Bamboo road racing bike

[ldamelio]

Props to you as a solid cat 2 - much stronger rider than I am. gain, no disrespect to you or your bike, but you're preaching to the wrong choir here. WW is a community of guys that think nothing of spending hundreds of dollars to save tens of grams on uber-light carbon bikes - the community here focuses on the latest, greatest, and lightest. No right or wrong here, but looking for accolades for your bike here is like posting a biodiesel Volvo 240 on a Porsche 911 forum and wondering why no one responds favorably.

[mjduct]

Ouch, that seriously hurts my eyes. So many different components, colors, brands, it looks as though a tornado hit a bike expo. I do like the frame, but I honestly cannot approve of the combination of parts that's mounted to it.

go back to the apple store and hang out with your "Genius" friends... who eat like a vegans but consume precious metals in their electronics mined by child-slaves and manufactured for pennies a day in China so they can hit a $dollar price point in the USA while we go into trillions of dollars of debt to them...

Brilliant!

this bike is a great example of what we should be doing with all of our used parts. Shipping them to third world countries for somebody to build affordable bikes out of readily available and renewable materials for exercise/travel/ commerce.

There was a great article on here a few months back about a cyclist on a national team and how he pushed a wheelbarrow for months to afford a bike, which then allowed him to carry items further and faster to make more money...

I tried to find it, maybe someone bookmarked it and can repost it.

[istigatrice]

much lighter, raceable bicycle.

So a bike has to be 6.9kg or less for it to be "raceable"? The engine matters more than the machine... I see alot of people that are all gear and no clue... (yes I know that on this forum it doesn't matter how strong your engine is, it matters how low you can get that weight )

[krzysiekmz]

I had a long comment in my mind but just think again before you post.

Apologies for the OP. This rarely happens to me.

Chris.

[durianrider]

All parts on this bike are second hand except for the stem and bars. The fork is off one of my old bikes so I know its safe.

So far I have dropped many riders on SL4's, Addicts, Evo's, TCR Advanced and one guy on a Baum with Lightweights.

Its the lightest bamboo bike out there that I know of on the net. People make claims about lightweight bamboo but I never see it backed up.

This is total bike weight btw with pedals. Not including garmin, pump, bag etc.

[Renatita81]

Just throw it to the pandas!

[BeeBee30]

At that weight I think a baby panda may have sneaked into one of the tubes

[bJay]

Raced Cat 2 yesterday over a lumpy course and got 5th overall. A couple of riders on tuned cervelo's and SL3 tarmacs got dropped on the main climb.

I hope you don't mean B grade in Adelaide, because that is definitely NOT Cat 2 in the sense of what most of these guys think of it. And when are you going to post pics of your Cervelo carbon that you ride around the city whenever I see you

B

[mrfish]

Honest feedback is that you have dressed a supermodel using the first things you pulled out of the closet. It's lazy to suggest that buying second hand means that you need to ignore what the parts look like. You could do much better, both on the aesthetics and weight front. Some tips:

1) Take most of the parts off that frame and hang them on a beater commuter bike. Park it where it will soon get stolen or give it to a fakinger looking for street cred.

2) Choose a groupset or at least parts from one manufacturer. Buy it on ebay. Something like a Campag Chorus / Record mix would be fine. Or Ultegra / Dura Ace if you prefer. Avoid SRAM as it's ugly and should only be used on MTBs.

3) Build some wheels yourself. Use new or old parts, but at least match the hub colour and use a pair of rims which look similar. Ideally match the groupset's main colour, e.g. silver hubs with Ultegra 6700. Buy new tyres as old ones are a false economy.

4) Stem / seatpost and bars are fine - they may not be from the same manufacturer, but at least they are all black. But your bike will look better if the bar tape and saddle match. Suggest a plain black saddle as the Specialized red / white thing does not match anything else. Something like a Regal, Concor or Prologo Scratch would be nice

5) Get all the details right. For example this means wrapping the bars properly, cutting the ends nicely and using 2 wraps of tape not 22 wraps to finish it. Even old bar tape the tape will not come undone if you wrap up right hand bar anticlockwise and the left bar clockwise (looking at the ends of the bars).

6) For extra points you could use distinctive parts from one manufacturer in two places, e.g. Mango Chris King headset and matching Mango hubs. But don't overdo this - one accent colour used sparingly please. Remember, even Christmas trees look ugly if you add 5 colours of baubles.

Come back when you've finished and we will give you marks out of ten.

[Tokyo Drifter]

I hope you don't mean B grade in Adelaide, because that is definitely NOT Cat 2 in the sense of what most of these guys think of it. And when are you going to post pics of your Cervelo carbon that you ride around the city whenever I see you

B

hahaha! quoted for truth! I saw old mate eating a t-bone steak once too!

[istigatrice]

I hope you don't mean B grade in Adelaide, because that is definitely NOT Cat 2

I'm still not fit/strong enough to ride B grade...

[bJay]

B grade isn't easy, I'm just saying it's not like the Cat systems they have in the US. You don't earn points to change grades etc. here, you just "impress" the handicapper...

B

[nicrump]

love the "thai stick" on the top tube there.