The New Nightmare (Of the Trek Variety)

RIP to Wes Craven. I've always loved horror movies, and Freddy (at least the first few films) has always been on top of that list. Scream came out about the time I was becoming a teenager and re-invigorated me to watch when I said "I'll be right back," lest I get stabbed in the dark!

Best cameo ever

Speaking of Nightmares, The Speed Concept continues to prove a challenge to my mechanical prowess. After becoming a self taught prodigy on the adjustment and tuning of the rear brake, my new challenge has been the rear derailleur, or specifically, making Nokon cables work with it.

The Speed Concept (at least the 1st gen) is the only bike I've ever applauded and cursed the design of at nearly equal levels. It's clear Trek was on their A-Game when it came to making a fast bike. Unfortunately, it seems that with that seemingly sole focus they eschewed anything resembling "user-friendliness." This bike was designed for you to build and ride it the way they sent it to you (err...your dealer) preferably with Di2 I suspect.(which admittedly would have made cabling a ton easier.)

The problem I ran into with my Nokons...after of course crafting my own top tube cable holder so that the concept would even work... was that it was tough to apply sufficient tension to the housing without pulling said housing through the frame. At bottom bracket the chance of the housing getting gummed up seemed like an absolute. Numerous times I'd get it pulled to what I thought was a sufficient tension, only to have it turn out that after a cycle of shifting I'd have cable sticking out the end of the shifter. Then I'd find extra slack and the entire process would start over. Did I mention that to route a cable through the liner successfully I had to drill a larger hole in the bottom bracket guide, and that to make that sharp turn all the nokon links had to be removed from the exit of the chainstay so the cable could have enough slack to allow the tight bend. Not for the feint of heart I assure you. Many beers were consumed and curses made in the name of making it work.

However, the final outcome was never in question. I knew I would eventually get it to work so long as my sanity didn't fail me, and so now it's ready for a fitting and to be put through it's paces! Huzzah! Next project! Here's the finished pics!

Probably not the race wheels of choice in the end, but otherwise built as I wanted.

The back end ;)

There's a lot of goofy text on there... like "hold my beer and watch this"

A little view of the top cap and the continued pirate theme

I'm actually on my way back to Dragoncon on Friday, so hopefully I'll have some cool pictures to share next week! Wish me luck in surviving!

Thanks so much for reading, I really appreciate it!