In addition to riding, resting, and spending time with family over the holiday recess, I was also very much looking forward to finally having enough downtime to undertake Project Gravel–or “PRJCT GRVL,” to use the correct Gravelese. Well, I’m pleased to report it is now complete–though I did need to postpone it for a few more days in order to rehabilitate the Cervino after my crash:
Please note that in doing so I prioritized expediency and safety over aesthetics and period-correctness. The cockerpit I basically transferred over directly from a previous incarnation of the Faggin, and while I no doubt could have salvaged the original bars and stem I figured once you crash critical components that are over 40 years old it’s better to be safe than sorry. (Don’t worry, I’ve still got the Super Record brake levers.) As for the tires, they are 28mm Paselas, which should be more sure-footed, and of course they’re clinchers, which means they won’t roll off because they were glued on by an idiot. Finally, you’ll note the double-sided pedals, which facilitate walking while you’re waiting for spouses and ambulances to arrive–and the pedals I was using when I crashed are now broken anyway:
Perhaps at some point in the future I’ll attempt to restore a little more class to the bike, but for the meantime I’m just happy to have it rolling again.
As for PRJCT GRVL, to refresh your memory, for unhappy reasons last year I found myself with a brand new Salsa Stormchaser frame and fork:
The Stormchaser has switchable dropout plate thingies and can be set up either singlespeed or geared, which is pretty cool, and this frame was the to be the basis for a bikepacking project my friend did not live to complete. I figured since it was both brand new and a gravel bike the frame would be easy to sell, but despite listing it on the Greg’s List and pricing it well below what they go for from Salsa (One Thousand Twelve Hundred and Forty-Nine American Fun Tickets, in case you’re wondering) I received nary a nibble, and no readers of this blog reached out to purchase it either. So I changed tack, and instead of trying to sell the frame and fork, I decided to assemble* the bike.
*[One of my 2026 resolutions is not to say”build” in this context, since it implies you did something more than you actually did, unless you actually welded the frame. I also don’t like when people call a bike “a build.” It’s not a build, it’s a bike. Why say “nice build!” when you can just say “nice bike“ instead?]
Anyway, as far as building assembling the bike, my reasoning was two-fold: 1) Perhaps a complete bike would be more likely to find a buyer; and B) I’m the person who’s always complaining about gravel bikes and new standards and stuff, so maybe instead of whining I should try to actually learn a thing or two about them instead. And what better way to do so than by putting one together and actually riding it for awhile?
And thus, PRJCT GRVL was born.
My friend had left behind many of the components necessary to complete the bike–including electronic shifter and derailleur and hydraulic brakes from SRAM. However, while I was looking to learn new things, I wasn’t looking to learn that many new things. So I sold the things that scared me and used the proceeds to purchase a Microshift Sword Black drivetrain and a pair Shimano mechanical brakes, as well as a handlebar and some other stuff the bike would need, because if I’ve learned anything from years of cycling, it’s that bikes just work better with handlebars:
And here’s the bike:
I shall now relate my experiences with the assembly.
Wheels and Tires
The wheels are Stan’s Crest rims (tubeless, obviously) and the hubs are Bitex. My friend always built his own wheels (yes, you can say “built” in this context), and these components are in keeping with his value-over-flash sensibilities. The rear wheel was already complete but the front wheel still needed to be tensioned, which I undertook myself, and while I’m about the furthest thing from an expert wheelbuilder so far so good.
As for mounting the tires, while I’m mainly a tube guy, I’m also no stranger to tubeless. My erstwhile Engin was seet up that way, and so of course is the Jones, because whatever you may think of tubes versus tubeless, using tubes in 3″ tires is just crazy. However, mounting these particular tires on these particular wheels was difficult. Very difficult. In fact it took me two days, though this included going to the bike shop to get thinner rim tape. (Apparently I needed that extra fraction of a millimeter.) My original intention was to use tubes to start and then just do the tubeless thing later, but after I saw how difficult the tires were to mount I knew there was no way I was going to want to take them off again to remove the tubes (assuming I could even get the tires mounted with the tubes in there in the first place), and so I went tubeless from the start.
Fortunately, once I did finally get the tires on and regained the use of my thumbs, I was able to seat them with a regular floor pump without too much hassle, no doubt thanks to the tight fit. I then injected some Orange Seal in there and they’ve been holding air nicely ever since. So all is well, though I trust my rim taping only marginally more than I trust my tubular gluing, and hopefully I never have to take them off again.
Brake and Shifter Cables
Once I had the tires mounted I thought the hard stuff was behind me. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Getting the cables through the frame was nothing short of traumatic, and maybe the most difficult thing I’ve ever had to do to a bike.
Look, it’s not like I just stuck the housing in there and blindly noodle-stabbed at the frame hoping they’d make their way through to the other end somehow. First I ran the cable through there, which was easy enough, and then attempted to use it as a guide and sheathe it with the housing. But this was very difficult to do with the shifter housing, and it was extremely, maddeningly, I’m-about-to-cry difficult with the brake housing. By the way, if you’re wondering what path the cables take, they exit through the downtube, go over the bottom bracket shell, and then into the chainstays:
Even getting the brake housing to make that bend at the bottom bracket to go back inside the frame was really, really hard. Maybe it’s easier with hydraulic hoses, I dunno. Also, they’re not crossed on purpose, the housing just took whatever path it wanted to and that was that. No doubt more experienced people will tell me all the things I did wrong and all the other tricks I could have used, but I’m not exaggerating when I say it took me four hours to make this happen. Like, I was up until midnight, and it wasn’t even New Year’s Eve!
Anyway, it’s done now, but I really have to wonder: why do they do this? Like, what advantage is there to running the cables inside the frame? I guess it looks a little better, but is that all it’s about? I can’t imagine there’s any aero benefit to it on a bike like this. Here’s how Salsa describes the Stormchaser:
If reliability is the goal, doesn’t keeping the cables outside of the frame make the bike much more serviceable? You’re using a full length of housing anyway, it’s not like you need to run them through the frame to protect them from dirt or mud–and if anything, can’t mud get inside those open frame tubes? Anyway, whatever, it’s done, and like the tires I hope never to have to do it again.
Here are the cables exiting the stays, and I still get choked up when I look at them:
Brakes
After routing the housing, the actual installation of the brakes was pretty easy, though I did have to learn a thing or two in order to do so. For example, this was my first set of wheels with centerlock rotors. Happily, the lockrings use the same splined tool that the Hyperglide cassette lockrings you’ve used for 30 years do. Unhappily, the cassette lockring tool you’ve had for 30 years probably doesn’t fit over a thru-axle…or at least mine didn’t. This meant I couldn’t use it for the rotors or for the cassette. So I had to purchase a new tool at the bike shop, which is fine, because it will continue to come in handy and you rarely regret having more tools.
Also, while I have plenty of experience with mechanical disc brakes, I have no experience with flat mount disc brakes, and so I had to learn about adapters. I had a pair of 160mm rotors, and I had a front brake that came with an adapter you orient accordingly depending on whether you’re using a 140mm rotor or a 160mm rotor, and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why the adapter didn’t fit on the fork in either direction…until I finally figured out this particular fork is designed for a 160mm rotor only and that you bolt the caliper directly to it, so you don’t need the adapter at all.
Meanwhile, the rear brake didn’t come with an adapter, which it turned out I’d need in order to use that other 160mm rotor. So first I tried to use the SRAM 160mm adapter I still had, but–surprise!–you can’t do that because the engineers at SRAM clearly designed it specifically to prevent you from allowing it to touch a Shimano caliper. Then I went to the bike shop, but they didn’t have an adapter, and rather than let them order one and have to wait for it, or else undertake a crazy scavenger hunt going from bike shop to bike shop, I just bought a 140mm rotor from them instead, since you don’t need an adapter for that. Sure, the rotor was more expensive than the adapter would have been, but after spending two days on the tires and four hours on the cables I didn’t want to delay the project any further…and anyway, think of all the weight I’m saving without the adapter and the extra 20mm of rotor!
(Plus I now have a spare 160mm rotor for when the front wears out in 20 years.)
But I’m not mad at the disc brakes. Yes, all of the above was a bit of a hassle, but it was only because I didn’t know what I was doing; now that I know about the adapters I’d know what I needed if I ever had to work on another frame with flat mount calipers. (Oh, also, you’ve got to know what length mounting bolts your frame needs, but fortunately the ones I had on hand happened to work.)
There is one other potential issue when dealing with mechanical disc brakes, which fortunately I narrowly avoided. See how close the cable noodle thingy is to the fork?
Running the cable through the fork and into the caliper was a very tight fit indeed. (And no, I couldn’t have gotten rid of the noodle, the housing would not have managed the tight turn directly into the caliper.) I was relieved that I was able to make it to work, and I recalled that a reader who came by my home to pick up a bike a few months ago had a Paul mechanical brake on his own bike that wouldn’t allow him to run the cable through the fork at all–instead he had to zip tie the housing to the fork leg or something. Anyway, all of this is to say that clearly mechanical brakes can be tricky with this GODDAMN INTERNAL CABLE ROUTING, and no doubt it varies quite a bit from bike to bike and caliper to caliper. In this case I got lucky, but in the future I’d do a little research to make sure they work together first.
Oh, another happy accident is that these particular brakes don’t have a barrel adjuster on the caliper. Instead, if you’re using them on a bike without cable adjusters on the brake lever or on the cable stop or something, you use inline adjusters, which you’ll see along the cables just below the handlebars:
Why is this a happy accident? Because if I ever need to lengthen the brake cable housing for some reason (I’m not sure why I would, but whatever) I don’t need to re-route it through the frame again. Instead, I can just change the section of cable upstream from the adjuster. (Or would that be downstream?) See? In retrospect I’m a genius!
(Oh, and if you’re wondering how well the Shimano mechanical brakes work, so far I’m very pleased with them…though keep in mind that’s coming from a committed rim brake user.)
The Crank
This was the crank configuration my friend left behind–it’s a Race Face crank with an Easton spider and an oval-shaped Wolf Tooth chainring.
Like flat mount disc brakes, I’m largely illiterate when it comes to modern crankular chainring attachment interfaces and what goes with what–but since my friend had chosen the parts already I didn’t really need to worry about it. The Stormchaser frame takes mountain bike cranks, so I guess his approach was to use the spider so it would readily accept more road-and-gravel-appropriate chainrings.
As for assembling it all, this too was fairly straightforward, as the crank uses the same external bottom bracket as a Hollowtech II, and the lockring for the spider or chainring accepts the same tool you already have for your old cartridge bottom bracket. Easy! However, the one quirk here is that the Race Face crank requires 61Nm of torque, and if you don’t know how much that is, it’s a lot. And I mean a lot–even more than other similarly-designed cranks. Like, I installed it as hard as I possibly could with a fairly long-handled Allen key, and when I eventually checked it with a torque wrench I found it wasn’t even halfway there. Arguably no bicycle component should require that much torque, especially when Shimano has proven you can design a crank that fits together reliably with a simple preload cap and a couple of pinch bolts. (Sure, they then proceeded to ruin it by gluing it together, but that’s a separate issue.) Then again, in fairness to Race Face, the installation instructions are quite clear, and I suppose if you fail to use a torque wrench and you ruin the splines on your crank then that’s your problem.
The Drivetrain
Like many bike dorks I immediately liked the sound of Microshift Sword Black, the dirt-cheap 9-speed mechanical-only drivetrain that comes with a square taper crank. (Though I didn’t buy the crank since I already had the Race Face ready to deploy.) So I was very excited to try it out. And unlike some of the other components on the bike, the Sword Black stuff was extremely easy to install, with absolutely no surprises whatsoever.
As for how it works, while I’ve only got a few rides on it, so far I like it very much. However, I do need to address that upshift nubbin:
You’ve got to feel for Microshift. Shimano, Campagnolo, and SRAM took all the good shift lever positions, and so all they were left with was the nubbin, which just hides there, like a uvula or a clitoris:
Also like a clitoris, it can be a little hard to find if you’re inexperienced–especially if you’re wearing lobster gloves:
Granted, you’re probably not going to be wearing lobster gloves when you’re pawing at a clitoris, but you may very well be wearing them if you’re riding a bike in the cold, and in fact this is generally what I’m wearing on the bike when the temperature is well below freezing, as it was when I finally finished the bike.
[“Awww, you wear lobster gloves when it’s freezing? I don’t even bother with pants until absolute zero on the Kelvin scale.”]
With normal gloves it’s much easier to finger the nubbin, though it’s still not quite as intuitive as the other systems. (Or a bar end shifter, for that matter, which you can use even if you’re wearing an oven mitt.) Of course, as I say, it’s only been a few rides so far, and I’m sure once I’m used to the nubbin I won’t even think about it–and even now, while I’m still not used to it, I in no way regret the purchase. But given how good everything else about the Sword Black stuff seems to be so far, the nubbin stands out as the one area that could use a little improvement, or at least some more surface area. But maybe if I rub it long enough it’ll get bigger, I dunno.
Anyway, there you have it, I put together a gravel bike all by myself (well, except for all the stuff my friend had already done, and except for asking the shop to knock in the star nut for me since I don’t have the tool):
BK SNB GRVL?!? Surely now the gravel trend is officially over. Better dump all your shares of Life Time Inc…