Building Andrew's New Ti Bike

Andrew, Austin and Lindsay started building my new Ti bike. I decided to go the route of doing everything myself instead of going to the shop. Mainly to learn how to do it myself so I can save money. I knew we could do it since I had the master mechanics Lindsay and Austin helping out. I started off a couple days before doing some research on homemade tools since we didn't have any. The prices for new tools are ridiculous. I saved over 130 just making my own tools and another 130 on installation.

I started off taking out the headset myself with my homemade copper tool seen below. It took only 2 minutes to take it out. That went well.

Next was to install the headset. This one took us over an hour or two to do. I had made a tool from the internet that had a long bolt and two copper couplings. We kept running into problem because the bearing cups didn't go in straight. So I thought something was wrong with homemade tool. So we reverted to what Austin had done before and use some blocks of wood and hammering the headset in. Well, one side was so tight it kept going in crooked. We were getting frustrated and I started thinking maybe I should have gotten the profession tool ($80). After awhile, we decided that even though it was going in crooked, it will eventually straighten out if we keep hammering. I was nervous of doing some permanent damage but it worked. Next time I try, I think I'm going to try my original homemade tool.

Next task was the phil wood titanium bottom bracket. We installed the lockring on one side and no problems. Then we started the other side, and the lockring was getting really tight after screwing in only halfway. I was thinking, oh no, did the framemaker not thread this correctly. Or did we mess up the threading. After an hour of that, Lindsay (who stepped out for an hour) said that we needed to rethread it. This happened on his new frame. Apparently, with some new bikes, the threading maybe dirty or the builder didn't thread it enough times and needs to be rethreaded. So we brought it to the shop and he used a threading tool and in 10 minutes he was able to screw the lockring all the way. A big sigh of relief. I didn't want to send my bike back to the builder and really want to ride the bike today.

Heading back home we stopped by chipotle and got some fat burrito's. After some good eatin' we started building again. It only took a few minutes to finish the bottom bracket install. Luckily, everything else went really smooth.

Bike Build:
The new stuff was Quiring Ti Frame Single Speed with Paragon sliders, Ti Moots Seat Post, Middle 170mm Cranks, Ti Phil Wood Bottom Bracket. I switched 1/2 of stuff my old bike. Over the course of year, I plan on replacing these with some new wheels, titanium handlebar, stem, braided hose....all silver to match the Ti looks. And the Ti fork I had from previous bike but didn't use it originally because rigid was too harsh. But figured with Ti bike it might be not be as harsh ride....we'll see.