Having a warehouse full of bike parts is great but you know what's a lot better than that? Having a bike you can actually ride. 

With all these components available we thought it would be fun to challenge ourselves to build a sweet bike for a reasonable budget and see if we can put that bike to the test and steal a local Strava KOM near the warehouse. 

The parameters were simple. Our budget would be $3000 for a full build (which is a very competitive price for a high end bike these days) and then we would use that build to try and get the fastest time on a local Strava segment showing that you don’t need a ten thousand dollar tricked out bike to go fast and be competitive. 

Frame:

Our original plan was to find a bike off facebook marketplace but we were striking out trying to find a frame that would fit our budget. Having no luck on facebook marketplace our eyes wandered to some of the frames sitting around the warehouse. As it happens, this bright orange Vonhof cycles frame had been hung up behind Jack’s desk for over a year now, patiently awaiting its time to become more than a frame once again. We immediately realized this was the perfect frame for the job. Jack bought this frame off ebay for $430 a few years ago. This bright orange aluminum cyclocross frame was eye-catching and perfect for the type of build we were going for. Now that we had our frame decided we set about gathering components. 

Components:

For this challenge we wanted to use parts that are available on the website. This would show that we have everything customers need to build up a sweet custom bike of their own and not break the bank. We hand picked the perfect components for the build and set to work. We decided on a SRAM rival axs groupset, Scope R4 wheels, FSA bars and stem, Vittoria corsa tires and a Repente saddle. When selecting the parts we did have to order a few components we unfortunately didn't have on hand and since we were at it why not also get a sweet looking aero 52T chainring from Wolftooth? With the necessary (and slightly unnecessary) parts ordered we went to work bringing this build to life. 

Building process: 

Assembling this bike was a lot of fun. It's always great to see a bike come together. After assembling numerous bikes where the cables run through both the frame and the headset this build was a breath of fresh air. However it wasn't all smooth sailing as a bike build is never complete without a few compatibility issues. The first setback came almost immediately when we discovered the taper of our frame and fork were different. This frame uses a 1 ½ to 1 ⅛ tapered head tube and the Moots fork we selected for the build uses a 1 ¼ to 1 ⅛ steerer tube. The crown race for the frames headset would not work on this fork. After some light internet searching I found a Chris King crown race adaptor that would allow these parts to work together. This whole project was almost dead in the water after this issue because ordering a new fork would have put us well over budget. 

The second issue came towards the end of the build process. When going to connect the rear brake I realized that this frame was designed around an IS (international standard) rear brake mount and this was not going to work with the flat mount caliper from the SRAM Rival groupset. This proved to be quite the problem as it takes a very specific adaptor to use a flat mount caliper with an IS frame mount. Our final solution came in the form of a wolf tooth adaptor that allows the use of a flat mount caliper with a post mount frame. We paired this with the IS to post mount adapter that came with the frame. This also meant we had to use a significantly bigger rotor than we planned. Because of our dual adapter situation the smallest rotor we could use was 180mm. This makes for quite the interesting look as we choose a 140mm rotor for the front. This may very well be the only bike in the world with this rotor combination. 

Complete build and price breakdown: 

All in all we came in at a grand total of $2902.33 which puts us $97.67 under budget! 

Complete Bike:

Strava segment:

For the segment we chose a loop around a lake near our warehouse. This loop around decker lake would be perfect to test our speed and also be perfect for filming. The KOM time is 3 minutes and 30 seconds and I thought surely we would be able to beat that time. 

KOM attempt: 

The attempt at this segment ended up being significantly more difficult than we anticipated. The loop turned out to be 70% gravel which is not ideal for a bike with slick 25c tires and the time was actually much faster than we imagined. Sprinting on a gravel path on a road bike with a 52T chainring is quite difficult. We all gave it our best shot and sprinted as hard as we could around the lake, huffing and puffing our way to (hopefully) success at this self imposed challenge. 

In the end we all were absolutely exhausted and the same name remained at the top of the leaderboard. Travis was closest with a time of 3:44 followed by Jack with 4:00 and myself with a time of 4:01. Those times put us at 2nd, 4th and 5th on the leaderboard

We were bummed to not get the crown but are still proud of our attempt. The bike didn’t hold us back at all but it turns out 3 mountain bikers in baggy shorts can’t quite compete with the fastest guys out there. 

Overall this challenge was a great success. We failed to capture the KOM but we successfully built an awesome bike for a very reasonable price and all claimed 1 more top 10 for our Strava trophy cases. 

Here at Peak Five Collective our favorite thing to do is ride bikes with our friends. Building this bike and putting it to the test is easily the most fun content we have created so far and speaks to what's really important in the world of cycling. Build a cheap bike, go outside and go as fast as you can with your friends.  

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