With the frame and forks secured, the hunt was now on for the rest of the components needed. I spotted a well used but functioning set of Avid XX brakes with plenty of spares and three discs, 140, 160 and 180mm for sale on Pinkbike. Again a few offers went back and forth before I secured the lot for £105. The discs weren’t what I was after originally, but I decided running 160/140 would be enough for XC and nice and light, with the option to switch to 180/160 for trail centre action.
AVID Image
The Actual Brakes
Next I wanted a saddle, I have Selle italia SLR Flow saddles on all my bikes, but even used on eBay they were going to blow my budget as the cheapest reasonable examples are generally going for £50 or more. After some thinking on the problem I came across the Cube X1 Ergo - which is a saddle made for Cube by Selle Italia - the dimensions are very close to the SLR and about 130g more which I can cope with. New the X1 can be had for £35 on discount at CRC but I then spotted one on the Bikeradar Road Bike Classifieds for £18 delivered.
Next I needed bars - my preference was low rise carbon 650mm, but like the saddle - they were proving hard to find on my budget (£30). Up stepped the ever dependable Merlin Cycles who were offering the Race Face Deus XC at half price for £29.99 with free delivery.
Next on the shopping list were grips, I liked the idea of some super light foam grips, especially as they are about 100g lighter than lock on grips so would get me back what I’d lost on the saddle, but there seem to be lots of report of them sliding around. Then I spotted the Prologo Feather lock on grips - they are lightweight foam and lock-on, but with only a single set of lock collars they weigh 60g so a good compromise.
The final items were less fun but required none the less, first off was BB adapters to allow me to run my Hollowtech II cranks with the BB30 that is already fitted to the frame. My budget wouldn’t run to new cranks, and I didn’t want to remove the perfectly good BB30 to press in an adapter so I opted for these Wheels Engineering shims for £29.99. They allow the 24mm spindle Hollowtech II cranks to be fitted to the 30mm bearing of the BB30.
So the orders were placed and the parts started rolling in, next I'd need to find some time to build the bike . .
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