Introducing: Noble Steed 3

Noble Steed 3 - Literally straight out of the shop

Not so long a go I posted a little bit of nonsense about my commuting/hack bike called The Mule. Well here's some more, this time about my summer bike.

In an earlier velog I explained a bit about how this bike became the 3rd generation of Noble Steed and it's gone through a fair bit of change in the time that I have owned it. This picture above was taken on the day I picked it up and at the time this was the spec:

It is a 53cm (size M) frame with carbon fork and steerer. The drive-train is FSA Tempo with 175mm cranks and 34/50 chainrings. Groupset wise it came with entry level Shimano Claris - 2 x 8 (11-28) and Tektro rim brakes. The wheels were Mavic CXP22 with Vittoria Zafiro tyres but these were upgraded because of a fault for Mavic Aksiums and Mavic Yksion Elite Guard tyres (25 front and 28 rear).

Noble Steed 3 - At the Isle of Wight Randonnee 2018

The bike was run in this spec until late on in 2018. The only real purchase following its arrival was a decent headunit and went for the Garmin Edge 520 to properly record the data from my trips out, which was further improved with the addition of a heart rate monitor and cadence sensor. I would like a power meter, not that I really need one, and I think the costs would be prohibitive anyway.

The last real outing was September last year when I took part in the Wiggle New Forest 100. A great event and I got lucky with the weather, which was glorious and it was my first ever century ride.

As the nights started to draw in and weather started to worsen, Noble Steed 3 was retired to the bike shed and over the preceding months until now has undergone somewhat of a transformation.

The most significant upgrade but also the cheapest (believe it or not) was the groupset. I opted to only change the derailluers, shifters and rear cassette. The lucky thing was, my daughters boyfriend had upgraded the groupset on his Trek to the new Shimano 105. He gifted me the older version off his bike in exchange fro the Claris components from Noble Steed 3, which he wanted to sell. So it was now has Shimano Sora 2 x 10 shifters and 105 mechs with a 11-30t rear block, which was useful as it gets pretty lumpy round these parts.

The shifters themselves had seen had few walls in their time. I gave them a good service and once happy they were in good order, they were rubbed down and masked off and the levers were sprayed VW Diamond Black and the bolt covers were sprayed Peugeot Blaze Yellow. Happy with the result and having some left over, the Garmin mount got the same treatment.

Next up was sorting the the cabling. The accepted wisdom being that if you strip down the bike replace all the cables, that way you'll get good clean shift and powerful stopping power out of the brakes.

I love the bike in white and really like the monochromatic look with the bars and saddle etc contrasting against it. I decided to have gold as an accent colour here and there but to keep the monochrome look I got hold of some black gear and brake cables along with some gold ferrules and cable ends.

Because of a wheel failure on The Mule I was forced into buying some new wheels. My intention was to pick up a cheap set on the second hand market and leave Noble steed 3 with the Aksiums. However, a DECENT set of Shimano RS31s came up for £60 that had only been on a trainer and were shod in Continental GP 4000s.

I snapped the guys hand off and picked them up. I had other plans for the tyres so stripped the Conti's off along with the tubes and cassette and sold the lot along with my old rear wheel from The Mule for about £50.

A quick flick through Tredz website and I bought myself some new Shimano RP5 shoes, Specialized Airnet MIPs lid, Vittoria Corsa Control gumwall tyres (28c), a pair of Elite Vica Carbon bottle cages and some Deda bartape.

I have ridden it with the new tyres and they are a comfy way to roll about but a pain in the arse to get on and I was most displeased about having bladed spokes, having slipped and smashed my hand into the spokes a few times.

Oh......and I said I wanted gold as an accent colour. Well I had to get a KMC gold chain.

And one for the bike vault...

That's all for now.