My Tarmac Dark

[Tippster]

Lovely looking bike you have there...

not sure what type of riding you are doing, but would really change the look of the bike to have a deep rim wheelset on that stealth beast!

[ferrarista]

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Thank you all for the compliments


The Zerts inserts are bloody hard to get out by hand. If you look carefully on the inside of the seat stay there is a slit in them small enough to insert a Michelin tire lever.
They are slid into place at the factory using some sort of silicone grease, so find the spot where there is a little bit extra and insert the tire lever there, then wiggle it to make an air gap between the inset an seat stay ,keep going until the insert is not stuck too much. Only then can you try to push them out starting at the loose sport using the tire lever from the inside.
They do seem to come out a bit easier pushing out from the bottom pointy end.

thanks for the compliments on my bike. Its nothing too exotic but the way its setup now it rides fantastic. I think the biggest improvement was from the fork. The stock one was less stiff. I'm thinking of repainting the frame this winter too.

I tried taking off the inserts today and it worked. I pushed the inserts from the inside with the pointy bit of my scissors and they came off quite easily. Once some of the zertz came out on the outside I proceded by hand to pull them off. I find it looks much better now since the zertz were kinda getting yellowish in color. I weighed the zerts on my electronic scale and came out to 19 grams so thats cool. thanks for the tips.

[jimaizumi]

Very nice bike Protech! One small question though. Looks like you made some modifications to your seatpost "clamp". I know its not one to be called "conventional" but can you tell me if you made any adjustments to the 2 triangle wedges on the inside of the clamp that keep the seatpost in place? I think there may be some significant grams to be shaved if one can devise a carbon/light aluminium version of the wedges...

[ProTech]

Yes the Specialized Aerotech seat post binder was extensively modified.

Unfortunately I have no pictures of the mods, I will try taking some soon .

I started with an S-Works level assembly with the carbon top plate and machined out wedges, complete system was 45 grams (if memory serves me right) and finished tuned binder was 30grams

What I did :
-Shave the upper carbon plate flat ,then re-finish with wet sand #1000 then #2000 grit to a smooth finish and then clear coat it (much like the frame is).
Drill out the both wedges and finish hollowing the sides and underside of the lower one with a dremel .
-Aquired a M6 X55 dome head Ti bolt from Tastynut /Pro-bolt and got the dome head shaved down 1.5mm from ~15mm stock to better fit the width of the upper carbon plate.

Seems like a lot of work for only 15 grams but I find the aesthetic of it are much improved .

[ProTech]

As promised the pics of the binder :

This stock Tarmac unit got it's lower wedge machined saved ~1 gram


The tuned S-works Aerotec seat post clamp






Hope these pictures can be helpfullfor you jimaizumi.

[jimaizumi]

thats a heck of a job you did on the seat clamp! I wonder if you can manage to machine the wedges even shorter w/o sacrificing the integrity? Once again, great job!

[ProTech]

Here's a few more pictures,better late than never I guess...

A fellow employee at the shop took them the first day the bike was out in the spring. It still had the Cane Creek BRS 200 SL brakes... I had no idea he took these !

The aspect ratio are a bit screwed up due to resize,the originals are massive !






Here's one I forgot to show


All that bright sun is making me dream of summer

[STARNUT]

Best looking of the breed I've seen. Looks like the work and the fumes paid off .

Your taste in bikes is almost as good as your taste in beer Leffe is good stuff.

Starnut