bike-in-a-box

 About nine years ago, I built a gravel bike from parts on a Surly frame. I did a number of posts on the other blog about it:

• Some parts, and more parts;
• Getting the frame;
• Lacing the wheels, and finishing them (yes, I built the wheels);
• One, two, three, four, five posts about the actual assembly;
• And a post about my name for the bike, the Krakow Monster.

And with all that, I never really liked it all that much; some years, I put less than a hundred miles on it.

After teaching the bike course for the Princeton Adult School for a couple of semesters, it struck me that I needed to get a bike on which I could fool around with fluid disk brakes. I'd done it at Bike Mechanic School, and I'm good with the rotors and pads, but I need more work with the actual fluid.

But I don't care about the latest-and-greatest (one of my frequent rants is about how cycling should be affordable), and I figured I might be able to get a fluid disk brake bike for cheap to replace the Krakow Monster. I did a lot of shopping, both in stores and online... and I found this from BikesDirect for $899 plus shipping. It's got GRX components (including Shimano fluid disk brakes), and, frankly, the most basic everything else. 

But it comes in my size, and I'm likely going to change out parts anyway, so I pulled the trigger and ordered one. It came in the box today.

Motobecane. That was a name to conjure with among bike-y folks in the 1970's, but like Schwnn, Mongoose, and so many other names, it's been bought by financiers and slapped on cheap Chinese bikes. Here's a few pictures of the bike in the assembly process at Ramblin' Wrench World Headquarters, my garage workstand:

It came with a generic manual with almost no useful information.

And it sports a chainring guard, a dork disk to keep the chain from eating the rear wheel spokes, and a kickstand.

All of those are going to come off eventually.

Now, a bike-in-a-box is part of the reality of buying bikes in these days, but you really want someone who knows what they're doing to put it together. In the case of this bike, the front derailleur shifts, but it's noisy and will need adjustment. The stem was mounted backwards, whether for ease of shipping or because of ignorance I know not. The front brake was loose on the fork, and the pads had been closed so that the rotor would not go between, and the front wheel could not be mounted until that was addressed. The cable on the rear derailleur was routed, but not tightened at all; it needed complete setting and adjustment. Worst of all, the headset was not seated properly, and required retrofitting so that the bearings found their places and the steering was functional (it's still not ideal, but I expect to have to adjust it a few more times as I ride it a bit).

I rearranged the spacers on the steerer tube to lower the bars about 1cm, and I expected to have to change out the saddle, but the saddle is surprisingly decent (I still might change it for a Selle SMP, but it's not like it was clear from the getgo that the saddle was not going to work).

I've ridden it around the street a bit... and I really like it so far. I need to do something to that front derailleur, and I need to go over the whole business with a torque wrench. But I'm not sorry I got it. 

And it may be the cheapass rotors... but I'm not blown away by the disk brakes. But it will give me something to play with.

I haven't got a name for this one yet. I'll do obeisance to Our Lady of Ghisallo, patroness of cyclists. I have not doubt the name will come in time.

In the meantime, I've got to go look for a Shimano GRX maintenance manual. And the old Krakow Monster will go to the New Brunswick Bike Exchange to find a new home.