Probably the worst value purchase on the whole bike, but a fun project, was the Tektro R530 brake callipers. As stock, they're a decent serviceable brake costing under £25 if you shop around. Tektro didn't get to be the worlds biggest OEM brake supplier without learning something about mass production economy, after all. However, they forgot to anodise the adjuster and spherical washers to match the rest of the brake, the back nut is non-structural but they still made it steel and the rest of the fasteners wouldn't hurt to be in Titanium while we're at it. All that tuning and customisation took the price to over £100, but dropped the weight by over 40g. I could have saved myself the trouble by just buying the R920, which is essentially the same brake with Ti hardware and a bit more post-forging machine work and is another 30g lighter, but it wouldn't have been as much fun.
Fortunately I found these Red levers at a third off the current MSRP, because SRAM levers are very expensive compared with their competitors as noted previously. There was still a hefty premium over Rival, but the shift levers are the one area where SRAM makes a functional distinction between different level groupsets.
Look decided to play safe with a big heavy expanding type of headset adjuster from FSA, but 9g of custom machined loveliness does the job just as well as 45g of laziness. This design even includes an integrated 2mm spacer above the stem, for extra security.
The Drift Road is actually not quite long enough to make this a true 15, making my 37:11 less impressive than it looks at first sight. Average speed of 23.0mph for the 14.3 miles is in line with my current form. Unfortunately, somebody else turned up on fixed and pipped me to the egg cup by 46s, and father stuffed me on standard as usual, thanks to his very great age and the advantage given to old folk by the VTTA's inability to either move with the times or do simple maths.This is the archive page for Jorj. Click to go to the frontpage of this site.
www.fixedgeargallery.com - if you look for it, you'll find my Hirame on there
