Good mail day

Got my handlebars and pedals from Ben's today. If only all ebay sellers shipped so fast. Here is everything I have so far. I took the MKS clips and straps from my langster. I'm trying to find some affordable double straps, but so far no luck. I might end up ordering some doublelizers from cadence depending on how much they are.

No mail monday, presidents day, bullshit

Little comment

My stem and grips came today, pretty exciting. I took the stem to work today and hit it with some stainless steel cleaner, and now it looks like a mirror. I wrapped it in saran wrap to keep it clean and deter me from putting it on my other bike. Its pretty heavy too, about a pound. I wonder what the alloy jaguar weighs... Grips seem to be of decent quality and if they suck they were only ten bucks so no big deal.

My frame, fork, cranks, chainring, headset, and bottom bracket are delayed until late march which kind of sucks because I think I will be able to afford the rest of the parts in the next two weeks or so ( seatpost, saddle, front wheel, and chain), which is a hell of a lot faster than I ever expected to have everything purchased. Plus it would be nice to actually install the parts as I recieve them instead of just having a bunch of bike parts on my floor, but what are ya gonna do? Hopefully my wheel, cog, and lockring come tomorrow, then I will have an excuse to go to the bike shop and get a tube.

Makin that honey

My last round of auctions ended two nights ago. Not as much as I had hoped to make, but enough to buy some quality parts. I have some hard decisions coming up about which records I am going to sell next. Some pretty expensive records possibly on the table. I'm sure I'll definitely be psyched to sell them as soon as parts start coming in the mail and I can actually start putting the bike together.

Speaking of parts I ordered my handlebars and pedals from Ben's ebay store last night. For some reason it costs $12 bucks to ship handlebars if you buy them off their site, but only $7.50 to buy from their ebay store. Anywho here's what I ordered:

Nitto B123 39 cm cro-mo



MKS Pedals


I wasn't really sure what to look for in pedals as they never really made a difference to me. MKS has never done me wrong in the past, and the price was pretty good too. As for now I am out of money so more parts are going to have to wait for a bit. I'm having a hard time finding a saddle that I like so it will give me some time to decide.

Tires

I found the vittoria rubinos I was going to order for 10 bucks cheaper than retail on ebay today so I picked them up. The boxes are a little beat up, but the tires are still brand new, folded and everything.

Still no word from Flyleaf. I will drop them an e-mail if I don't hear from them tomorrow. I ordered some tracks grips last night too. There was a bunch of different brands and prices so I just ordered the ones in the middle of the price range. They are this style:



I've been shopping around for handlebars too. I know what I'm going to buy as I have wanted them for about 2 years, but more on that later...

Nice stems v. 2

Well I will not be getting the mystery stem. I just do not want to spend the money and have it not fit correctly in my frame as I am on a pretty tight budget. I messaged the seller and he said he will second chance the other bidder, no problem.

As fate would have it there was a STEEL 110mm Nitto Jaguar up on ebay. This is a true track stem that is way to expensive for me to buy new. It retails from Ben's for $124.99 and I ended up getting it for $69 including shipping. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. Its technically used, but looks brand new to me. It was even used by a Keirin racer which is pretty cool. Here's a picture of the actual stem from the auction:



- 110 mm
- 58 degree drop
- steel
- 25.4 clamp
- 100% awesome

My wheel guy was supposed to send me a paypal invoice today so I could get my wheel paid for, but he didn't. I'd like to pay for it asap so I don't spend all the money in my paypal account and then have to wait to raise some more. Hopefully he'll send it tomorrow...

Nice stems

I bid on a nitto stem the other night on a whim not expecting to win it, but I woke up this morning with a paypal invoice.



I'm not sure what the exact model is because it was just listed as a used nitto track stem with a 65 degree drop. The bottom of it looks different than the other quill stems I've seen. Who knows, maybe I just bought a piece of shit, but if it works out it saved me $40 bucks. If not I will just put it back on ebay or in the trade section on bikeforums. It was listed under vintage parts which I didn't realize when I bid on it so hopefully it still fits on my new frame. Heres a quick recap of stuff I still need to get:

- Tires
- Saddle
- Seatpost
- Chain
- Front Wheel
- Handlebars
- Pedals
- Straps

I might pick up some mks chain tensioners too, but I want to see if I can manage without them first.

Rolling right along

I finalized my wheel order with Longleaf Bicycles today, white velocity rim with silver spokes and a fixed/free hub. I decided to go with the Veloctiy rim because there is no point in buying the crappy yet cheaper DP-18 if I can afford the Velocity. Despite the picture I'm not ordering from wheel and sprocket. I e-mailed them about it and they didn't get back to me; just one of several companies I have tried to contact that doesn't seem to want my money.



Along with the wheel I'm also ordering a 16 tooth surly cog and lockring from the same shop. I was originally going to order those parts from my local bike shop, but Longleaf gave me a deal on the lockring and said they would install it on my wheel for free so I'll end up saving $15-20 bucks. I think my LBS charges $10 to put a cog and lockring on ( I have zero bike tools apart from allen wrenches).

I have changed my mind about the all white tires based on some bad reviews and the fact that they will get dirty almost instantly. I'm probably going to end up getting vittoria rubinos with white sidewalls. Still fits the color scheme, but just an over all better tire than the zaffiro that won't get dirty as fast.