You're 15 years old, I'm sure you weigh all of 110 pounds. If you're gonna build your own wheelset, go for the gold and go crazy light 20/24 spokes. If something goes wrong, it'll probably be a cracked rim during the tensioning process, a wheel constantly coming out of true, or a broken spoke from a pothole. Your wheel is not going to explode. bikehubstore sells pretty much everything you need for a 1200-1300g wheelset.

I'm 53kg which is about 117lbs... I'm building this set up for my dad and he intends to use these wheels for everything (commuting, racing, training etc.). He isn't a WW (has a Kuota Kredo sitting at 11kg must run in the family having really heavy equipment on respectable frames ), and I assume anything is going to be an improvement on his bontranger race wheelset weight wise (old paired spoke design). I plan to get lighter/more aero wheels for my bike after a new groupset because I feel that the performance of my current wheels is good enough.

Just had my stuff arrive from bdopcycling.com the delivery was rocket fast! I'll get some pics of the wheel when I'm done building them, but right now I've got maths and chemistry tests I've got to prepare for, and luggage to pack for a ski trip looks like everything is going on the back burner for now I've put the components on a scale and all up the weigh 1541, which is much lighter than what I thought it would be... breakdown of the weights:

Front wheel:

Rim: 460
Spokes: 122
Hub: 60
Nipples: 27

Rear wheel:

Rim: 470
Spokes: 142
Hub: 229
Nipples: 31

Total: 1541

Makes me wonder why my wheels are so heavy, as these have 8 extra spokes and nipples and the spokes are supposed to be 0.7g lighter each perhaps I have a heavier hubset, or it could be the rim tape...

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Apparently my bikes were talking the other day & are undecided whether to upgrade the current rider or get a new one...

one of the schemers...

Finally got a new groupset. I was tossing up between SRAM rival or waiting for a 2nd hand SRAM force group, but then out of the blue I got this:



I had my heart set on sram and was just deciding if I should wait for 2nd hand force when a friend offered to let me try his Campag stuff. I loved the ergonomics of the lever and when I found a Athena groupset going cheap I couldn't resist . The cranks are a little long for me so the ultegra cranks are staying... for the time being. Here's an updated pic:





I've never had any experience with the campy style cable routing. How does it look?

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Apparently my bikes were talking the other day & are undecided whether to upgrade the current rider or get a new one...

one of the schemers...

Wow, hell of an upgrade, nicely done! The 6600 crankset actually matches the Athena ders pretty nicely if you ask me.

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FF Ti Road

15 and already on Campy. It's all downhill for you from here!

Thanks guys, I'm loving the campy stuff, I can't see myself buying shimano again. My only gripe is the price of the rear cassette, when/if it wears it'll cost me 3x what a Shimano Cassette would I'm hopping It won't wear out, rather wear in

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Apparently my bikes were talking the other day & are undecided whether to upgrade the current rider or get a new one...

one of the schemers...

Remember if you go Campag rear cassette you're going to be looking at changing the wheels for Campag 11capability or at least the freehub if the wheels allow it. What's happened to the right hand hood? Looks like it's been cut or ripped by the thumb lever. Nice frame mate and if you're on a WW path at 15 I would suggest getting as much paid work outside of your education to fund what will no doubt become quite a nasty addicition!

This isn't the latest generation of Athena, so it has a cut under the shift leaver for the ultra-shift internals, from my understanding this is supposed to be a smooth cut when new, but I got the group 2nd hand so its obviously worn a bit. I've also got a freehub on order for my other wheels so hopefully that will be here in the next few days and I'll be able to drop another 200g, I'm currently riding the fulcrum racing 5s. I'm going to miss the loud campy freehub though, the novatec one is dead silent

Regarding going WW, I'm just going to enjoy the ride for now and just forget about weight (blasphemy I know ). I might get some 23mm rims and see what the hype is about, but thats more of a ride quality move rather than a WW move. 17 degree stem and zero stack headset cap are also on my list, but it'll again be for reasons other than weight. My current goal is to get myself fit/strong enough to be able to race with the group I ride (read "getting spat out the back") with, then I might start thinking about going WW because I might be able to notice/appreciate the marginal gains that are there. Currently the engine is the limiting factor here

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Apparently my bikes were talking the other day & are undecided whether to upgrade the current rider or get a new one...

one of the schemers...

Got some lighter tubes today; not super light, but they are supposedly Butylized latex so it should give me a sweet ride, without needing to pump my tyres up every ride. I've lost about 60g with these tubes and I'll hopefully loose another 30g when I get my position right, bringing my bike to 7.7kg... I'm into the light hardtail category



I'm looking to start racing next season, I've heard alot about carbon being easy to crack, how true is this or should I just try and avoid the crashes basically I'm asking if there is merit in building a cheap bicycle that I can replace cheaply and insure cheaply or would it be better/easier to insure this bike at a higher cost and have higher repair costs?

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Apparently my bikes were talking the other day & are undecided whether to upgrade the current rider or get a new one...

one of the schemers...