I ride a Microshift group (ADVENT x) set and TRP Spyke (off-road version of the Spyre) brakes on my fat bike. (Winter ride made for 0 C to -30 C riding.) Here is what you are going to find, I think: Microshift shifters aren't as "short click" refined as higher end Shimano or SRAM. But, they do work and work well. The derailleur, however, is basically bombproof and very high quality. Shifts in 'clunk' gear changes like older SRAMs. TRP brakes are very good, maybe the best cable brakes around, but highly dependent on rotors and pad compounds. Running TRP's own rotors and popping in a more "bitey" pad will do wonders.
Thanks for the insights! Would you say those brakes are a good middle ground between rim brakes and hydraulic discs then? Especially in the wet, if you have tried?
@@hippo71124 The perfect middle ground is TRP's own Hy/Rds which are a cable hydraulic brakes. I would say of the pure cable brakes, Spyres/Spykes are among the best. Some people gush about Paul Klampers, but they have some issues that don't get talked about and they are expensive.
Check out the Growtac Equal mechanical brakes. They're said to be comparable to the Paul Klampers in terms of performance, but at significantly lower price.
I'm happy to see you groupset selection. I prefer cable actuated stuff for servicing. In regards to disc brakes, I absolutely love my Juin Tech GT-F cable actuated hydraulic calipers. Way better than all my hydraulic systems ( Deore and Rival). Pricey, but awesome.
I had a Cube Crossrace with the exact same TRP Spyre-C's and Rival 11x mechanical "Brifters". If you have true rotors, you can setup the brakes incredible aggresseive and powerful. I upgrades recently to hydraulic levers and brakes from the same Rival lineup (used with new hoses, pads an discs). Its a little better feeling and power wise, but iam not able to get the same initial bite i could with the mechanical TRP's. Now it is to late, but i would not spend the money again if i have the choice. The maintenance is or the ease of it is in another dimension.
comparison between the Fairlight Secan and Specailized Crux in both carbon and aluminum . I looking for a single bike that will fit my needs. Riding on mostly tarmac but occasional gravel, dirt trails. This will eventually become my mode of transportation to and from work.
Dig the bike and build. Just an idea: Campagnolo still makes top end rim brake versions of their groupset. Maybe you could build a bike with a modern rim brake campy groupset and then test it? 😊
The growing emphasis on electronic is so bizarre to me and goes against what bikes were meant to be. Not a problem having electronic but Shimano and SRAM thinking less and less about mechanical is ridiculous.
Fantastic looking frame! I did have those brakes, as cable disk seem to have largely frozen in time about a decade or more ago? I’d bought them as upgrade but for me still didn’t cut it and my gravel bike is a Tiagra/GRX mix but I suspect I’m quite a bit heavier so our experience may well vary! And to be fair they were largely okay on road.
For more and better braking options, I personally run a hybrid system on my Secan: a cable actuated mechanical hydraulic piston brake system by Juintech... I highly recommend them, the excellent braking power of hydraulics without the hassle of oils and the ugly phallic like brakelevers...
Repainting a steel bike and giving it new life is a very satisfying process. I did it with a 1986 Rockhopper a few years ago and still ride it regularly.
Well done Dave. The color is simply amazing and the new fork looks great! Nothing like a refresh for a deserving reliable steed. Looking forward to an update on the performance of the tires and brifters. Enjoy that 600k adventure.
Great to see the steel Secan! Great choice of groupset too! A much better value than an electronic groupset. Yes, Paul Klampers are great mechanical disc bakes, as are Growtac Equals. Both are likely superior to the Spyres. I've been considering the Fairlight Faran as a possible future purchase. I prefer steel and titanium bikes to carbon fibre personally.
Trp spares are underwhelming. You can stop but they need a lot of attention. I have replaced them on two bikes with Juin Tech F1's, cable operated hydro's they are soooo much better. Not as good as full hydro but much better than full cable.
sry either prices are different in UK or you got scammed. here a powder coating costed me 120€ inkcl. VAT with all RAL colors available. 20€ up-charge for all chameleon and/or glitter colors. Update: And it includes the sandblasting.
@@AJackal what do you mean with vital clear coat? I did it Matt so I think with powder coating you don't need a matte clear coat. But yh if I would have decided for glossy I would have gotten a clear coat on top
Great paint! Looks as good as the factory Fairlight finish! My Secan is currently left unbuilt after stealing the parts to build a road bike up. I have plans for winter and planning on a more offroad build ( 1 X,650b wheels and new 12 speed GRX). Also going with a wider flare bar( looking at PNW 48cm). What width are you running by the way? Used a flare before but was never quite happy but gonna try a wider one which will hopefully do the trick!
My gravel bike came with avid BB 5s and as I wanted some upgrade, I went for TRP Spyres. And I was very underwhelmed with the quality of the bolts. I am using WERA tools and I managed to strip both brake pads retention screws when removing them. The bolds were made of very soft metal. Than I replaced them with TRP HY/RD and they performed very well. You just need a good compressionless housing to make the levers feel good.
Firstly, the bike looks fantastic. I'm a real fan of steel. We recently had my wife's lightweight road bike resprayed at Atlantic Boulevard. Great job for £400. We run TRP Spyres on our winter road bikes. MUCH easier to live with than the hydraulics on our gravel bikes. Obviously the brake pads make a lot of difference - we use ceramics from Noah & Theo. Not as powerful as hydraulics (perhaps somewhere between them and good road calipers) but brilliant on a winter road bike mainly ridden in the Peak District....MUCH better than calipers in the wet. Great to see you talking about less exotic groupsets. Thanks.
I own a Kona Rove with a 2x9 Shimano Sora groupset, which is also mechanical and budget friendly. When I need something serviced, it’s always very cheap compared to what friends pay for their high end materials. And I’m not sure if a better groupset would improve my cycling life.
Wow what a beautiful build David looks fabulous wow.. I’m glad that you’ve gone mechanical that’s what I ride to, it’ll be great to see your thoughts on this group set, brakes etc.. check out growtac and Paul clamper, also trp hydraulic cable.. I remember when you first got the bike.. Pete 😊🚴🏻👍
Love this practical build. The Spyre is fine, I have it on one bike but the Growtac brakes are gold. Even better in fact than my older GRX to Hope four piston caliper brakes. Obviously a lot better than simple Shimano ones. Only Campy comes close but nothing is better than a well set up good mechanical brake. Enjoy the build.
Great looking bike. Well done on the color. In terms of the mechanical brakes, TRP makes a hydraulic caliper, HYRD that can be a used with a mechanical setup. Never tried them, but I understand they work very well.
Nice to see it back. Those TRP calipers are top notch, I have the same and have had no problems with stopping power. Just keep on top of the adjustment. Remember, when the pads wear down you need to wind them in a bit (unlike hydro's). I also looked at the Paul calipers, but at the time they were a single sided piston. Unlike the TRP's. Although I'm not sure if they've changed now.
Mentioned a couple of places here, but both juintechs and growtacs are fantastic. I have used both with the sword levers and they’re as close as I’ve seen to hydraulic. Both are a huge, huge step up from the spyres, which I’ve also tried. I ended up sticking with the growtacs bc they’re fully mechanical and super easy to maintain (as would be the klampers). As a bonus they’re quite a bit lighter than the klampers.
The frame paint looks great! And long live mechanical groupsets... very interested to hear how you think the mechanical disc brakes compare to rim brakes and full hydraulic disc brakes.
Love the new frame colour. Looking at a new steel framed gravel bike. Narrowed it down to a secan, mason exposure or building up a ritchy outback. Wondered what your thoughts are?
Juin Tech F1 are the best road/gravel mechanical disk brakes. That said, spyres are good and I see no need for hydraulic. For me, the real advantage of disc brakes is that discs are more suitible for carbon wheels.
TRP cable disc are fine. Better than rims when loaded with bags, easy to set-up and adjust. I think mech disc got a bad name with single piston kit. dual piston is great and way less hassle than hydro
I own both the Spyres and the Klampers. The latter are far more powerful and more appropriate for the gravel bike they’re on then the former, which are on my road bike. Spyres kinda feel like rim brakes, so if you want that old school feel, I’d recommend them.
Have you ever been applying any pressure near the nose of the saddle?... No, so it can be left away. Shorter saddles tend to be a little wider even throughout the nose. The idea is to give the rider the possibility to sit further forward for high intensive sections in addition to the normal riding position. I don't see how a longer saddle will do any better because you shouldn't be using that long thin nose. if you are sitting there then you need to adjust bike fit.
Since i’m partial to steel bikes it’s refreshing to see you going in that direction and bringing this one new life with the beautiful paint. Ditch the cable disc’s and go rim brakes!
Great video David and the paint job is wicked!! The TRP HY/RD cable actuated hydraulic brake calipers are money! I’ve owned them and put a several thousand kilometres on them year round. I never should have sold them but a new build required some parts liquidation 😂. If you do switch your calipers out you won’t ever regret the HY/RD’s.
David. You might want to try a pair of Juin Tech cable actuated mechanical disc brakes. They’re a Taiwanese company and their products do seem to garner decent reviews. A pair costs approximately £150. And I run MicroSHIFT’s Advent X on my mountain bike. It shifts well and is dead easy to maintain and adjust.
microShift Sword shifters pull the same amount of cable as Shimano 10-speed MTB shifters, which means they can be paired with any Shimano 10 or 11-speed mountain rear derailleurs but not RD-4700/5800 ... etc. 8-10s road and 8-9s mountain derailleurs have 1.58 ratio, again not compatible with Sword shifters (they need derailleurs with 1.05 ratio. If you're looking for cheap 10-speed road shifters, you may consider Sensah Team Pro (RD-4700 compatible) or Phi (for Shimano 1.58 ratio). There's also L-Twoo R7 that is compatible with RD-4700. microShift have 2x10 road shifters that are compatible with Shimano road: Centos SB-R502E & SB-R502B, but they're old models and not commonly available.
Next winters build project is converting my work commuter into a Gravel build with Microshift Sword. As far as brakes go, I'd rather recommend hybrid hydraulic. Cable pull but the caliber uses hydraulics to push the pads. Juin Tech (Yokozuna) or TRP Hy/Rd. simple to install and offers better modulation than pure mechanical.
I’ve just starting using a Sword 1x10 groupset on my cx/all-road bike. It’s actually quite nice. One thing people overlook is how forgiving 10speed is to wear, setup and any imperfections in the system (like say a slightly off derailleur hanger). Just before this I was running Force AXS 1x12 and could never get it to index properly. Potentially because of a slightly misaligned hanger. But it’s way too expensive of a groupset to perform as poorly as it did. Sword is much nicer and easier to live with in that way, tbh.
@jonamcc I dont understand how you couldn't index it properly. It's such an easy group to set up so well. Def had to be that der hanger. I've set up so many 12 speed axs setups. Works great
I bought my Secan following your review all those years ago. Absolutely love it. I've gone the same way with cable 1x GRX and Paul Components Klamper brakes, which are bonkersly brilliant! . Had some paint and corrosion issues and Fairlight replaced my frame under warranty with no hassle. Great service and now have a new bike with the new forks. Can't recommend this bike enough. 👍
Hey - thanks for the comment. I'm planning the Klampers for my coming build of a secan 2.5 Could you share some thoughts and observations please. Thanks
@@carstengaard They are really good. Great modulation, very powerful and easy to maintain. I just don't think of them as cable brakes. Only downside is cost but then you're buying a high quality product that will last for years. High;y recommended.
Would love to see an in depth review of the Microshift Sword 2x10 groupset and the spyres . I've had my eye on both for when I rebuild my bike , so would value your opinion .
