And So It Continues

When we last left our heroes, we were facing a bit of a pickle. We had the wrong lockrings for the brake rotors (at least the front rotor) and we were missing a spacer for the cassette, and the bike was looking a little something like this.

Well as it turns out, one of those problems was a little easier to solve than the other. I remembered that I had a spare 9 speed cassette, which I had gotten for free when I picked up a used smart trainer from a cow-orker, sitting on Dirty Dozen's rear wheel for safe keeping. This is because Dirty Dozen spends basically all its time bolted to the smart trainer, which is where its usual 10 speed cassette is mounted.

Of course, mounting a 9 or 10 speed cassette on an 11 speed wheel requires a 1.85mm spacer, which just happens to be exactly the same 1.85mm spacer needed to mount an XD cassette on an XDR freehub.

So that was an easy fix, the cassette is back on.

While we're at it, I mentioned in the previous post that I had mounted the pedals, so here's a little glam shot of that.

And with that out of the way it's time to make some forward progress again, even if we're still waiting on a part.

On a bike like this, there are four, or three depending on how you count, things you need to trim to length, in order of increasing stress.

1. The chain.
2. The brake hoses (2).
3. The steerer.

Since installing the chain makes it slightly more inconvenient to take the rear wheel on and off, I plan to do it last. The brake hoses will be coming up soon, but in order to make working around the front of the bike easier, it would be really nice to trim up the big 'ol chimney sticking out of the top of the stem.

So, we mark the proper length, install a spare stem and spacer as a makeshift saw guide, and chop it to length.

Measure once, cut twice, right?

Boy howdy, there's nothing quite like taking a hacksaw to your $3000 carbon frame to make you feel alive.

Now we just slip the fork back into the frame and...

Hmm.

Hmmmmm.

That's not right

I get a free do-over on this, right? Let me just google "how to saw something longer," gimme a sec to look this up. I'm pretty sure there's a way to do that...

Lol, just kidding.

Anyway, after sliding the fork back into the head tube properly and installing the expander bolt, we can slip the spacer and stem back on.

Then we twerk down the top cap to preload the headset bearings before tightening up the (self-sealing) stem bolts.

I figured that was enough excitement for one day, so I decided to knock an easy task off the list next: putting sealant in the tires.

I hadn't done this initially as I didn't know if I might have to remove the tires again for some reason (like due to some incompatibility between the wheels and frame, for instance. *cough*), but at this point it felt like it would be a reasonably safe step to take. It would also help the tires hold their air, as they were leaking down a little bit without the sealant helping to keep the air on the inside.

I also ended up topping up the sealant in Crimson Ghost (my trail bike) and Blackbirb (my XC bike) since it had been a few months since the last time, and that seemed like another good place to put a bookmark in things.

It's almost starting to look like a proper bike.