S-WORKS Tarmac SL6 / 5.44kg

[justinfoxphotos]

God & Famous I F*cking Love You Titanium Top Cap.

PS: Got an email from WheelsFar to tell me my wheels are built and have been shipped! Took a month, and might take up to 20 more days to get to me, but it's all good. We're almost there!

[CrankAddictsRich]

God & Famous I F*cking Love You Titanium Top Cap.

PS: Got an email from WheelsFar to tell me my wheels are built and have been shipped! Took a month, and might take up to 20 more days to get to me, but it's all good. We're almost there!

Love me some God & Famous top caps.

[justinfoxphotos]

Love me some God & Famous top caps.

Very nice. I actually like all their stuff!

[CrankAddictsRich]

Love me some God & Famous top caps.

Very nice. I actually like all their stuff!

They actually did a custom Allez Sprint back in the day and the owner of the shop that I worked for purchased it.

[justinfoxphotos]

They actually did a custom Allez Sprint back in the day and the owner of the shop that I worked for purchased it.

Hot daym! Right click save as, straight to my Sprint folder. I've never seen that before!

[CrankAddictsRich]

They actually did a custom Allez Sprint back in the day and the owner of the shop that I worked for purchased it.

Hot daym! Right click save as, straight to my Sprint folder. I've never seen that before!

Yup... pretty sure it was one of one.

[justinfoxphotos]

I put an order in on these wheels on the 2nd of October via the Wheelsfar web site. Turns out the Extralite hubs were on backorder, so my wheels weren't going to be built until end of the month. It's been a long wait, but the wheels came in today and they were packed well (box was in great condition) and the wheels look great!









Included in the package were some quick release skewers, full set of brake pads and some Extralite hub grease too.

Now I'm just waiting on a Ceramicspeed headset dust cover to come in from R2 Bike (parts in order also on backorder and order was put in on the 30th of September). That's been shipped though, so once it's in I can get on with the build!

Specs:
Feder Extralite hub tubeless wheel set 20H/24H
Model Number: Feder 45
Rim finish: 70% UD Matte (Satin Finish)
Sapim Sils Nipples: Black Alloy
Freehub: Shimano 10/11s
Spoke: Sapim cx-super

[justinfoxphotos]

Wheels, tyres and chain on.


5.46kg!

Just had to at least mock up the build whilst I'm waiting for a lower headset dust cover to replace the huge (and ugly) 20mm OEM dust cover.

Still to do:
- Brake cable inners and outers
- bar tape
- Ceramicspeed headset dust cover

[gwhit]

Phwoar


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Primera23]

Love the R32 calsonic!

[justinfoxphotos]

Love the R32 calsonic!

Well spotted! That car was the inspiration for my weight weenie R32 GT-R build.

[justinfoxphotos]

Photo dump!

[OtterSpace]

very nice.

I like the extralight stem here more than I thought I would. It's color and shape matches well with the ee brakes and obviously the extralight hubs too. I went with the kalloy uno for mine because I have one in every length and am playing with a very narrow cockpit. However, I thought I was stuck with one to match the frame finish and tube shapes, so its nice to know I have another good option. Mixing matt and glossy is almost always needed but always hard to balance well.

Only one extremely minor nit pick is that your new tires have tons of mold injection lines that kind of distract from the bike. Most will wear off with time as the tire gets used but I actually go through and cut them off with side cutters for a cleaner look and better aero.

you can also get smaller aftermarket etap batteries too for lower weight and slightly less visual bulk.

also looking forward to a ride report after you settle in.

[justinfoxphotos]

I went with the kalloy uno for mine because I have one in every length and am playing with a very narrow cockpit. However, I thought I was stuck with one to match the frame finish and tube shapes, so its nice to know I have another good option. Mixing matt and glossy is almost always needed but always hard to balance well.

Only one extremely minor nit pick is that your new tires have tons of mold injection lines that kind of distract from the bike. Most will wear off with time as the tire gets used but I actually go through and cut them off with side cutters for a cleaner look and better aero.

you can also get smaller aftermarket etap batteries too for lower weight and slightly less visual bulk.

also looking forward to a ride report after you settle in.

Hey cheers! I'm a huge fan of the more traditional Kalloy Uno style stems. Love the older S-WORKS stem too. Really love how the Kalloy stem looked on my Allez Sprint, but hated the hanging brake cables so I settled on the SL7 stem instead (which is both heavy in weight and visually heavy too).

The graphics on the tyres are what really bothers me. Would love to remove them somehow. In the past I used a black texta to remove logos off tyres, but they faded in the sun and just ended up looking worse than if I just left them alone in the first place.

I did try to look into lighter batteries not too long ago but failed to find an online shop that would ship them to me. Will try to look again. I've been tempted to get the lighter Jagwire link brake cables too, but I think they look terrible (very busy looking) and I had the original KCNC ones many years ago and just found them annoying to work with. Would save 40g+ over the standard cables though.

Also not a huge fan of the EXS Airtape bartape. It looks ugly and is too thick and squishy for my liking. I'll leave it for now, but might use Burgh bar tape (I have a spare pack) at some point as I like how it looks and feels (despite it being double the weight).

Took the bike for a ride at the park today and the drivetrain is super noisy (well, in comparisson to the SRAM Red E1 drivetrain on my Allez Sprint which is not exactly meant to be the most quiet drivetrain out there). I've heard one-piece cassettes can be louder? I tuned up the gears some more post ride, and it's now quieter, but I think my derailleur hanger might be ever so slightly bent (I don't own a derailleur hanger alignment tool). They're cheap so I ordered an SL6 derailleeur hanger from the Specialized online shop.

Gears are shifting great though on the ZTTO cassette. Very surprising (maybe slightly better but definitely not worse than the Ultegra cassette originally on the bike).

Saddle angle isn't quite right and after some measurements between the Allez and the SL6 I've realised the SL6 has more reach, should be fine once I adjust the saddle fore/aft position. I actually think I feel a difference in the crank lengths (have gone from 165 to 160's on my Allez). Less spinny (I like high cadence) and for the first time I started to get some knee pain (but this could also be from having the saddle too far back).

I'm glad I didn't slam the stem yet (still waiting on the 5mm headset dust cover to come from R2 Bike). As much as I'd love to for looks I actually think the riding position is pretty aggressive as is. In regards to the 2kg weight savings over my Allez Sprint. I 100% do feel it on the climbs, but honestly my Allez still just feels so much faster everywhere (I do tend to stand and mash on the Allez for the climbs and I did notice I stayed seated on the SL6). The Allez feels stiffer when standing and rocking the bike side to side.

I had way too much pressure in the tyres (90psi and I weigh around 60-65kg's), and I can definitely feel more road chatter than on my Allez (running 29C front, 32C rear tubeless with 55psi), but this doesn't bother me at all.

The eeBrakes feel a bit squishy in the stand, but in the real world they actually work really well. Stopping power is much stronger than I expected (adjusting them was a joy too!), but they can't compare to the SRAM Red E1 disc brakes on the Allez in regards to feel (light and smooth lever feel) and stopping power.

All in all I'm really happy. Will continue to dial in the fit over the next few weeks. The only things bothering me are the tyre graphics and the ugy 20mm conical headset spacer/dust cover and the bar tape.

A couple more photos (lighting wasn't the best, will take better shots in future).

[OtterSpace]

A few sunday night drunken thoughts that are probably only half feels and half reals:

It looks like you are running British/Moto braking. While this is actually better if you ride motorcycle and bicycle some frames are kind of designed for a specific cable flow. If your rear brake feels like it has the same friction as the front regardless of handlebar steering leave it as is but if the rear feels any more draggy I'd swap. Also EE brakes are more particular to cable flow than other options. One of the negatives of cable braking compared to hydro is that it doesn't like sharp changes which for SL6 rim flows better for rear braking from the right shifter to the left side given USA designers. From the last two images you posted the rear braking looks a bit impinged. The rear circle can be changed independently of orientation but the front circle is harder to do if you keep rear braking on the left and want to keep larger steering angle. I personally compromise steering angle for aero on rim builds but thats a personal choice.

here is a USA link for the aftermarket smaller batteries. Twisted wheels featured one with a carbon body but the weights are similar and the carbon one is much more expensive. There likely are others and the logos should be easy to hide.

I use Tesa 51628, and deda bar end plugs, as I spend most of my time on the hoods and am more flexablity, short arm, and rear comfort limited. However, tesa tape shows wear quickly and offers 0 extra comfort but much better grip than bare bars which is equivalent to normal comfy tape.

I buy all my bikes used and often change hangers. I have yet to find any that are 100% spot on when checked with an expensive abbey bike tools option including newly purchased high end hangers. Alignment matters more for 12s than 11s but no reason to have it incorrect and wonder. A ztto hanger alignment gauge is cheap and good enough.

The C1 11s red cassette is "1 part" and fairly noisy with meh shifting on an otherwise Shimano 11s drivetrain. The C1 red cassette seems like the predicate (starting point) design for most of the Chinese designs that are then further weenied with cheaper manufacturing. C1 has like 8g of rubber bands to help mittigate noise that the Chinese cassettes omit. However, I typically remove them too from C1. Also many designs say they are 1 part but most are not fully and you can see rivets on the larger cogs. C1 is 1 part for all but the 11t cog for reference. You likely would see a shifting difference with a full HG (Shimano) drivetrain but a mixed one gets a bit more challenging to tell apart and SRAM was way behind in the 11s era for everything but weight and etap usability. I'm interested in trying ZTTO to replace a 11-32 C1 cassette on my red 11s mech bike but its really hard to filter out shifting differences from others opinions as every setup and rider is different and more or less critical if there are differences.

Take your time with positioning setup. The longer the better. It takes me forever which is why I have tons of kalloys in different lengths.

You went with wheels that are optimized for the width you have but the platform can fit wider if you want. Some show 32WAM which is highly questionable but 30WAM works from personal experience and there are wheels to roughly match which gets you near the width of your disc allez if you want.