Focus Izalco Max Rim (4.47 kg / 9.85 lbs)

[poulhansen]

I removed the rubber rings from the cassette saving a bit more weight after seeing jpeterson1012's post.

Saved 7.8g from the 11-32 red22 cassette.

edit: also I finally weighed the bike as pictured one post above.

With pedals, bike computer, and bottle cage the bike weighs in at 4.69 kg or 10.34 lbs.

Hopefully the berd wheels will push this below 10 lbs.

Thank you, I saved 7.0 g on a 11-28 SRAM XG-1190

[poulhansen]

What BB and fork bearings are you using please?

PS. The frame came today it's amazing and totally new.

[OtterSpace]

What BB and fork bearings are you using please?

PS. The frame came today it's amazing and totally new.

Looks nice thanks for sharing.

Sorry for the late reply I'm just getting back from vacation.

I replaced the bb with the a new FSA PF30/BB386 BB ROAD bottom bracket, which is the same part number that was originally on the bike, but replaced the FSA bearings with NTN llb bearings. I bought some extra bottom brackets so I can weigh one when I get home. PF30 is highly susceptible to creaking and alignment issues given its narrow width so depending on how well the frame was manufactured so you might run into some issues. Given you are doing a weight focused frame up build I would start with this cheap light bottom bracket but check it a month in to see if you have over/under rotation, creaking, or other signs of extra friction that needs addressing through reaming or a stiffer heavier BB cup. Thankfully my bike BB has been fine.

Some very minor weight can be saved by moving to hybrid ceramic bearings with reduced friction but higher maintance needs to maintain that lower friction and shorter lifespan which is highly dependent on your local weather and riding conditions. If you are going hybrid ceramic I would go with a reputable vendor and manufacturer to insure the bearing isn't junk. I also wouldn't recommend going hybrid ceramic until you know how well your bb is working to make sure it isnt eating bearings from misalignment in the frame bb holes.

For headset bearings I am currently using the stock bearings. I have some AER II bearings I briefly tried however, the lower bearing didnt sit on the fork well so I reverted back. I'll take a look when I can as I'm curious if there are better options.

[poulhansen]

Thank you. In the mean time I got a good deal on a Ceramic Speed BB at 59 g and a SRAM Red 22 Exogram crank set at 461 g, so they are on the way now.
I have no problems with maintenance as this bike probably wil be used only for parade cycling. I have 12 bikes in all, so enough to choose from.

I have a note about a FSA headset at 65 grams but no further details, so I',m still searching.

My last spreadsheet prognosis is now 4.66 kg.

[OtterSpace]

I don't have photos of the BB weight but I recall something like 75g when I replaced it later.

Damn my memory is better than I expected. It came in bang on 75g with the stock unknown bearings.

A spare 6806llb I have on hand is 24.84g and going off R2 the hybrid ceramics are around 20g each.

Thank you. In the mean time I got a good offer on a Ceramic Speed BB at 59 g and a SRAM Red 22 Exogram crank set at 461 g, so they are on the way now.
I have no problems with maintenance as this bike probably wil be used only for parade cycling. I have 12 bikes in all, so enough to choose from.

I have a note about a FSA headset at 65 grams but no further details, so I',m still searching.

My last spreadsheet prognosis is now 4.66 kg.

Attached is a capture from my invoice of the aer parts. I'll take a look at the stock bearings, the AER parts I have, and what is available in the coming days. I always wanted to optimize the headset but moved onto other things and never looped back to finishing it as the bike works so well that I haven't tinkered with it in quite awhile now.

The BAA1053A is 14.36g
The BAA0930A is 18.01g

At least one of them will require adapting or is wrong and from what I recall the top bearing needs the AER top spacer to fit while the bottom didnt sit on the fork crown well.

I have a decommissioned focus paralane at home that I just took apart to check bearing differences but I wont type up what I'm seeing on the paralane until I check the Izalco Max. However the bearings out of the paralane are top 22.73g and bottom 26.43g.

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edit: I tried the stock bearings in the Izalco Max and AER in all 4 configs of top and bottom. The top AER bearing is shorter than the stock bearing and both AER bearings have less inner and outer angled sections compared to the stock bearings I saw on both bikes. The stock bearings on my Izalco max are 26.31g top and 28.08g bottom with a bit of grease on them.

I think that my deployment is further complicated by my Darimo IX2 stem which is not quite round, or is too tight of an ID, and therefore takes more force to attach and compress compared to all other stems I've used. All bearing combos can compres the assembly to the same gap from the fork to the frame which is not what I remembed. However, the AER bearings are both harder to preload properly and also can add a lot of friction to the steering when two are used. Note that for the following tests I used the same spacers, stem, top cap etc so the AER II top spacer was not used.

With all stock bearings it is very easy to preload properly.

With bottom stock and top AER more effort is required to preload without it being too stiff but I can get there without too much fiddling and sterring can be fine but can be a bit stiff if more load is added.

With stock top bearing and bottom AER I initially had a bigger fork to frame gap and fork rocking when preloading but after removing all load and adjusting my stem I could get there easily and sterring is fine and wont get too stiff.

With all AER bearings steering is far too stiff even with almost no top cap load.

Basically I think I could confidently go to bottom AER II and top stock or non AER. My next plan is to swap over the lighter paralane top and also try both AER a couple more times before searching for a more usuable top bearing for this deployment.

[AM7Jeremy]

Below on the last post of this page is a good headset solution. Thoughts?

viewtopic.php?t=156035

[OtterSpace]

Below on the last post of this page is a good headset solution. Thoughts?

viewtopic.php?t=156035

Thanks for the info. I remember seeing this thread back in 2020 when I first started the build but never checked it again as I got deeper into the build and could better process the specific info.

He has a comment on the bearings later on in the same thread:

I had a wobbly type of sensation in the front-end. I found it to be the upper bearing of the headset. I replaced the original with a FSA-sl. Changing back to the original one made it go away.

It looks like the FSA SL bearings have similar problems to what I originally saw on the AER. I'll still probably grab one of the upper bearings to try it out along with anything else that comes up with research. From what I'm guessing his top bearing wasnt able to be loaded well enough in his deployment where with the AER I am seeing that they are easy to over compress and increase friction especially the top bearing. The AER bearings are noticably stiffer when outside the frame and they are very susceptible to further reduced friction from compressing loads. Some extra friction in a headset is fine to me but not play or stiffness in steering to the point where bars dont easily freely rotate.

The overall height and amount of cutoff material in the 45 degree angle section seems different in these ultralight bearings which is likely what is leading to these issues along with the use of less stiff Al. Hopefully we can all settle on something that works well while saving weight over the stock setup.

[AM7Jeremy]

Please let us know what headset you plan on using and links to purchase if possible?

[OtterSpace]

Please let us know what headset you plan on using and links to purchase if possible?

I'll post more when I try more configurations.

However I'll likely stick with the AER lower bearing which is almost impossible to find now.

poulhansen will likely have good info too as he builds up his bike.

[poulhansen]

Please let us know what headset you plan on using and links to purchase if possible?

I'll post more when I try more configurations.

However I'll likely stick with the AER lower bearing which is almost impossible to find now.

poulhansen will likely have good info too as he builds up his bike.

I'm afraid for now I'm stuck with a set at 68g. AER is too expensive and headsets have so many variables that it gets quite confusing to investigate them and not all sellers show weights and some only show for the bearings and not the whole set.
And I still need levers, derailleur, chain, bar, stem
I ordered a set of FSA Orbit C33E just to get started. Prognosis is 4.624 g

EDIT: That 68g turned out to be an error it weighs 97 g with the starnut and bolt, !!! 88 without the nut.

[OtterSpace]

Please let us know what headset you plan on using and links to purchase if possible?

I got my order of the FSA bearing in and I think it will work. However this setup is currently unridden as of now and took some micro adjusting to hit the right balance of enough compression to avoid play and too much steering stiffness. I'll report back after riding it a bit.

For now I can tentatively recommend:
top bearing: FSA-SL MR042R
bottom bearing: Cane Creek AER II BAA0930A
stiffer compression ring with OD of 30.2 at bearing ID interface

I noticed that the default headset's bearing has around a 30.5ish ID while the light bearings have around a 30.0 ID and the default headset's light (1.34g) plastic compression ring isn't wide enough (around 30.0) and compresses too easily. This is likely what was causing the compression issues cjnl posted. The compression ring from the paralane is metal, wider (around 30.2), and heavier (3.25g) but takes up the extra space easier for the superlight bearings so that is what I am currently using.

The FSA top bearing has less friction than the AER when outside the frame and is lighter too at 13.69g.

After these headset changes the bike was reweighed and is currently 4.50kg (9.92 lbs) with pedals and bottle cage which is a huge milestone

[poulhansen]

What set is FSA-SL MR042R part of, please? I need the whole set.

[poulhansen]

I got a refund on he FSA Orbit C33E and can keep it, so I'll just have to use it temporarily. I can get it down to 80 g by changing the top to carbon and the bolt to titanium.

[OtterSpace]

Today is a rainy monday on a government holiday so I decided to finally go through and redocument this bike.

Like with my other builds I'll make a spreadsheet capturing all the parts that I'll then post.

This is my favorite bike of the 5 road bikes that I own and it was built for pure climbing without sacrificing general rideability. I originally purchased it thinking I would ride it only occasionally but for 2020 through mid 2023 I used this as my main bike and had no issue using such a light bike for all my riding. However, with my 45km/hr (28mph) ebike now in rotation that bike soaks up most of my miles now so this bike now is an occasional use bike like I originally planed.

Its biggest limitation aside from me is that I don't take it up some of the climbs with really bad pavement even though it descends well and the tubulars are not fun to deal with if you flat. Basically this bike is tire limited along with obviously not being aero.

Here are the latest pics for now.

Current weight 4.47 kg / 9.85 lbs with computer mount.

edit: here is an example of a road I that I don't like decending this bike on. The google photo is from 2019 and the road has further deteriorated since with not just loose section as pictured but now with missing sections. Strava lists this segment at around -16%. On my ebike with 42mm tires I take this at over 25km/hr while on this bike I go down it as slowly as possible.

also a capture from my front camera recently

[OtterSpace]

But I wonder. You wrote "The frame with FSA BB is 741g" and mine is 768 without BB in a size 54. Is there really so much difference between a 48 and a 54?

I assume a BB is about 100 g.

My frame is red which apparently is 20 g heavier than grey but still without BB: 641 g versus 748 g.

Looping back to this question now that I have final weights.

Before sanding the bare frame, without mounting hardware, was 741g with the stock bb which I later measured a same vendor replacement to be 75.14g which gives a pre weight of 665.86 or 666g after rounding to account for the significant figures of the different scale precision.

After sanding the bare frame, without mounting hardware, is 699g with a ceramic bb which I earlier measured to be 62.13g which gives a post weight of 636.87 or 637g after rounding to account for the significant figures of the different scale precision.

Before sanding fork was 282g.

After sanding the fork is 277.26g.

For climbing bikes I tend to like higher hoods and slightly tilted down saddle angle for more climbing comfort when going up 15%+ so I highly doubt I cut the steerer tube but I can't fully recall.