Finishing the Build — Part 4
While building the wheels, all other parts for the bike were delivered one by one and most of them could be installed straight away (saddle, seatpost, collar and levers).
Drivetrain
The Gates drivetrain also arrived:
- 115t cdx belt
- 24t cdx front sprocket for alfine
- 46t cdx 5 arm 130mm bcd chainring
- Spacer set
First mission was to get the belt alignment right. Luckily I spoke to a bike mechanic just before who ensured me that cdx isn’t too sensitive and that a mm misalignment is ok, as long as it runs silent, same goes for the tension.
After a few tries I found the right setup: installed the chainring on the inside of the crank (ultegra 6700) and used one 1mm bottom bracket spacer to generate the required clearance between frame and chainring, spot on!
After that, I installed the disc brakes, bar-end shifter, ran the cables and wrapped some bartape to finish my first build 😀.
The result
The first ride
Smooth sailing! I really enjoyed the first kilometers. No noise, relaxed handling, ok brakes but mostly just happy about riding my own bike!
Then I started to test the Alfine 11 hub a bit, shifted all the way up and down a few times and saw/felt that I needed to re-adjust cable tension. At first I thought it was just some cable stretch, but after a few adjustments I started to suspect that there’s something wrong with the hub or the cassette joint unit as that seemed to have a lot of play. Anyway, the shifting is not as it should be as it sometimes jams or grinds a bit... So this won’t be the last post! I’ve ordered an oil change kit, small parts kit (that contains the cassette joint unit) and to be sure I ordered the internal assembly (gearing system inside the hub). I don’t suspect there’s anything wrong with the gearing at this moment (based on some forum reading), but I found it for 80 euros on German Amazon, and it normally costs around 250. Always good to have some spare parts right? Next post will be all about fixing the Alfine 11 hub!
