New Project Build - Argon 18 Gallium Pro 2012 - Finished

[KH1]

Thanks for the encouragement chaps.
I'll post up weights as they arrive.
Wheels arrived last night - weighed in at 1530g Fulcrum says 1485g - I weighed my old Racing 1 and they are 1492g - must be the braking surface wear that has dropped their weight......
Lucky I like them so much or I'd be really p!ssed

[TerribleCadence]

Nice build list, Don't see too many argon 18's on WW - very nice bikes, hidden by the shadow of Cervelo unfortunately.

As for the cages. Zipp + SIS (science in sport) bottles = Rubbish. Bottles rattle, and I've had bottles pop out when going over cobbles. Bottle too narrow.

Zipp cages + camelbak podium bottles = match made in heaven. No rattle at all, held securely at all times. Great cages, great bottles.

Edit: Interesting to see the weight has gone up on the Racing 1's, had mine for a year - no faults. Mine weigh in at 1489g.

[KH1]

You know how when you want stuff to arrive it just doesn't......
So far only the saddle, the pedals and bar tape has shown up

Well here are some pics and weights to keep you all on edge of your seats...... or just to keep the thread active

My scales had a flat battery so I reweighed the wheels as well..... Still overweight but 1527g instead of 1530g Woo..... hoo I think.
The pedals were 10g over stated weight. I weighed a set of Look Keo Carbons to compare and they were 2g less although they had some crash damage so I'd call it even. The cleats on the Times are heavier by 9g making the Looks the WW winner in the Carbon CroMo pedal battle.



The saddle is as per all Selle Italia saddles overweight 115g claimed 126g actual

[KH1]

Okay now I need some help.
It appears as though I may have a protracted wait for my 3T order.
So I'm tossing up between the Zipp SL Bar and SL145 Stem or an Enve Stem and Compact Road Bar.
Aesthetics will be similar to the 3T for both. The Zipp stem is a little chunkier and overall the Zipp parts are lighter than the Enve parts.
Does anyone have experience with either option or both?
Any others that I should take a look at? Must be black and white or all black.

[Tokyo Drifter]

run pro vibe stuff with 7900. it works real good like. can be had in a few different shapes and in ~3 days from your local.

[KH1]

Thanks TD. I ended up ordering the Zipp 145 and SL Contour bars.
They were in stock and are on the way. If they don't work out I'll have a look at the Pro Vibe bars.

[prendrefeu]

When does the frame arrive?
I'm looking forward to seeing a weight for the Argon frameset.

[KH1]

It looks like it will turn up on Monday.
Soon as I have it I will post weights.

[elviento]

Don't hold your breath, because the headtube device is a 50mm high chunk of metal with 30mm of it at 52mm width. I cringe at the thought of it being possibly steel (even alu would be fairly heavy). It's actually not a bad concept but could be executed better.

The rest of the frame looks very nice. Anxious to see the final build.

When does the frame arrive?
I'm looking forward to seeing a weight for the Argon frameset.

[KH1]

Frame arrived today
Going through the pictures below you will soon see this is definitely not in the 'lightness of being' class but it is a beast of a frame.
I can't wait to see how it rides. The groupset and the rest of the build kit can't get here fast enough.

This is the frame minus seat collar- 1088g. The claim from Argon is that the Medium frame weighs 920g. Okay so my frame is a Large but I suspect the 920g is without the head tube collar, fd mount and dropouts and possibly internal routing hardware.

As I said weight is definitely not a strong point with this frame but nearly everything else is. It is one of the most solid frames I have ever seen. Everything is built to withstand flex in the bottom end and around the head tube.


It looks incredibly business like. That said the finish is very good. Not as good as some other bikes I have seen. You can still see water marks for example around the bottom bracket from the molding process. I know this is probably a bit knit picky but it wouldn't take much to clean a frame before packing it. However the paint work is very good with no obvious flaws.


The matte finish is really nice with the carbon weave showing very subtly under close examination.

[KH1]

Here is the rest of the frame kit. Again it's all heavy duty stuff. I'm not sure what to do with the 3D headset yet other than just run a smaller stack height and let my back suffer the consequences......

This seatpost is definitely one place I could shed some weight.

Well built and well finished seatpost but........



The fork is just more evidence of Argons aim to maximise stiffness and #$%@ the weight....




Headset and bearings, FSA expander and seat collar.

[elviento]

Looks really good. You can tell the designer put a lot of thought into this. Haven't seen a size L for this model so I can't wait to see the final result...

[prendrefeu]

Looks really good. You can tell the designer put a lot of thought into this.

I completely agree. I've never seen an Argon in person, and the detail shots you provided show so much more to the frame than I realized was there. I too look forward to your build and an upcoming ride report (hint hint)

[KH1]

Everything is here! At least that's what I thought with the arrival of the last box.
Missing bars, stem and bottom bracket. Cassette size was wrong too 12-27 (Which I'd likely never use) but at least I already have a 11-25 DA on the Eastons so I'll raid that if I have to.
So now it looks like at least another week before I get this thing started. But here are some more pics anyway.
I am guessing most of these have been posted before but just in case there have been some changes with updated DA parts.....
Crankset 175 Compact

Shifters

Chain uncut

Brakes

FD

RD

[KH1]

Well it's all finally here
Here are the final bits with weights.
Not impressed with the weight of the stem but it certainly will suit the bikes massive dimensions.

The bars came in under the specified weight and they look fantastic. I'm not a big fan of the aero type bar tops as I prefer the narrower feel of the round bars but these are really narrow so I'm thinking they will feel close to a round bar anyway. Also they are nice and compact which makes them look really tidy - to me anyway. I don't like the look of deep drop bars - probably the only thing I didn't like about my FP7 was the Ritchey bar shape.

Lastly I ended up with a set of HSC Ceramic BB bearings. Has anyone used these? I've taken a bit of a gamble on these so I'm hoping they are going to work well


I've done some rough calculations and I am hoping for something around the 6.5 to 6.7Kg mark which certainly isn't in the realms of super light but it's a start and the madness will eventually drive me into replacing stuff and bring it down further.

Build pics to follow.......