No. 22 Reactor w/ Campagnolo Super Record EPS

[kurisu]

Hello all,

I've learnt so many things here over the years thanks to all your questions/answers, and have admired so many great builds, I thought it was time I gave back a little something.

My shed now counts 4 bikes, three of them titanium. My latest bike is a No. 22 Reactor.
In 2015 I discovered No. 22 and fell in love with the simple beauty of their frames. I bought a Great Divide which was my favourite bike. It is still with me but now resides at my parents', so that I do not have to fly with it every time I visit them.

However, as we all know, there's always a good excuse to get another bike... With the Great Divide in another country, I decided to splurge on my 40th birthday and order a Brass anodized Reactor.
Bryce and Mike (and the team at their workshop in Johnstown, NY) once again did a fantastic job, and were a pleasure to deal with, accommodating my weird requests and late-time changes.

I've always been a mechanical Campy guy, my other bikes are all on Record groupsets, so this time I thought "what the hell" and decided on going the whole nine yards and jump to SR EPS.

Here are the specs as of November 25th 2017 (some small changes are in the works):


I initially spec'ed a Campy SR crankset because I have Powertap P1s, but eerily they (again) failed and had to be sent for repair. After seeing @Sugarkane's English build, I was confident that the Quarq crank with Praxis Buzz chainrings would shift okay, so I changed that just in time (thanks again Bryce!).

The frame is flawless and truly a work of art. It's on the heavy side for a size 52 (with +1cm of head tube) but compared to the Great Divide it is so much more beefy and the power transfer (for this scrawny 56kg rider) is instant. No flex, no excuse, but the thinner seatstays paired with the carbon seatube makes the ride just... awesome. it's as comfortable as my Great Divide and my Litespeed T5.

Some pictures of the current build:



Cockpit



Drivetrain

[nd2rc]

A-mazing!

[Mtek]

This is a beautiful bike with great pics and info. Fantastic thread.

As someone who has never ordered a custom frame, mind if you share your custom requests and a little about the reasonings for it? Others may be curious or learn from this too.

Thank you for sharing

[kurisu]

This is a beautiful bike with great pics and info. Fantastic thread.

As someone who has never ordered a custom frame, mind if you share your custom requests and a little about the reasonings for it? Others may be curious or learn from this too.

Thank you for sharing

Thanks for the kind words.
Since it's my second bike with No. 22, it was a bit easier to work on what I wanted since we had a (pardon the pun) frame of reference.
My Great Divide is a standard 54 with 100mm stem and 0 setback. With the Reactor, I wanted something that felt more race-like but would still allow me to ride >100km.
One of my other bikes is a Ridley Helium SL in XS, it's my hill climb rig, and that thing while quite light (6.5kg with Powertap P1s), is a bit of a "pain in my lower back" for 3+ hours rides.

So Bryce came up with the idea to add 1cm to the head tube of their 52 size model.
The final geometry looks like this:


As a matter of fact, it's great, but I will swap the spacers so as to have 5mm under the stem i/o 10mm right now. To be fair I think I could go with a slammed stem, as the headset has a tall top.

One of my other requests was regarding the EPS battery in the seat tube. I had been looking at Campy build threads with EPS v3, and was not super excited about that weird sleeve that is default. A friend of mine has a Speedvagen with a carbon tube and they have this special cap that fits under the seat mast, which holds the battery. I found that pretty nifty, talked about it to Bryce, and this is what they came up with (love this):


The above setup is a variation of the original. No. 22 initially used a short screw which worked fine but then I couldn't use the magnet collar to shut off the battery, as the sensitive area was right at the lug. My solution was to use a longer screw (90mm here) with a couple of nylon nuts.

[corky]

Truly a great example of a custom bike........ love the looks and well thought out spec.

Lovely lovely lovely

[Seedster]

Cant stop looking at this build. Makes me want a titanium frame

[Rich_W]

I just soiled myself

[Titusrider]

Extralite stem opinions? Worth the cash?

[kurisu]

Extralite stem opinions? Worth the cash?

It’s a beautiful piece. If you want the lightest and strongest option, this is it. Otherwise Kaloy Uno.

[GonaSovereign]

That's a nice bike. 22s are quite lovely.

[LackOfWatts]

How are you enjoying the Reactor thus far? I am between the Reactor and Great Divide, could you go a bit deeper on your experience on both bikes?

[kurisu]

How are you enjoying the Reactor thus far? I am between the Reactor and Great Divide, could you go a bit deeper on your experience on both bikes?

I do very much enjoy the Reactor.

I think you cannot go wrong with either option; it will all come down to what type of rides you want to do more of. For longer rides (>150km) I'd go with the Great Divide; with a longer chain stay, it feels like you're cruising. (don't get me wrong, it is a very "happy feeling" frame.) I have done a few many centuries on my Great Divide and I've never felt like the bike was slowing me down. (I am the one slowing it down, frankly )

If you mostly ride shorter distances and in the city (like I do here in Tokyo), the Reactor is a lot of fun for short sprints and small hill punches as it will be slightly more nervous and racy.

Both feel fast under my feet, but of course the more aggressive geometry of the Reactor makes it LOOK faster. I initially thought my Reactor would not be as comfy as the Great Divide, but frankly on anything shorter than a century, my back can't feel the difference.

Hope it helps put some perspective on my reasoning behind having both

[LackOfWatts]

Thank you so much! How much roughly does the Reactor weigh compared to the Great Divide?

[kurisu]

I believe you can find that on their website. Difficult to compare apple to apple as the geometry is different, but as a very rough estimate it's not as big a difference as you might hope for. I'd say it's less than 6-7% difference.

[iamraymond]

Absolutely beautiful bike. I love the modern take on a ti frame.

Do you have pics or a build thread on your Litespeed T5? I'm thinking about this as my first Ti bike.