Author Archives: Justin Fox

Out of anger and frustration with not receiving the cheap kit from AliExpress I splashed out on some MAAP gear. 10x more expensive than the cheap China stuff but I feel better for supporting local. At least now I can look fast going slow?!

Whoomp! There It Is!

Ultegra cassette. I’ve ordered a Goldix 11-28 which manufacturer says weighs in at a silly 110g.

Will look into some light Ti skewers. I’m 100% sure I still have a few KCNC skewers in storage, somewhere.

Old tubes (will replace with RideNow TPU tubes with the pink valves at 36g each).

Weight of the GP 4000’s. Not as heavy as I thought they would be for 28’s, will still look for something lighter though, may even go down to 25C.

Weight of both Zipp 202’s combined. Would love to get a sub 1kg wheelset but struggling to find much out there in rim brake land, that and I think I want 45 deep wheels just to make the bike actually look good.

Woke up to yet another rainy day, so I decided to start stripping the SL6 down and get down to the bottom of where all the weight lies. Turns out everything on this frame is heavy! I’m thinking a low to mid 6kg build might not be so easy unless I get another set of wheels. We’ll see!

First world problems. Should I buy another pair of shoes for these LOOK KEO Blade pedals or should I just buy another pair of pedals so I can use the one pair of shoes between the SL6 and the Allez? The Xpedo pedals I have on the Sprint weigh in at 166.2g so I decided to put an order in for another set for the SL6.

Whacked on my old XTR SPD pedals and met up with Nick at CP for a few laps this morning. Saddle was a bit high, but it’s not going to take me long to get the fit dialled in. Gears shift so good, as good if not better than the SRAM RED E1 on my Allez. The Allez definitely feels faster though, both in the saddle and out of the saddle.

Nick.

Cracker of a day.

Jen K’s beautiful SL6.

This Florence Broadhurst detail is everything.

Ran into Jennifer Kay at the cafe and blurted out “Hey I’ve seen you on YouTube!”. LOL I crack myself up (100% I must have come across as a creeper), but she’s the main inspiration behind me buying the SL6 after watching this video. Seeing her bike in real life and having a chat about it was awesome. She had her frame custom painted, and all the intricate details are made of gold leaf (especially love the inside fork detail inspired by Australian mid century interior designer Florence Broadhurst). Follow her: @jenniferlouisek

Took the old bar tape off and hold up guys, we have a Contador fan here! The bars were double wrapped! Old bar tape was literally disintegrating (yuck!).

ENVE stem is porky.

As much as the ENVE Aero stem seems to be loved out there I personally hate the look of it, but it’s a pretty clever design that uses a sleeve to adjust angles and even position further forward or back. What I hated the most about how it looked was how it hung over the back of the fork steerer, but I think it would look better if the sleeve was flipped so the stem moves further forward. Then again it’s also the super ugly 20mm cone spacer that’s stopping the ENVE stem from looking good.

I set out to find a smaller spacer, no luck finding an 8.5mm Specialized spacer (no longer in production) but found that Ceramicspeed make one in a 4mm, and one in 8mm (they’re called Ceramicspeed headset dust covers) so I’ve ordered both. 100% sure the ENVE stem would look amazing if it was slammed with the 4mm spacer, but also sure I won’t be very comfortable at all.

Weight of the short cage derailleur I got with the bike. Not sure how much lighter it is from the long cage, but swapping out the derailleurs and puptting on a smaller and lighter rear cassette is most likely on the cards.

Went out and got some batteries today for the shifters and charged up both derailleur batteries and to my surprise everything is still hooked up and working. One battery either didn’t charge though, or it’s dead (I was freaking out as the rear derailleur wasn’t working, but when I swapped the front mech battery to the rear it works).

PS: Noticed there’s no SL6 Owners Facebook Group so I created one (if you own one, or appreciate SL6’s please join up!): https://www.facebook.com/groups/1223748342001336

I’ve been gawking at a Facebook Marketplace listing for an Italian made BASSO x MAAP Diamante rim brake bike, it’s been listed for a while now and the seller has recently reduced the price. It blows my mind that it hasn’t sold (I think it’s gorgeous enough to hang on the wall as art), then again there’s a couple of Specialized S-WORKS SL5’s for sale that also don’t seem to be selling. I suppose nobody wants a rim brake bike anymore these days?

I’m still set on a Specialized S-WORKS Tarmac SL8 frameset (I mean come on, 8 is my lucky number!), but the $9,500 asking price for the frame alone is something I just can’t swallow (and even if I could I’m not sure I love any of the currently available colours enough).

I messaged the seller of the BASSO. I hate to waste anyone’s time as I semi-knew I was 50/50 on the bike, but after a brief back and forth I told him I’d sleep on it and only bother him again if I was sure on the bike. I slept on it, then I slept on it for another night, and another, then yesterday morning a size 52 S-WORKS SL6 popped up on Marketplace.

Apparently the Specialized S-WORKS Tarmac SL6 is the last and best rim brake Tarmac Specialized have (and will) ever make (it was universally praised on launch and some even go as far as saying it’s the best rim brake bike of all). The listing was made by someone who was selling it for a friend who wasn’t on Facebook (who the hell isn’t on Facebook these days?!). The pictures weren’t great, and the seller was selling the bike along with a billion accessories; a Garmin 520, lots of tubes, C02 canisters, a spare short cage SRAM Red rear derailleur, a helmet, shoes and more (IE: it looks like the seller had quit cycling for good!).

The asking price was $4,600 negotiable. I messaged the seller, and got the phone number of the actual seller. I sent an SMS yesterday morning to say I’m interested to come look at the bike, but by late afternoon I hadn’t heard back. I called the number instead and got voice mail so I left a message, and later that night I got a call and we organised for me to come look at the bike the next morning.

This morning I drove out to check out the bike, and first impressions were GREAT! I couldn’t care less about the components, my main goal was to thoroughly look over the frame and the frame looked as good as new.

Turns out the owner was a super chatty guy. He bought the women’s frameset (it’s actually Unisex) as it was the only frame available at the time and he had the bike built up and serviced by Chris Schofield at Velo Tech Centre, then Covid hit and the bike was never ridden again. IE: He has not ridden the bike for 4 years, and the bike has been sitting in his garage gathering dust since the pandemic.

He insisted that I take the bike for a spin. All the batteries were dead, but air went into the tyres just fine, and off for a spin I went. Surprisingly the saddle height and 100mm stem felt fine. The bike was stuck in an easier gear but I tried my best to stamp out of the saddle multiple times to see if there was any creaking coming from the press-fit BB, no creaks. The sound of pads on carbon rims sure sounds wild though (terrible, actually!), but apart from the brakes, the bike felt farkin’ fast.

We ended up chatting a whole lot more about the state of bicycles, how expensive the new S-WORKS Tarmac is, and the slow death of rim brakes. I ended up showing him the listing of the BASSO that I was interested in (now dropped to $3600), and that the listing for that bike, and many other great rim brake bikes were still up with no takers. I let him know that I’m probably more of an outlier in that I like bikes that others might not be so interested in, and that for $4,600 more people would probably take a brand new SL7 Sport over his old SL6.

We started talking price, and in the end I got it for $3,900 with batteries, charger, cleats for the pedals and spare SRAM Red short derailleur (I negotiated the helmet, shoes and all other misc items out from the final sale).

Pretty happy she’s now mine!

Next step is to give her a good clean (though she’s already pretty damn clean!), replace the batteries in the shifters. I don’t own another set of road shoes for the Look cleats, so I’ll have to figure something out (maybe SPD’s for my other pair of shoes for now), replace the saddle with my S-WORKS Power saddle, maybe bin the cages for the super light AliExpress cages I have in the parts bin and then (after a few rides!) I’ll start planning a build with the aim to at the very least get the bike into the mid 6kg’s.

SPECS: 2018 Specialized S-WORKS Tarmac SL6 “Women’s” (Unisex size 52) in Satin Gloss Monocoat Black/Acid Purple/Rocket Red Fade.

GROUPSET: SRAM Red e-Tap, ROTOR 3D crankset (172.5), Power2Max Power Meter, Praxis Works Chainrings (53/39), Campagnolo Direct brake calipers, SwissStop pads, Shimano Ultegra cassette (11-32).

WHEELS & TYRES: Zipp 202 Firecrest Carbon Clinchers (32mm), Zipp Aero skewers, Continental GP 4000 S II (28mm).

COMPONENTS: ENVE Aero stem (100mm), ENVE SES Aero handlebar (420mm), Look KEO Blade Carbon pedals, Specialized Power Comp saddle, ENVE K-Edge computer mount, TWE carbon water bottle cages, Fabric bar tape.

WEIGHT:
7.47kg