raw

Building this bike has been a headache...not the bike's fault, but mine, because I'm a moron:

(1) I still haven't settled on a permanent stem. Specialized gives nasty warnings about using stems with large cutouts on their carbon forks. The easy solution is to use a Specialized stem, but they only make them compatible with oversize handlebars, which I'm not fond of. I found a suitable stem (in a drawer of misc. stems at Merv's), but it's a heavy sucker. A good 1/4 lb heavier than a Ritchey 4-Axis.

(2) You'll notice in this last pic how short (too short) my cables are. I tried to recycle old housing--it wasn't that old--but it didn't work out. After I had the bars wrapped the front brake cable was pulled so tight that I couldn't keep the brake from rubbing the rim. Ended up having to cut new housing...and throwing out the new cable. Had to do the same thing with the front dérailleur cable.

(3) I screwed around with the chain too much (installed it without feeding it through the dérailleur and, rather than taking the dérailleur apart, which is what I should have done, I tried to break the chain and put it back together Shimano style...SRAM chains don't like that) and ended up snapping it right on that link that I was messing with one mile into my first test ride.

(4) And I haven't got my hands on any of that special non-slip stuff for carbon posts yet...so the post won't hold me and I still haven't had a decent ride on my new bike.

But...as you can see, it looks beautiful...

...

I've almost got the other bike completely TT-ized. I'm just missing bar end shifters. Then I can run all the cables and I'm all set.