It’s fun to watch our juniors grow from young kids with little experience into teenagers with potential. Ryan came from a swim background and after finishing high school and starting work he decided to save some money and pour it into his love of cycling. Having ridden his Argon 18 Gallium Pro for 15 months as a SRAM Rival 11sp mechanical groupset with Fulcrum 40mm alloy wheels, he decided it was time to upgrade, and what a way to do it!
The social media and press around the SRAM Red eTap AXS groupset made an impact and it was time to move up!
The frame was stripped, cleaned and built with his chosen groupset and wheels. We started by adding the shift levers in the same position as his old levers. This bike has been fit to the rider, so no point adding discomfort by changing or guessing where things should go. With levers on, we added the front and rear brake and ran the cables. With the cabling complete we added a CeramicSpeed BB86 Black Coated to help remove any friction at the core of the drivetrain. Making sure the hands are comfortable is a wrap of Supacaz Super Sticky Kush Red Silicone Gel bar tape. It certainly stand out against the black bars and the silver on the SRAM Red AXS eTap shift levers.
Slotting into the super smooth CeramicSpeed bottom bracket is the SRAM AXS 170mm Crankset sporting 48/35T front chain rings wrapped around a Quarq DZero AXS power meter. For this build we used the GXP crankset to make sure we had a good amount of bearing fitting the spindle into the narrower BB86 diameter bottom bracket standard. The 10-33T cassette was mated to a Zipp 404 rear wheel with an XDr driver body. Michelin Power Endurance tyres and tubes wrap the rear wheel and matching Zipp 404 front wheel. With gear ratio at 90rpm on 170mm cranks means it’s faster than a 52T front 11T rear, but he can climb like he has a 34T front, 32T rear. It’s a really impressive gear spread, while the narrow range on the front rings means smoother changes from large to small chain rings and back. Â
Overall, this is very clean and super fun rig to suit all aspects of his short course racing with the capability to tackle the largest climbs in the Victorian Alps at our end of year training camp. Nice bike Ryan!
