro Lites are listed as 205g, but they seem to come in fairly consistently below that. They're cheap, light and have supple sidewalls, but not much in terms of flat protection. The replacement set I have seems to have some problems with the bead, so I might end up with different tires.
[14lb(6.35kg) of no carbon fiber]
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by Weenie


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2lo8
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:32 am

by 2lo8

Image

Thomson Elite Seatpost (32.4mm x 240mm): 200g

Thomson is the king of odd sized quality seatposts, and 32.4mm is an odd size. I cut it down to 240mm for a few reasons, one it was already cut down from the original 367mm length when I bought it, two it would have hit my bottle boss is left full length, and three, obviously, it reduces weight.

Warning: this voids the warranty

Technically, I have a seatpost that would be 5-10g lighter (and probably more comfortable) with a shim, but the Thomson says Thomson on it and doesn't look like it was jury rigged, that's got to be worth something. Since my warranty is already voided, I may try to drop the weight ~10g with some replacement Ti bolts, or use the other seatpost and cut off another cm if it helps me reach any sort of nice round number.

Thomson is pretty much synonymous with the 2 bolt design nowadays, but back in the 50's when Campagnolo made seatposts, and full Campy groupset meant a seatpost too. It gave infinite angle adjustability and secure clamping, especially compared to older designs with separate posts and clamps (although some of these had non-notched designs), which really helped with the finicky set-up of Brooks leather saddles. However, it's also exceedingly annoying to adjust, trying to fit a small wrench in between the saddle rails, and turning those bolts 1/12 of a turn at a time.

Image

There were a number of knock-offs, and some designs that moved the bolt heads under the seat, making them more accessible, but also adding more setback. And a shift away from Brooks saddle as standard equipment demanded seat posts with less setback. Eventually production shifted towards the much sleeker and simpler (looks aero, lighter, cheaper) single bolt designs.

About 20 years later, in the 70's, Weyless started making a 2-bolt design with the bolt heads accessible from the bottom and one of the bolts in front of the seatpost. In many way it is very reminiscent of the Thomson design, but while the seat cradle was on the centerline of the seatpost, it wasn't actually designed to be a zero-offset post. The front half of the rail clamps were removed to give it some setback.

Again about 20 years later, in the 90's, when all the small CNC boutique shops are in full swing, Thomson decides to make a seatpost. Unlike a lot of these other small CNC shops though, Thomson is an actual machine shop. The bulk to their work is machining parts for the aerospace industry, meaning their CNC work is top notch. Unlike the Weyless, the Thomson is a single-piece design, not a separate clamp attached to a separate post. Thomson seatposts actually start off as an aluminum extrusion, not your typical billet like in most CNC parts, which is extruded with the ovalized hole to optimize strength to weight and the ear lugs running the entire length. The excess material is removed and it is turned down to size, leaving a properly sized post, and the lugs only on the top of the post. As I said with the cranks, gun drilled is hard, doing it with an oval hole would be even harder, which is why even with all their CNC machines, Thomson extrudes the aluminum with the ovalized hole. The post here is an elite, but the masterpiece is further machined to reduce weight. You might think this means they put it in a CNC machine and lighten it some more. Not so. Thomson has a custom tool (which was surely CNC'd) that gradually enlarges the hole. It starts off with a rod the size of the extruded hole, which is used to guide an oval cutter that is just a little bigger, and shaves off just a little bit of material, which is followed by another cutter that shaves off just a little more, and so on and so on. No gun drilling here.
[14lb(6.35kg) of no carbon fiber]
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2lo8
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:32 am

by 2lo8

So far, there hasn't been really any custom tuning in this build. And I know a lot of you really love custom parts fabrication to shave every last gram. This is for you.

The lightest of the light. A custom steerer plug that weights only 2g, that's less than half the weight of the Schmolke plug without the 3k weave (not a fan)

Image

It's a plastic tube plug that comes 10-for-$1 that's been cut down to fit in a steerer tube. Remember what I said about plastic compared to carbon before? I also use the same method but with smaller plugs for my bar end caps, but I forgot to weigh them. It was mostly because they were matte black and didn't have the ugly logo on them. Although when I cut the steerer, I'll be using an expander and a cap, keeping in the theme of fully functional bike with no shortcuts or cheats.

After cutting them up and making a few different ones, I have some ideas on how to make them better. If there's any interest, I might draft up a model so they can be 3D printed in any color of the rainbow, and you won't have to mess around trying to cut up little plastic plugs. Maybe even a custom text option so you can get it monogrammed.
[14lb(6.35kg) of no carbon fiber]
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Your one-stop source for information and reviews on cheap eBay bike junk.

Fiery
Posts: 420
Joined: Sat Mar 16, 2013 9:21 am

by Fiery

This is one of the most interesting build threads lately, unconventional and informative. I'm looking forward to future updates.
Last edited by Fiery on Wed Apr 20, 2016 4:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

craciunptr
Posts: 114
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2012 8:32 pm

by craciunptr

Yeah it's really in depth knowledge, do you work in the bike industry ? Also looking forward to more pictures, well done great project and amazing thread!

Asymptotic
Posts: 253
Joined: Mon Jul 11, 2011 11:06 am
Location: North Adelaide, South Australia

by Asymptotic

Agree with Fiery, hearing the design origins of these parts is fascinating
Norwood & Adelaide Uni CC

nobuseri
Posts: 257
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2015 12:20 am

by nobuseri

Seems class is still in session. :) Subscribed!

Nice work so far. :beerchug:
Cicli Barco XCr Road
Moots VaMoots
Parlee Z1
SuperX Hi-Mod Disc

2lo8
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:32 am

by 2lo8

Swapped pedal bodies today.

Image

I had an old pair of Forte pedals (made by Wellgo) with Ti spindles, but worn bushings, and a newer set of Wellgo MG-8s with steel spindles. They are single sided SPD compatible pedals meant for road. Interestingly, the nut on both Ti spindles was right hand threaded, but on the steel spindles, the right spindle was reverse threaded. If you are rebuilding Wellgo or XPEDO pedals, bronze colored nuts mean right hand thread. Chrome nuts mean left hand thread. The result is as seen above, just under 200g.

Technically, these are one of the lighter non-carbon pedal systems. SPD cleats only weigh around 50g, compared to 68g for KEOs or 118g for 3-bolt sp**dplay. On a 2/3-bolt shoe, these pedals are only 250g vs sp**dplay titanium 282g. Still lighter cleats don't actually reduce the bike weight any.

If I had the money for sp**dplay, I could bring the weight down, or XPEDO Thrust 7 Ti, so it can be a proper road build with real road pedals. But I'm already over budget since this build started out on a whim.

*pedals have been sharpie'd because ti nitride doesn't match anything, it's fine because nothing should touch the spindle and if it does, it's going to wear through paint or the coating anyways
[14lb(6.35kg) of no carbon fiber]
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Your one-stop source for information and reviews on cheap eBay bike junk.

2lo8
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:32 am

by 2lo8

Image
At only 36g and a screen almost as big as a Garmin 500, the Wahoo RFLKT+ is extremely light for the functionality. It has a customizable display that can display power, HR, cadence, speed, altitude, etc. The only problem, it's not actually a bike computer. As the name implies, it just RFLKTs the output of your iPhone. Compared to mounting an iPhone on your stem, you can keep it protected from the elements, save battery by turning off the screen, keep it plugged into an external battery, and avoid the uncomfortable glares of fashion conscious roadies (I ziptie those useless Otterbox belt clips no one uses on the stems of some of my other bikes). There's a little bit of lag too, but not much. It's not perfect, but I normally carry my phone with my when I ride anyways. The main reason I have the RFLKT+ is because it has an ANT+ bridge, and the old iPhone ANT+ bridge was bulky and for 30-pin iPhones (although it supposedly works with an adapter, leaving you with a very clunky device). It's needed for the ANT+ power meter. All my other sensors are bluetooth so I didn't feel like buying a Garmin. Wahoo is releasing their new GPS unit though, which should be ANT+ and bluetooth compatible, but it wasn't available at the time, and it's heavier.

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This is the awful rubber band stem mount, however at 11g, it was the lightest of the mounting options. You can use the hooks going the other direction to attach zipties in case the band decides to snap on you, like they often do. At only 47g, this combination really is one of the lightest options for displaying power, if you don't count the phone needed to operate it.

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Since the crankset already does cadence, there's no reason to put a 30g combo sensor on plus a 5g wheel magnet. Not to mention two devices doing cadence might end up with interfere with each other. It's also nice because it's hidden completely behind the cassette, and does not require any magnets. In fact, you actually have to remove all magnets from the bike to use it. So how does it work? Not with an accelerometer if that's what you're thinking. It works using... magnets? The reason you can't use it with magnets is because it uses a compass to create a reference. Not that it really matters. The velocomputer is a few grams heavier than the Garmin hub sensor, but also transmits bluetooth.
[14lb(6.35kg) of no carbon fiber]
[2lo8.wordpress.com]
Your one-stop source for information and reviews on cheap eBay bike junk.

2lo8
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:32 am

by 2lo8

craciunptr wrote:Yeah it's really in depth knowledge, do you work in the bike industry ? Also looking forward to more pictures, well done great project and amazing thread!


No, I just like unusual things. The times I've looked into a job at a bike shop "2 years prior shop experience and/or certification required"

As a salesperson, I'm not really one for platitudes, but platitudes are how sales sells bikes.
[14lb(6.35kg) of no carbon fiber]
[2lo8.wordpress.com]
Your one-stop source for information and reviews on cheap eBay bike junk.

2lo8
Posts: 551
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 10:32 am

by 2lo8

Here's a listing of some of the budget WW stuff used (blog also has stuff that wasn't used):

https://2lo8.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/aerozine-top-cap/
https://2lo8.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/jl-36g-skewers/
https://2lo8.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/m ... eat-clamp/
https://2lo8.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/r ... 5g-saddle/
https://2lo8.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/j ... -expander/
https://2lo8.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/g ... n-adapter/
https://2lo8.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/g ... ic-cage-2/
https://2lo8.wordpress.com/2016/05/04/fairing-bolts/

I'm sure I forgot some stuff. I have to get an UNO stem, because I'm really unhappy with the quality of the Hylix stems I have, I don't know why I bought a second one. I have to find a normal roll of bar tape so I can show off my WW bar tape.
[14lb(6.35kg) of no carbon fiber]
[2lo8.wordpress.com]
Your one-stop source for information and reviews on cheap eBay bike junk.

User avatar
jbaillie
Posts: 684
Joined: Thu Nov 01, 2012 4:17 pm

by jbaillie

The part I'm most curious about for sure is the fork. For pretty much everything else on the list there are fairly high-end non-carbon options, but a good 1 1/8 fork would be tough. Who makes it?

ihs0yz
Posts: 105
Joined: Thu Oct 16, 2014 6:33 am

by ihs0yz

^ Totally waiting on info on that fork too. Non carbon fork under 300g? No way.

EDIT: Nevermind that, I did not read properly. Now I sound like a complete idiot..

by Weenie


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craciunptr
Posts: 114
Joined: Sun Apr 29, 2012 8:32 pm

by craciunptr

Hahah should have read your blog for the jl seat clamp had one snap on me. I got a kcnc instead

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