New Parts: Hope Headset / Avid Speed Dial 7 Brake Levers / Shimano Gear Shifters / Shimano Front Derailleur

Bunch of items arrived today from Chain Reaction Cycles:

• Hope Conventional Headset
• Avid Speed Dial 7 Brake Levers
• Shimano XT 9spd MT770 Gear Shifters (Left and Right)
• Shimano XT 9spd FD-M771 Bottom Swing Front Derailleur

Hope Conventional Headset

This is a thing of beauty, as with lots of Hope components.  Beautifully machined and even the container it comes in is pretty as hell (it's like a big plastic threaded 'bolt' that you 'unscrew' to open!):

Doesn't do it justice really those pictures but it's lovely.

Shimano SL-M770-A 9 speed Triple Gear Shifters

These were fairly costly as it goes.  Or at least more expensive than I thought they'd be.  I had thought they'd be about £40-50 or so but the cheapest I could find a pair for was £60 - some places they're as much as £100 for a pair.  Doesn't help that the latest 'default' speed setting is 10 speed now, so there aren't as many 9 speed shifters in stock as there used to be and I imagine they'll slowly be phased out of production over the next 5-10 years or so.

Very nifty shifters though, although these are the latest version of these type of shifters in the 9 speed system (M770), they don't include the later dynashift technology that I think is based around the 10 speed system unfortunately.

Still they do apparently have some technical 'upgrades' over my old (10 year old now!) 9 speed Shimano Deore shifters - there's a two-way index finger shifter (the shifter you'd usually use to shift 'down' from large to smaller sprockets/chainrings).  This is actually quite a nice feature that takes a while to get used to (I'm writing this some 6 weeks after actually purchasing them and have had about 200 miles riding on them now), but once you get used to it it's quite nice to have the two-way option because you can use your thumb to move both up and down gears.

One nice touch is they included the gear cable pre-installed into the shifters, so no faffing around with that and no need to purchase extra cable for the job.

Anyway, pictures (which actually don't do them a lot of justice to be fair):

The boxes (ignore the Bosch Sander box!):

Shimano 9speed Triple Front Derailleur FD-M771

I had to replace the last front derailleur that I took off my Marin because it was so ancient it rattled!  The 'cage' was just very loose generally and there's really no option for tightening it because it's a pair of rivets that are a 'fit and forget' thing after the manufacturing process.  Plus they're cheap as chips quality wise, Deore I think it was, probably £5-10 originally (it came with the original bike so had done a good 10 years, probably 10s of 1000s of miles, can't complain at all).

So, yes, time for a new front mech.  Actually minorly confusing purchasing a front mech given the options you can have nowadays (front swing, bottom swing, E-type, double, triple, 9 speed, 10 speed... argh!).  In the end though really I just wanted a fairly 'standard' front mech, 9 speed triple with bottom swing (which is the type that most bikes have anyway, the gear cable comes up from under the bottom bracket shell).

Actually I think this mech can go 'both' ways - with cable coming in from bottom or top.  But the swing is bottom though (top swing means the 'pinions' - for want of a better word - are underneath, with the cage at the top, hence 'top swing'...).

I quite like the design of the actual mech though with the big metallic Shimano 'X' logo embossed in chunky goodness(!) (see image below), kind of matches the rear mech that I already have / will be using (I think they're actually the same model, Shimano XT 'Shadow' series I think they were, the 'M770/771' series anyway).

Avid Speed Dial 7 Brake Levers

I decided to go with Avid brake levers because I'd been so impressed with the Avid Single Digit v-brakes I had on the Marin - I refurbished those and will be using them on this new build because they'll be perfectly fine with a set of new pads on and will do a brilliant job.

I have to say the quality of these levers is excellent.  They're such a simple product actually, there's really not a lot to them - although they do have one minor 'frill' with the 'speed dial' which is supposed to make 'dialling in' the modulation of the levers, really that's nothing that you couldn't do with the usual 'barrel' adjusters that are included anyway and I think are really just a gimmick as much as anything.

That said, they are very well made I think and they have a touch of quality about them in my opinion.  I'm actually writing this with 200 miles under the belet now and having used them during that time I can say they are absolutely cracking levers, they just do a job and do it very well.  Would highly recommend them for a simple (relatively) low budget upgrade.

You can get the Signle Digit 5 v-brakes for about £20 (actually that's just for ONE brake so you'd need to sped £40 for front and rear) and these levers are cheap as chips at about £20.  So £60 for a setup which isn't exactly OTT (considering you can spend an eye watering £160 for a pair of the Avid Shorty's - which I actually did consider because they'd look bloody cracking on this bike as well with the red/black 'theme'!).

Anti-Seize Assembly Lube

Haha what can you say about grease?  Well, quite a lot apparently seeing as I actually did do a bit of research on what types of grease to use when building a bike!

In the end I went for a tub of this anti-seize lube, mainly because I already have some Silkolene grease as my 'main' grease (it's nice and light but also quite waterproof / lasts a long time), plus some very light silicon based grease for more delicate parts, and because I wanted some grease that would help me avoid having components weld themselves to the steel Surly frame over time.  So this fit the bill quite well.

I did consider going for 'Copaslip' after seeing it recommended on various touring sites / bike maintenance sites... in the end I think this stuff is almost identical anyway but actually specific for bikes (whereas Copaslip is more for motoring primarily).

I imagine it will last about 50 years this tub!  I must have used about 0.1% of the tub assembling this bike so far to be honest, it's gonna just be around a long long time after this bike has gone I think!

It has a lovely 'unctuous' consistency to it, and I've heard people refer to it as 'cake' because of it's similarity in consistency to cake mix, not to mention it smells slightly of cake as well.  Must admit I have considered tasting it at one point it smells / looks so good....

Anyhooo(!). ... yes I applied this stuff liberally to any components that had threads on them and would be tightened reasonably tightly on the bike to try and avoid having them weld themselves to the steel frame.  It's been a while since I've had a steel frame and I can't ever remember having major issues with that kind of thing, but still, why not, can't hurt and if it makes servicing the bike easier then all good.