General: Another Build Thread!

There's a certain frame that's been in the shop I work at for around a year or so that I've had my eye on. It was custom made for the owner (who happens to also be 6'5" with long legs) but he eventually decided he wanted the same bike but with a slightly shorter top tube to be more upright, so he put this one up for sale and had a new one made. I was saving money to eventually purchase it, but my parents, who were in cahoots with the seller and the owners of my shop, ended up purchasing it for me as a Christmas gift! They were really sneaky about it too, and picked it up after I left work on Christmas Eve (if they had done it before, I would've noticed it was gone). And one of the customers who frequents the shop ended up contributing money towards the frame because he's very generous.

Now, onto the bike! It's modern, it's American, it's lugged, buuuut... it's not steel! Take a guess on what it might be! I'll post some teaser pics, along with my build plan, in a bit :)

Well that didn't last long haha. Yep, it's a Parlee Z1!

Yeah, it's my first frame made in the 2000's, my first frame with a 1 1/8 headtube and threadless fork, and my first frame that's carbon!! I'm really excited to build it. My current plan is to take the Chrous parts from my Bianchi and transfer them to this. And I'm still thinking about wheels, seatpost, bars, and stem. Ideally I'd go for an ENVE post, stem, and bars and Mack hubs laced to ENVE tubular rims. But, ENVE stuff is very pricey... What I'll probably end up doing is use my 3T Ergonova LTD bars (they have a tiny amount of crash damage, so a customer had them replaced and I ended up with them). Then go for Thomson stem and bars. And there's a tubular Edge rim that's been in the shop for like 2 or 3 years now, and I'll see if I can buy it off my boss. So that wheelset might happen. I certainly hope it does, because it would be really, really, really awesome.

That's sweet man! I've never dipped into threadless or carbon either. I like my quills/threaded, I may give it a sot some day. I like it on certain applications. That frame is awesome.

Shouldn't be a problem. I've recovered some saddle's myself. You could always put something on here seeing if someone wanted to trade a black for your white...

I guess it could look good if I do Enve parts, because they have big white logos.

That parlee is so nice!

Thanks guys!

So, I brought the Bianchi and Parlee to work and moved all the parts over!



The Shamals, seatpost (which I don't have a shim for yet, so I used a light mount to just rest it in the seattube to get an idea of what it looks like), saddle, and stem are all temporary. I still want to do full ENVE stuff, but it's so expensive... I've got a shim on order, so I'll probably just leave it like this for a while until I can get the money for ENVE stuff. I could also do 3T, which would match the bars... What do you guys thinK?

That's definitely a good looking one. I think I might like the billboard graphics more than what I have...

I didn't even consider an Ambrosio Nemesis build... That would absolutely killer. I do want to get a set of Mack Superlights though. So maybe a Nemesis/Mack wheelset? Not going with flippin' $800 (EACH!) Enve rims would save a lot of dough. I love everything about Enve seatposts though, so I think that eventually I'll have to get one. I'm moving lots of parts and bikes around, so that wheelset doesn't seem to hard to obtain. And I think hard ano Ambrosios and gumwalls would make this a really unique build. And the bike looks really big because most of my other bikes have short top tubes. Or in the GTB's case, it has a sloping top tube that makes it look less gigantic. Thanks a bunch for the comment, it's really got me thinkin'.