I know... I should cut it down.

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Storck Fenomalist 6.3kg.
BMC Teammachine SLR01

1spd , if I was you I would drill through that alu bit on your lever , make a hole, it would look much better . Infact I would drill a few holes as I did to my Red Levers .....

They came on the bike when I got it from a friend but I am pretty sure they are 2011's. They are definitely the V3 levers though. They work fine but I was just surprised to find that they were wrapped. Not going to stress. Just gonna keep riding them until I make the move to full SR over the next year.

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09 Pinella w/ Record 10spd
http://1spd.blogspot.com/

Hi,



All these newer carbon Centaur levers are just aluminium wrapped in carbon. If you want to cover up the chip you can fill it with epoxy mixed with carbon powder so it's as black as the carbon on the lever and won't get noticed.

Ciao,

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Being a snob is an expensive hobby.

I was thinking you could mask and sand down the ends of the levers to the aluminum, then polish that bit for a little bling.

Why bother with centaur levers. The veloce levers are unwrapped alu and overall the veloce ergo's are 5g lighter than centaur ones. They are also cheaper. The only centaur parts I would buy and have bought is the the carbon crankset. Everything else is just carbon wraped alu and almost no lighter than veloce components.

My tuning today. A 30g FD clamp for braze on mechs. It is now 24g with steel bolt, Ti bolt on it's way. How light have people got these things. The SRAM red version is 25g so I don't feel I have done to bad. I'll have to take a photo.

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www.thecycleclinic.co.uk

Haven't tried a clamp yet, but I got a DA 7800 w/31.8 down to around 65gms,

What did it start at and what did you do? I have yet to start on the front mech but I am waiting for all the bolt to turn up.

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www.thecycleclinic.co.uk

This is a TranzX 31.6 setback seatpost. The heavy bit is really at the mounting head. I have cut short the post at the head end, removed the head, drilled it including drilling the socket bit that is glued to the post (no photos was taken at the time it was done) and epoxyed it back to the shortened post. I think there is a saving of around 100g as far as I remember.





Tuning of a Shimano R600 crank arms.

This is the ugly un-finish bit. The weight of the tuned R600 crank is about the same as a 7800 DuraA.

All the above are done by hand drill/tools. My eye sight and patience is getting worse while I am getting older. If I get into these 20 years ago, I could have brought proper machinery like some of you guys have.

This is my original design of a tuned seat post, how it works is quite similar to recent pencil thin seat stay design aiming to make the seat post/seat tube under controllable flex.


That is a 27.2mm carbon seatpost with 27.2/31.6mm sleeves fixed to the post permanently (but can be removed easily). The lower sleeve is screwed to the post end while the upper sleeve is AA glued/Epoxy to the post which can be easily debonded by placing a big flat screw driver at the cut slot and turn. I have had problem of slippage of seatpost in carbon frame set, turning the collar too tight might damage the expensive frame set. There is no slippage any more + lower torque at the collar, i.e. a lighter/weaker collar will do the job. Grease can be put at the sleeve/frame interface, so no worry on the fused seatpost/frame problem.
These holes on the seatpost are mainly for making the section flexible which will bend inside the seat tube of the frame under the load of a rider, reduced weight is just icing on the cake.
The post is lighter than any post that I have ever own.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=106727

I am to ask this question again.
''I weight 130lbs, brought a pair of very cheap Shimano WH-R500. They are really heavy. I wonder if it is feasible to shave material off the rims in between spokes similar to those higher end factory wheels ? Or even make cut-outs between spoke holes since it would be much easier than shaving by hand tools. I notice that there is drain hole at the side of the rim, I suppose cut-outs are just bigger holes. Alright, SIT TIGHT!'' viewtopic.php?f=3&t=104472

@kai-ming, interesting cranks.... I wouldn't personally ride them but how to they ride in your opinion? I would imagine they would be more flexy?

Regarding tuning the wheels it's something I would be cautious of doing how ever I have a trials MTB friend who drilled his wheels out. They were a flat inner face that he had bored a large hole I between each spoke. He had been riding them for a long time and hasn't had an issue but he did say that it was a triple walled rim (he went through all three). Would the shape of this rim effect the strength. Yes. Would drilling large holes alter that strength. Yes. Should you do it? YES.

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http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=100739

Alrighty here are some more small projects ive done,

This is an integrated bearing top cap and expansion ring. This was a first prototype made out of delrin, it weighs 4.something grams, but a couple of my measurements were wrong and i never really got round to repeating a second version. Its made redundant by things like Veloflyte and Slamthatstem parts. I made it because i wanted a square edge top cap as i thought it would look better, and also because the standard ritchey one i have weighs about 13 grams for the two parts. It actually worked pretty good, it prevented headset play and looked smart but didnt quite fit right so i took it off.





This was my first attempt at an integrated clamp, it worked perfectly, i was really happy with it except for how it looked, so eventually i got the mast extended and made just integrated the clamp into the mast, this weighed in at 60 something grams for 120mm length, sorry for the terrible quality photo on this...



Here is what im currently working on, it is a setback mast attachment for an ISP, this will be slightly adjustable height wise using either a pinch bolt on the back of it, or a gripper bolt going through the front and through to the inside of the mast. The saddle will be "laced" onto the rails. If the position is wrong then the lacing is cut off and re done... Its a project for WW member "theremery" for a sub 4kg project we are working on. Total functioning weight is looking less than 25 grams. This is just a cardboard mould that i have to take now, then ill pressure mould the carbon using a three piece mould, laminating about 5 layers together to make something similar to this!







Coming up are some of my CAD concepts for a whole heap of other things!

Enjoy

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http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=100739

kai !! That's a great post.

I am contemplating wailing on my e-bay Shimano $20 set, but mine are FC-R550. I doubt I step on anything hard enough to flex, torque or twist it. Just a rec rider dropping flab. My new left side arm is 260g,replacing a Bikes Direct arm that weighed 225g. Did you weigh your results before and after ? Any ride report yet ? Thanks

So I have / had two big projects under way that ill finally let people see, they consist of:

1) Di2 Homemade version,
2) Carbon Frame

So i decided Di2 wouldnt be that hard to build so i had a crack at it, i wanted to make it so radically different. So i decided why do you need two jockey wheels? Big question, in short i don't believe i needed two in parallel. So i made concepts and working prototypes of a system that would work on one jockey wheel. What i did was start with a standard MTB single Speed tensioner and tried to figure out if i could adapt it to shift gears on a cassette. What i did was put a 9 speed wheel onto my single speed MTB and the tensioner and pushed and pulled the tensioner's arm which was reasonably long. Essentially i did shift gears. The tensioner's arm was rather short so i could only get it up to a 19 tooth cog, but with later experiments i could achieve a 23 tooth. The problem then came that i couldnt achieve a high enough chain tension in cogs below 13 teeth. turns out this is the reason why why have 2 jockey wheels. Then using resources at my school i made a PCB circuit and programmed a vague shifting system. Basically "push button, different gear" I then made the circuit work with a stepper motor, which allowed me to program it to move how ever many steps it toiok to get to the next gear. This allowed me to get a better tune from the gear.

However at this point i lost interest, as i couldnt find a suitable way to make a spinning motor move something in and out. I had ideas on how to do it but to no avail. So i have a completed electrical circuit and a shifting rear derailleur just no complete functioning unit. So i made a final push, i made a threaded pin that moved the arm in and out across the cassette, i had at this point made a shifting rear derailleur, using one jockey wheel. And to this day thats where the projects sits. I dont have any pictures of the actual unit as they are buried under my bench in the garage, but here is a CAD drawing of the rear "derailleur".



The arm attached to the jockey wheel moves in and out across the cassette, moving the chain.

My Second project was to build my own frame. I have spent hours and hours on this project to date, right now im waiting to save some money so i can purchase the carbon tubing to create my first prototype. At the moment i have done research into idealistic geometries, integration of components, and a significant amount of drawings on all of it. Unfortunately im not a big computer person so all my notes are in booklets that i write in, i have about 150 pages of info already! Ive included some pictures from my booklets, and a picture of my 1:1 scale drawing of the frame, also hand drawn. I had another 1:1 but mum got some meat out of the freezer, put it on the drawing and then promptly left it there so it has stains all over it... whoops. I have the jig built ready to hold the tubes in the correct location, i have built the Bottom bracket and Head Tube bearing inserts ready for their respective bearings. all i need is the $$ to buy the carbon tubes so i can glue them together!













Sorry if none of my notes make sense, im one of those people that understand everything in my head and nothing on paper, so all the neccessary stuff is stuck in my brain, it makes sense to me? also the last picture is of a CAD drawing i did while at a 5 day uni course i completed in 3.5 hours, so i spent the other 4 days making designs of a monocoque frame i'd like to build one day , it shares the same geometry as the current frame design that will just be tubes joined together.

So thats basically all the things ive built recently, enjoy them, hopefully i can rope together some money for this frame build one day, its the ultimate thing that i want to do!

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http://weightweenies.starbike.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=100739