With the winter season well underway now is the perfect time to give your bike a full service in preparation for Spring. I decided to strip my road bike to a bare frame to give it a thorough wash and rebuild it with an upgraded spec. I currently ride a Felt Z5 with 105 groupset, FSA Gossamer crankset as the frame uses a BB30 bottom bracket standard and Mavic Aksium wheels. The Z series is part of Felt’s Endurance range aimed at all day comfort than out and out speed. Whilst back in the UK I decided to weigh the bike complete with pedals, accessories like the K-Edge Garmin mount, Crud Catcher 2 mudguards and it weighed a portly 8.8kg. So my aim of this rebuild is to try and get the complete bike, minus mudguards(!) under 8kg.
With the bike being stripped down, part of my plan was to weigh each component to work out where the weight lies and what components can be sensibly upgraded. With a limited budget for upgrades I decided on upgrading to the previous generation of Ultegra, the 6700 series. Parts can be bought both new and second hand for sensible money and is a worthy upgrade from the stock 105 groupset fitted.
With the bike still built up I started to remove, weigh and refit any part that was easily and quickly accessible as I was still riding it throughout the early part of winter in the UK. Ultegra had already been decided on so it was a case of finding weight savings in components like the seat clamp, stem and handlebars. I will put together a detailed list of what each part weighed and what I replaced it with shortly. In the mean time the rebuild started back up today with the parts I already have.
Arriving tomorrow should be more parts so I can continue on with the rebuild!
sevenfourcycleworks.com 