The Seven's still around, though I'm ashamed to say that I don't ride it as much as I'd like to. My Cateye OS computer rubs it in every time I hope on with a "Where have you been?" message. After a year's worth of ownership, I haven't broken 500 miles on this thing. In my defense, for half that time, it was in storage at a friend's house while I was out doing a bike tour of the California coast. When I got back from that trip, I was just too lazy to go pick it up (around 350 miles away). Added to that is the fact that I find that the riding in the immediate Washington D.C. area is nowhere near as nice as what lay outside my door while I lived in Madison. Biking here seems to be an event - where I have to drive to reach the open country roads; Wisconsin turned me into a road snob and I'm really not much of a fan of suburban bicycling.
Still, I have been able to form some opinions about this bike. The first one is that I fall in love with it again almost everytime I see it or have a chance to throw a leg over it. The bike fits well - especially when my body is in good riding form and I am able to lay out across the generous top-tube comfortably. The riding is a little quick, but that's because the bike has a very small amount of trail. One of these days, I'm going to see if I can find a way to replace the fork with something with a little less rake. That should lend a little more stability.*
I'd also like to get rid of the tubular rims and put on some clinchers. The sew-ups were nice, but the price of tires and the fact that they are not easy to repair quickly leads me to the very practical decision that inner tubes and clinchers are just a more sensible way to go. Especially since these days, some clinchers almost feel as good sew-ups.
Is it still light? With the proliferation of compact frames and ridiculously butted ultra-light tubesets - it can't hold a candle to all these new bikes that are coming in with frames less than 2 lbs. Still with a total bike weight of about 17 lbs, I can't very well complain.
The Bike is no longer "Neo-Classical" componentwise. I have switched out the Downtube shifters in leiu of some STI shifter/brake levers. The decision came after coming to terms that the bike wasn't really built for DT shifters despite the fact that I asked for DT bosses. The people at Seven most likely thought I only intended to use the bosses for STI barrel adjusters. As a result, the bosses were placed too far up the downtube. Everytime I went for a shift of the chainrings, my fingers played in the brake cable. It's okay, I have to admit that I've come to enjoy the "shifting at the fingertips" of STI and they really are quite dependable these days , especially within the higher echelons of Shimano's line-up.
The brake calipers are still the old Dura Ace single pivots. Really, Shimano's high-end dual pivot brakes leave much to desire as they are supremely flexy and not much lighter than a good, firm single pivot brake. Why did they do it? Who knows...
Well, the components are as follows:
| headset | Chris King, 1 1/8" threadless, silver, no logos |
| fork | Seven exclusive Wound-Up, 1 1/8" threadless carbon |
| handlebars | Deda 215, silver |
| stem | Deda Newton 26.0 |
| tape | Lemond, orange |
| hadlebar plugs | Velox, black rubber |
| bottle cage | Cuissi Elite, Stainless, (x2) |
| brake levers | Shimano Dura Ace ST-7700 |
| brake calipers | Dura Ace 7401, single pivots |
| seatpost | Seven exclusive Wound-Up carbon |
| saddle | Giro Fizik Poggio, orange |
| bottom bracket | Ultegra 6500 |
| crankset | Dura Ace 7700, 170mm |
| pedals | Speedplay X/1 |
| shifters | Dura Ace STI ST-7700 |
| front derailleur | Dura Ace 7700 |
| rear derailleur | Dura Ace 7700 |
| cassette | Ultegra 12-25 |
| hubs | Chris King, steel drive shell, silver |
| skewers | Salsa, silver, stainless |
| spokes | DT Competition, 15/16 nondrive, 14/15 drive |
| nipples | DT brass nipples | rims | Mavic Reflex, tubular, silver |
| computer | Cateye OS 1.0 |
The last thing - in the drive to set up a Neo-Retro bicycle I specified the geometry as follows:
| seat tube (c-c) | 52.5 cm |
| top tube (c-c) | 56.5 cm |
| seat tube angle | 73 degrees |
| head tube angle | 73 degrees |
| chainstay length | 41.5 cm |
| bottom bracket drop | 8 cm |
The goal was to make a bike that would be stable, yet still have the rear wheel close in enough to provide traction and acceleration. Since titanium frames can be manipulated to be both aggressive and comfortable, I had no qualms using "short" chainstays (many modern stays are under 41cm).
These pictures were taken during the first few hours after I took delivery of the bicycle. The componentry of the bicycle has seen quite a bit of change. I'm currently working on updating the pictures.
I've just taken the frame out from the box
These are pictures of how the Seven looks currently (that is, as of 5/25/02).
Front