Project: 2009 Specialized Allez Sport refurb

[idiotgap]

A refurb has started following on from the colour change thread

Before:



I stripped the frame down at the weekend

Here it is half way done.


I have a box of parts stripped off my old colnago mostly Shimano 105 5700 10 speed ready to put on this bike replacing the 2009 Tiagra (9 speed). Cosmetically it will give it under-tape gear cables which I think makes a huge difference.



There are also some new bits to go on. New bar tape in black, some mudguards because this bike is going to be a commuter, I'll move it to mtb style SPD pedals so I can walk and drive in the shoes. New DT Swiss wheelset as the old mavic cxp-22 rims and specialized branded hubs suffered a damaged freehub and weren't really worth repairing.

Today I took the frame to a local blasting/powder coating place and in a week it should come back light blue (RAL 5024).


As a slight nod to the Le Mans trip I did on this bike it's going roughly Gulf colours, but hopefully in quite a subtle way. There won't be any Gulf stickers or race numbers I don't think.
Le Mans Thread

They can't powder coat the carbon forks so I think I am going to get some rattle can orange from https://spray.bike/ and do them myself as well as some accents on the frame.

Could end up something like this 2018 Specialized Allez colour scheme, but black stickers:


I think I will go with the black specialized decals so I don't have to worry about matching colour with the forks. Maybe an orange PH smiley somewhere if I can find a small one.

I can't build until the frame comes back but I still need to do a few things:-
- order the orange rattle can (or I'll nip to Brick Lane Bicycles in a lunch time)
- remove stuck spd-sl pedal from non-drive side crank, seems quite, quite stuck atm.
- get hold of some spd pedals (probably shimano m520)
- order some Specialized decals
- work out what to do with the front mech, 105 replacement is braze-on but this is a band-on frame.
- paint the forks

Any tips, comments or suggestions welcome.

Edited by idiotgap on Tuesday 3rd October 18:23

Edited by idiotgap on Tuesday 17th April 10:32

[idiotgap]

Cheers, yes one of those made the most sense. If a used 105 band on front mech had been available I might have gone that route, but I know mine is ok.

My Aunty Janet gave me a halfords voucher for my birthday (very kind of her, I'm 42!) so I've ordered the below into the local shop:


http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bike-parts/gears-d...


http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bike-parts/pedals-...

I've also got the orange paint now, popped into Brick Lane Bicycles and picked up some Pop Mustang


Finally I've got some stickers on order.

https://graphicsdirect.org/products/specialized-al...

Next things to look at:
- My white saddle is going to look silly, so I might hunt for a black one.
- I've been pondering headset pressing, might grab a home-made threaded bar effort from ebay.
- Also thinking about helicopter tape for some frame protection on the chainstay and cable rub points.

Nearly ready for the build

[idiotgap]

When I took the forks out there were two ball races left visible in the frame one top, one bottom in cups. The coating guy said they had to come out because of the heat, the grease would melt and it would end up a right mess so he was going to drift them out for me, but they'll need to go back in. Hope he remembers which one was top and which bottom!

[idiotgap]

I've started painting the forks. I bought a three pack of various grades of abrasive nylon finishing pad from Halfords while I was there picking up the pedals and derailleur band on adaptor.
http://www.halfords.com/motoring/paints-body-repai...

Once I'd cleaned, degreased, keyed, cleaned and degreased again I thought they'd be as ready as I was going to get them, so I masked them up and got them hung up.



After a single coat they were definitely orange, but the old black decals were showing through.


I put about 3 or four coats on before it got dark and now they're looking pretty good. I might do another coat or two tomorrow to finish them off.
No going back now!

[idiotgap]

A couple of steps closer today.
I've finished painting the forks and I think they look pretty good.
The powder coater has finished putting the blue on the frame which looks fantastic. I still need to work out if/where to put some orange on that so will be looking at pictures of bikes a bit. Easiest thing is probably to do the seat stays like the 2018 allez pictured above.


I spent a bit of time today reading about and fiddling with the broken red rear mech and I've managed to get a satisfactory fix, so now I have a dilemma. I already had a spare sram red front mech so do I try and find some used sram shifters to put that on it or stick with 105 5700. My inclination is not to spend more and not to put blingy bits on a commuter, but we'll see.

Probably won't do much more with this now until the weekend.

[idiotgap]

I got a couple of images of similar framed bikes, put them through an edge detection filter in photoshop to make my own colouring book style picture. I printed it out and got busy with my kid's felt tips just so I could check out paint ideas.



I liked the second scheme best so I'm going to paint the seatstays orange later on. Have to go and see Lego Ninjago in 3D first as it's my youngest son's 4th birthday.

[idiotgap]

I got busy with the paint again today.
Masked up all but the seat stays

3 coats went on

Looks good I reckon.


Then to re-assemble the headset and get the forks back on. I bought some threaded bar from wickes and washers from halfords.

I seemed to have to apply a lot of force but the bearing cups went back in ok, the powdercoat guy did label them up so I knew which one came from where.

Headset all assembled, starting to get a feel for what it's going to look like.


Applying the stickers is the next job I think, I can't decide if I just put them on and leave them, buy helicopter tape to put over the top, or try and spray lacquer over it.

Edited by idiotgap on Monday 16th October 08:54

[idiotgap]

Barchettaman said:

Spray a clearcoat over the frame decals.

Any recommendations? Last time I tried to spray a clearcoat (on the tailgate of my 124 estate) it came out really cloudy and I had to pay a body shop to bail me out.

Dannbodge said:

I'm hopefully picking up a 2010 Allez frame (everything bar saddle and wheels) for £50 tonight :lol:

Nice! What have you got planned?

It's only researching this rebuild I found out they are popular for crit racing. I guess it's a "race what you can afford to crash" kind of thing. Specialized seem to have cottoned on and more recent 'sprint' and smartweld versions seem to aimed directly at that market.

[idiotgap]

Barchettaman said:

I used the clearcoat from a colour/clear twin pack I had left over

Looks nice and shiny!
I'll look into getting some clearcoat.

Dannbodge said:

I've got a "new" Tiagra 4700 groupset to go onto it once it's been painted.
Then got some semi deep aero wheels and it's going to be a turbo/winter/commuting bike.
Paint is looking like one of these at the moment. Probably the baby blue one.

That 10 speed hidden cable group is a good shout. I've been very happy with my 9 speed Tiagra, save for the exposed cables.
How did you do the paint colour scheme renderings?
Are you going to paint it yourself like that? Looks a bit more complex than I dared do!

timnoyce said:

Maybe colour code your stem orange too if you have any paint left. That'll finish it nicely!

I am troubled by the stem because the face plate is silver. I was thinking of doing an Edd China on it and doing just the plate satin black. I'd not thought of doing the whole thing orange but will give it some thought.

[idiotgap]

Sounds cool, I'm looking forward to seeing how that turn's out. Please share a link or post in here if you're documenting it!

Did you get it last night?

[idiotgap]

Dannbodge thinks he's spent more than me and with his new groupset he's probably right, but I don't really have a clue because I've hurled myself at it without thinking and not totted mine up. So below is some totting.

Easy to account for outright purchases:
- Saddle, selle italia qbik flow £17.49 CRC
- Powdercoating frame £50
- Orange fork paint £9
- bar tape (deda black) £5 Evans pricematch
- SKS Bluemels mudguards £20
- tortec velocity rack (birthday gift) £18
- Shimano M520 pedals, Halfords £18
- Shimano braze-on adapter £7
- DT Swiss R522 wheels £110
- Allez decal set £22
- PH smiley £3
TOTAL £279.49

Tools and other re-usable stuff I can't directly attribute to this build
- M8 threaded bar for headset press wickes £4
- Huge variety pack of washers from Halfords £10
- 3-pack abrasive cloths from Halfords £3
- pedal spanner £8.50
- derailleur hanger alignment tool £55
TOTAL £0

Donor bike, I paid £200 for the bike in 2014, it came with:
- a pair of matching specialized shoes I flogged on for £30
- a pair of tri-bars I've not used but might one day
- a decent blackburn mini-frame pump which I used a fair but but lost eventually
- matching specialized helmet I've worn a fair bit
- matching specialized bottle cage, I later added another one the same
- a cycleops turbo trainer
I've done over 3000 miles on the bike so I think it's fair to say it doesn't owe me anything, but based on Dannbodge's experience I could have got £50 for it
TOTAL £50

Groupset
- Tiagra brakes coming from the donor bike
- ultegra BB, R500 crankset, 5700 105 front mech, rear mech, cassette, chain and shifters coming from my colnago that I've moved on to Sram. This stuff has a value I guess about the £100 mark if I were to try and sell it used
- I have gear and brake inners, outers, ferrules etc. on the shelf, only fair to stick a tenner on for that I suppose £10
TOTAL £110

Grand total is about £440

This is way more than I thought!!

[idiotgap]

Barchettaman said:

If you'd only bought a longer M8 rod, you could have used that as the derailleur hanger alignment tool too.

I'm not sore about buying that tbh, I've already used it on one of my 4 bikes, I have 3 sons and even my wife's got 2 bikes so it'll get enough use to justify it. The £3.90 pack from wickes is for two rods 50 cm each so you've probably got a decent tool right there per Coolc's pic here

[idiotgap]

Dannbodge said:

I've just looked at my spreadsheet.
It's amazing how quickly it adds up. Everything seems to cost £15/20 and you don't notice.

My total is over £500 now, Most of my parts were 2nd hand from eBay, Gumtree and forums etc.

Yeah, I just can't help myself. Even whilst on holiday and unable to do much on the project I've bought clearcoat plus some 'new' shifters in the classifieds and now hankering after calipers and a crankset to match. I really should stop because I'm now starting to replace things I have, just so they match.

I went through the whole thing, but I didn't know whether to be inspired or cry looking through this thread: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/311144/

Some lovely custom paint in there, mine won't get close to this!

[idiotgap]

I've finally made a bit more progress on this project.

I was trying to source a PH smiley sticker in orange because i had such a great welcome and lots of support from PH on this bike's hallmark Le Mans trip. I ended up getting 2 sent through by the official supplier because the first was red rather than orange. Sadly the second was red too so they refunded me in the end and I got a bootleg from ebay.

I've unboxed the DT Swiss wheelset and put the tyres tubes and rim tape from the old wheels on.

I've applied the specialized decals to the head and down tubes. I couldn't decide if I should put more vinyl on it, but ultimately decided to keep it clean. I've not put the clear on because I'm not fully committed yet - always shy... I have spares of everything put on so far so I might just see how they wear and replace in a while if needed.

I bought some new boxed Sram apex shifters in the classifieds for £60 and as a result, I think this bike is probably going to end up a bit of a mixture as I shift all the sram red kit to my other bike. The drivetrain on this one will be:
- sram apex 10sp shifters
- Shimano R500 chainset
- sram rival 22 wifli rear mech
- sram force 22 front mech
- tiagra brake calipers.

I've stuck the bars on, added the shifters, fitted the calipers, bb and crankset. Should get this rideable at the weekend.

[idiotgap]

So the weekend came around and it was a busy one. We'd planned to take the kids to see Paddington 2 at 10 am on the Saturday, I was heading straight from that to London for a reunion with school friends which mean't staying up in London and there were kids parties and remembrance Sunday things to attend. Despite all that though, I got on with it.

On the Saturday early morning I took the rival rear mech and force front mech off my colnago and fitted secondhand sram red items.

[idiotgap]

On Sunday, after trekking back from North London and the remembrance stuff I got stuck in to building up the allez.

First of all I fitted the frameset ironmongery I'd taken off before. I had some problems refitting the barrel adjuster on the down tube for the front derailleur, seems like the masking in that area for the powdercoat hadn't been completely effective. I used another bolt to chase it in and out a couple of times and that came good happily. Once that was done I fitted the cable guide on the bottom bracket and the rear derailleur hanger. Another opportunity to get the hanger alignment tool out, got that nice and straight (did the colnago on the Saturday as well as it was sitting there without a mech in place).

Next I went through the process of running the cabling up to the gears and fitting the derailleurs and a chain. The sram support guides are quite easy to follow and getting the gears running nicely was reasonably smooth. I fitted the pedals and brake cables too and then had a rideable bike. I weighed it at this point. It came in on my pound shop luggage scales at just under 9 kg. It was dark, but I rode it down down the road to the pub and back just to check the gears worked ok.






Then I ruined it by adding all the extra crap that I feel I need for commuting.
- frame attachment for the pump and the pump
- pannier rack
- lights
- garmin mount



I used this bike to get to work this morning and had a relaxed hour or so ride getting to know it. There's a jingly noise on bumps coming from somewhere, I think caused by the chain bouncing and hitting the front mech cable end. I've bent it out of the way now and will monitor that on the way home. The mini-pump is too big and my clumpy winter boots are hitting it, I had this pump on it before and never noticed that so will have a fiddle with it to see if i can get it better.

I couldn't face fitting mudguards at 10pm last night, might see if I can get away without them this week.

All told I'm really pleased, it rides nicely!

[idiotgap]

Deerfoot said:

Can't you stick the pump in one of the panniers?

Looks great, wish I had the time and expertise to give my Allez a new look.

I probably will shove it in the bag as I did on the bike I used to leave at the station to avoid too much stripping needed every time I leave it.
I enjoy spannering the bikes and learning new jobs along the way. This time it was pressing in bearings that was completely new to me. If you've got more than one bike then taking one off the road for a bit means the time doesn't matter too much. If you do decide to have a go, don't hesitate to ask for help if you need it and run a build thread.

[idiotgap]

I spent what seemed like the whole weekend trying to fit mudguards to the bike and cement it in it's commuter role.

I'd bought some SKS Bluemels mudguards in 35mm size before I'd got the bike's paint done in preparation. I'm using a set of 25mm gatorskin tyres on this bike which without guards appears to have plenty of clearance



REAR
The rear was an utter swine to fit (as usually expected with mudguards I think). Very difficult to get the brake caliper bolt tight enough to stop the caliper moving, but not destroy the plastic "bridge" which holds the mudguard at that point. I ended up having to customise a washer filing down the edge to make it less round and more a d-shape as well as attacking the bridge itself with a dremel to adjust the fit. I gather they used to supply a metal bridge and you can get them from Evans, so I might pick one up sometime. Even once fitted there is precious little clearance which in a more muddy situation might be a pain. I have a set of SKS Bluemels on my old Kona Dew Hybrid commuter and they've proven to be fit and forget so I'm hoping this one is good now.

FRONT
The Bluemels 35mm guard was never going to fit on the front. Even after some invasive dremelling to narrow it down where it goes through the arch of the forks, the guard simply clamps on to the tyre. Not enough clearance to get the tyre through. It's close, in that most of the tyre will go round but it gets a tiny bit wider round the valve and there it always sticks. I abandoned the attempt and dredged an old Crud RoadRacer mk2 set I'd used a season or two ago on this bike.


I managed to find enough bits to make up a front guard, only missing the self-adhesive pile weather strips which you stick to the guard and clear the braketrack as well as locate them. I'd read before that crud get theirs from B&Q so I found the same product in Wickes which is closer to home. For £6.50 I got a 5 meter roll (i.e about 4.9m left after cutting the bits I needed) ready for anything else this stuff might be useful for. The other option is to buy a kit from crud which has a few strips plus some spare plastic nuts and bolts for £4.50



Monday came round and duly, it rained so this morning the mudguards got a proper test. Everything seems to be in order.

[idiotgap]

I never bothered lacquering over it. Some tiny bits of the orange have chipped off where I've clouted it with tools. I've not touched up because this bike is having a hard life commuting day in day out whatever the weather 2.5k km clocked up now in 3 months. I had to de-clag the bike today because of the soakings it had last week and getting it done intra-week without light evenings and in freezing temperatures rarely appeals. Horrible brake-block stains and chewy, gritty drivetrain muck everywhere the mudguards fail to block. The spring will be most welcome!