Can I be annoying about this bike I built for a second?

 I've been biking for a while now. I started up at some point in College when my chronic foot tendonitis developed into a dysfunction and ensured running would never be an option for me again. At that point I was a broke student who "borrowed" her dad's old road bike to stay in shape. But when COVID hit, it kind of turned into an obsession.

An old Peugot bike I restored and used as a commuter in college

  Over the years I've developed a solid base of mechanic skills, both out of necessity (bike shops charge insane prices for stuff you can do yourself in ten minutes) and out of curiosity. All through this time I've had the little thought in my head of building my own bike. Like a good bike. A carbon fiber bike. 

 So, around spring last year, I started looking for frames online and was instantly disappointed. The big name retailers nearly never sell the frameset (bike frame + fork) alone for the kind of bike I was looking to build. Typically the frames they provide are for extremely premium aero bikes or high performance racing builds. Neither of which I was trying to make. 

 Eventually I found the ICAN A9. 

 

 Pretty much exactly what I was looking for. Lightweight, carbon fiber, inexpensive, works with mechanical groupsets, but has plenty of room for upgrades down the line when I can afford them. On top of all that, it came in this gorgeous white, yellow, and blue paint scheme that I loved.

completed frameset, fresh coat of paint :)

 Frame in hand, I was ready to build! I sourced a groupset from my old bike, a complete Shimano 105 R7000, cranks and brakes included. I set up a workspace in an unused corner of my apartment building's basement and got to work tearing down my old bike for parts. 

my old bike, stripped bare

 

A box of parts to be reused

 With the easy part down, it was time to get everything onto the new frame. The big issue was that this new bike had cables that were completely internally routed, meaning the only time a cable ever saw the light of day was when it had to connect to a derailleur. That, unfortunately, also includes the handlebars. 

4-5 hours later, cables routed.

 If you've never worked on a bike, connecting the cables to the shifters is usually pretty easy. You pretty much just plug them in and then tape the cables to the handlebars to be wrapped with bar tape later. It's maybe a 20 minute job. This bike came with a special kind of handlebar that worked with the bike's internal cable routing to keep the cables inside the handlebars until they poke out at specific spots to be connected to the shifters. Routing the cables through this handlebar is a nightmare. It took me five hours over two days to get the cables routed properly. If I ever have to replace a cable in this I might just swap handlebars to a traditional stem/bar combo instead of the integrated one here. I will say it looks sick though, so maybe it was worth it. 

Honestly after that struggle, everything else came together pretty quickly. Bikes are actually not that complicated and not that difficult to work on so once the hard part of cable routing was done everything else kind of snapped together.

  

nasty ass basement

my assistant

 I got the bike to the point that all I needed to do was attach the chain and tune the derailleurs and my motivation dried up. At this point winter had started in earnest and I wouldn't be out riding on the roads with this bike anyways, so I wasn't in any rush to finish the thing. But as spring crept in and work got stressful, I finally had some time off to finish it up and take it for a ride. 

finished!

 This is the first bike I've ever built completely from scratch! It's also the first time I've owned a carbon fiber bike. I totally get why cyclists get weird about making everything carbon fiber now, the weight difference between this one and my aluminum bike is gigantic. It feels light and snappy to ride, and the material difference means the roads feel a little less rough. 

 I'm super proud that I finished the project too! I have way too many half finished projects laying around my house and sitting in Github repos so dragging this one across the finish line feels really good. There are already several upgrades that I'd like (electronic shifting, carbon wheels...) but those will have to wait a while since everything bike related is expensive at this point. 

 That's it! Thanks for reading, thanks for letting me be annoying for a little bit. I promise this isn't a bike blog, I just do a lot of biking and love talking about it! I have been listening to Gretel's new album Squish recently, I really like it. I think my Gretel album ratings are:

1. Slugeye
2. Squish
3. Head of the Love Club

 The Boston Marathon is on Monday, it's going to be a rainy weekend, and I have a little "staycation" to enjoy. Have a nice day!