Honky Tonk - First Take
The Honky Tonk arrived yesterday. Since this is about a week later than expected, I immediately headed down to Duke's Cycle to pick it up, despite the rain and cold. Rode from Duke's to school and from Eg West home (the latter in the rain)
First impressions:
Fit is damned near perfect out of the box. Saddle was pointed a bit too far up, but that's it. Shifting will take some getting used to, I've always used pods/thumbies or barcons, never with DT shifters before.
The crank and BB were not the specified ones. The bike arrived with FSA Vero compact cranks and an unidentified square-taper BB, spec is FSA Gossamer and a MegaExo BB. While this is a fairly noticable downgrade on paper, I consider it to be a net win as I prefer the easier to work on and longer-lived square-taper design to the stiffer outside-bearing BB's. If square-taper is stiff enough for my MTB, it'll do fine on a road bike. In fact the lack of a square-taper crank was one of the two issues I had with the basic spec on the Honky Tonk in the first place (the other being the rims) so I'm a fair bit happier about the change.
The Tektro brakes and levers are unbranded, as is the Formula front hub and the AlexRims rims. Not surprising on a bike from a major maker, all branded bits are either Kona or Shimano. Tektro pads still suck in the wet, I'll probably snag some Kool-stops soon, at least for the front. I do love those R200 levers though, real comfy, and the brakes themselves are very good.
The seat is comfy so far, but I'd prefer a little setback on the seatpost. Bar wrap was well done, but the front brake housing is too short and is causing the tape on the bar to tear, will have to go and get that fixed (Yay for warranty)
The fork is very nice, I didn't realize that it was lugged steel rather than a unicrown, should have as it's the same fork as the Kapu lugged frame. The frame is TIG welded except for the dropouts, which are lugged. The frame has a pump peg, so carrying a frame punp should be little trouble.
Cosmetics are a mixed bag. The painjob is gorgeous, but the bike suffers from a severe lack of silver/chrome parts. Everything is black and that's just not as nice on classic style bike as silver/chrome, especially given the gorgeous baby blue metalic paintjob. The Stem is also fugly, being a big sqare lump.
The wheelset is the other real comprimise here. The hubs are decent, with a Formula front hub and Tiagra rear built up 32x3 with 15g spokes in the front and 14g in the rear to Alex Race24 rims. The rims are the weakpoint, as they're black with unmachined braking surfaces, meaning the finish will wear quickly at the braking surfaces, braking is less positive and you can feel the rim join when braking. Otherwise the wheels are a reasonably good set of low-end road wheels.
First impressions:
Fit is damned near perfect out of the box. Saddle was pointed a bit too far up, but that's it. Shifting will take some getting used to, I've always used pods/thumbies or barcons, never with DT shifters before.
The crank and BB were not the specified ones. The bike arrived with FSA Vero compact cranks and an unidentified square-taper BB, spec is FSA Gossamer and a MegaExo BB. While this is a fairly noticable downgrade on paper, I consider it to be a net win as I prefer the easier to work on and longer-lived square-taper design to the stiffer outside-bearing BB's. If square-taper is stiff enough for my MTB, it'll do fine on a road bike. In fact the lack of a square-taper crank was one of the two issues I had with the basic spec on the Honky Tonk in the first place (the other being the rims) so I'm a fair bit happier about the change.
The Tektro brakes and levers are unbranded, as is the Formula front hub and the AlexRims rims. Not surprising on a bike from a major maker, all branded bits are either Kona or Shimano. Tektro pads still suck in the wet, I'll probably snag some Kool-stops soon, at least for the front. I do love those R200 levers though, real comfy, and the brakes themselves are very good.
The seat is comfy so far, but I'd prefer a little setback on the seatpost. Bar wrap was well done, but the front brake housing is too short and is causing the tape on the bar to tear, will have to go and get that fixed (Yay for warranty)
The fork is very nice, I didn't realize that it was lugged steel rather than a unicrown, should have as it's the same fork as the Kapu lugged frame. The frame is TIG welded except for the dropouts, which are lugged. The frame has a pump peg, so carrying a frame punp should be little trouble.
Cosmetics are a mixed bag. The painjob is gorgeous, but the bike suffers from a severe lack of silver/chrome parts. Everything is black and that's just not as nice on classic style bike as silver/chrome, especially given the gorgeous baby blue metalic paintjob. The Stem is also fugly, being a big sqare lump.
The wheelset is the other real comprimise here. The hubs are decent, with a Formula front hub and Tiagra rear built up 32x3 with 15g spokes in the front and 14g in the rear to Alex Race24 rims. The rims are the weakpoint, as they're black with unmachined braking surfaces, meaning the finish will wear quickly at the braking surfaces, braking is less positive and you can feel the rim join when braking. Otherwise the wheels are a reasonably good set of low-end road wheels.