Alright, truth be told, we don’t even know for sure if this particular bike is going to NAHBs, but we do know that the maker of this bike, Mike Zanconato, is going to be one of the frame builders featured at NAHBs. “Race To NAHBs” just sounds really exciting, like Fox News is covering the story. “Coming up next: what you don’t know about NAHBs could kill you and your children!” If you look carefully at the above photo, you’ll see that it is a steel lugged frame with internally routed Shimano Di2. If you’re into the aesthetics of a bicycle enough to buy a hand built steel lug framed, then why not go the extra step and have your cables, whether they be electronic or not, routed internally?
Mike wanted to mock everything up to make sure it would work properly before finishing the frame, and it’s a good thing he did — there were issues getting the Di2 front derailleur braze on positioned to Shimano spec…
(More on that and a bunch of photos after the break.)
“I wanted to drill the holes for the wiring in as many thicker cast pieces as possible rather than just the tubing. For the spots on the seat tube and down tube where this wasn’t possible, I made some reinforcements for the holes.”
“I wanted to mock everything up and make sure that all is copacetic with the wiring before I finished up the BB area and seat stays.”
“I also had to make a front derailleur braze-on. Here’s the problem. A Max seat tube is very wide (approximately 36.5 mm) where the braze-on is placed. Putting a standard FD braze-on, which are meant to go on a 28.6 mm seat tube, on the tube positions the derailleur further away from the centerline of the bike compared to usual. This hasn’t been a problem for standard front derailleurs. There’s plenty of throw. Looking at the Di2 derailleur though, you can see right away that the cage does not go as far inboard as a standard derailleur. So what I did was make a tab and reinforcement and position it exactly to Shimano spec. This meant that the derailleur itself is very close to the seat tube but it is where it needs to be in relation to the crankset.”
“The goal for this bike was simple. Make a clean layout for the wiring and make it easy on the eyes. That meant tuck the battery away out of plain view.”
One issue with the Di2 is that the battery pack doesn’t look “clean.” Zanc seems to have found a solution to this problem.
The happy marriage of the old and the new.
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