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Just curious actually, this one has totally flown under my radar but on paper ticks all the boxes for a new bike.
It appears to be a standard enough looking road frame, full carbon, slightly aero, but deep drop rim brakes. Sounds ideal if it builds up to something reasonably light and racey but with wider tyres (I'm used to 700x25mm tyres which measure up to approx 27mm) but still using rim brakes (a red line for reasons not worth rehashing here).
The advertised clearance isn't amazing though, 700x28mm doesn't sound much with deep drop brakes?
It's full carbon for £1,200 full bike though, 8.7kg in a small. Is the frame a porker or is it still a reasonable frame once you strip off the cheap parts (I could re-use these anyway).
Might have to wander down to Halfords sometime soon and check one out...
Would imagine the frame is a decent enough weight based on a previous boardman team Carbon I had. That was just sub 18lbs with heavy aksium wheels on and no other carbon parts.
I bet the formula hubs / own brand rims are carrying quite a bit of weight - plus all the alloy finishing kit and 105 stuff aren’t light either.
Yeah exactly, I'd be transplanting some nice Fulcrum Racing 3s with GP4000s and latex tubes so probably saving 0.5kg there alone, and the rest is Ultegra with carbon finishing kit. I'd stick the 105 stuff on winter bike so very little waste.
Am still waiting to hear back about a very nice Basso but am getting a sinking feeling that it might not actually exist so nice to have a backup plan!
I've got one.
The own brand wheels are H E A V Y. They aren't on my bike at the minute so I'll weigh them tonight.
There's quite a bit of clearance in there with 28mm tyres in on 17mm internal rims. I use Schwalbe One's (non tubeless). I reckon you could get 28mm's in there with guards as well, or easily go to 30 or even 32mm without guards. It would be close but I reckon it would go. I'll take some pics tonight. The pads are pretty much at the bottom of the slot in the long drop calipers so plenty of clearance between tyre and the caliper.
The geometry of the frame and drop outs mean there is clearance once the wheel is in but it's tight with 28's when getting the rear wheel in. The OE QR skewers have a flattened nut to aid insertion past the mech attachment, but if you use standard QR's you might need to put the wheel in with the tyre deflated then inflate once the wheel is in.
I've just got some SRAM rival bits to loose a bit of pork from the Tiagra currently on it. I'll be stripping it down over the next week or so so I'll weigh it bare.
The bike itself is great - the concept of a lightweight rim brake bike which can take wider tyres is great IMO and like you say, kind of goes under the radar with the hysteria around disc brakes on road bikes.
Also, if you're building from scratch there is a seller on ebay selling frames (and a lot of other excess Boardman stuff) - revelosports. Their stock changes a bit if they don't currently have your size.
And someone moving one on that had come from rivelo
Great info, thanks! I'm not one for projects and trying to source random spare parts so would probably just buy complete,
the concept of a lightweight rim brake bike which can take wider tyres is great IMO and like you say, kind of goes under the radar with the hysteria around disc brakes on road bikes
Yeah, I understand that people love discs but given that decent deep drop brakes exist (those posh TRPs) it still surprises me that there isn't more of a niche for lightweight rim brake bikes with bigger tyre clearance, especially for summer bikes when the benefits of discs are less clear cut.
I like the idea of eventually upgrading to some shallow section carbon wheels for something really punchy and responsive. I'm not racing it, just for blatting around twisty and hilly local roads.
I bet the formula hubs / own brand rims are carrying quite a bit of weight
This is likely right. I had to re-hub a rear wheel because there were no boost size end-caps for a Novatec hub I had. Got another Novatec off eBay - 200g lighter! I think most of this was going from a steel to aluminium freehub.
Ok, first up the wheel weights.
Front is 850
Rear is 1050
Now clearance pics. From brake caliper and looking from under the bb
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Front is 850
Rear is 1050
Almost disappointed they're not heavier! Would 'only' save 350g with my semi-posh wheels 😎
Thanks for taking the time though, massively appreciated! So those are Schwalbe One tyres labelled as 28mm?
Don’t Hunt make some carbon 30mm wheels that are meant to be about 1300g for the pair? I’m sure I was looking at them before - although they might have been disc ones. If you got some of those (and the weights were accurate) you’re nearly down to 8kg already without any other carbon parts / drivetrain upgrades. Anything below 8kg is genuinely light isn’t it?
Yeah, I'm only aiming for it to be as light or lighter than my current bike, although I have a nasty feeling the current bike is 8kg WITH bottle cages and pedals...
That being said, lighter wheels should mask any tiny difference anywhere else, so long as it feels nice and snappy 😎
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Anything below 8kg is genuinely light isn’t it?
It seems like it these days. I have just bought an old Boardman Pro Carbon that weights 7.5kg which wasn't an expensive bike when new (and next to nothing now) but those are the benefits of rim brake older road bikes.
I don't need disc brakes, I hardly use the brakes where I live (no traffic lights, roundabouts, very few junctions etc,.)