Waltly Titanium Gravel/Road Disc - a year in updates & thoughts

[tumbler]

Very nice. Looks like a fun ride. Hoping to do something like that myself soon.

[ColonelJLloyd]

Originally Posted by Bonesbrigade

I'm loving my Switchback hills, but thinking of adding a tread option to my arsenal - Byways or a little more aggressive with the terrene Elwoods (light version) or even the gravel king SKs.

If you need the tread, get 2.1" Liteskin Thunder Burts or whatever tire is replacing it in the lineup. The WTB tires just aren't as nice/supple/smooth as the Liteskin T Burts or SBH. I've tried them and came right back to SBH. And unless your SBH are slipping somewhere stick with them. IMO, of course.

[MaraudingWalrus]

Originally Posted by Bonesbrigade

Nicely done! I'm also curious about the spacer situation since you would have known your stack height needed.

Tell me about the byways. What kind of terrain have you been riding them on, what pressure and can you compare them to any other 650x47s?

I'm loving my Switchback hills, but thinking of adding a tread option to my arsenal - Byways or a little more aggressive with the terrene Elwoods (light version) or even the gravel king SKs.

I am not really sure why I went with the Byway as opposed to the Horizon. Where I ride, and at the slowness at which I travel, there's not really need for tread. Once upon a time I was moving faster a year or two ago, and a bit of side knob like the byway has would be useful.

Pavement, coquina gravel roads, regular dirt roads. Seems to work alright.

[MaraudingWalrus]

Originally Posted by veggieburger

Very nice! I'm also curious - did you price out a Ti fork? If so, do you recall the additional fee for it? thx!

I did not for this bike...however I do have a quote for a Ti fixed gear frame, and I asked for a price for a fork. They quoted $200 for that fork, and $750 for that frame (custom geo, bottle mounts x2, belt split).

I'd guess most forks are somewhere around there in price, and I'm basing that guess on zero facts.

[doomridesout]

Any updates on this thing? What's the chainstay length and how's the tire clearance around the 650b setup?

[Hakkalugi]

I have several Waltly frames (3: road, gravel, and my wife’s bike), all coupled and capable of 650bx42 and/or 700cx40. One would clear 700x50 if I had planned on interference with the eTap front battery better. I would not hesitate to buy from them again. Welds and finish quality are excellent. I got exactly what I asked for and am very pleased with them.

[MaraudingWalrus]

Originally Posted by doomridesout

Any updates on this thing? What's the chainstay length and how's the tire clearance around the 650b setup?

Chainstay length is 430 - just saw that reply, sorry. From memory it seems like I'd have room for probably 650x 55-60s or so? Which I feel like we'd call 2.2" at that point.



really digging the bike. Finally put a few updates on the bike as far as other random gear is concerned.





Got a fabric cageless keg for the third bottle cage mount. Beacause of it's attachment mechanism, it seem sot sit a little further towards the BB than a keg in cage combo, and has a fairly slim lid, which means I have better clearance around the tire than with an elite byasi (which has a tall lid). It also has a little sleeve on the inside that has a pull tab, so you can put all the stuff in the sleeve, and easily fish it all out. nice touch.










I also finally got my crank brothers 3 bolt shoe adaptor modified to work with my Ritchey Micro Road cleats. It was a great excuse to go buy a dremel tool, which is always a good thing. In my tradition of doing funky things, I am running Ritchey Micro Road pedals with the Giro Empire SLX shoes. I have a couple pairs of shoes, so these will be good for rides where I know I'll be on the road the whole time, but the bumper part allows me to walk around some if I need to - I at least won't slip and die walking to open the car to get the street shoes. I have a set of reflective Giro Republics which I love for gravel rides, and I've had an artist buddy, Ross Piper, do some doodling on them and they look phenomenal (here's an instagram video showing them) will use those unless I think I'll hikeandbike through a swamp, where I'll dig out the ancient MTB shoes. Would hate to sully Ross's work on the Republics...



Dremeled out some space towards the inside corners of the rear of the bumper, and a bit here the SPD style cleat extends laterally in its middle, as well as shaving to fit around the spindle a bit more.



The crank brothers cleat this is designed to work with doesn't have the flare laterally, it's just a rectangle.

[CiclistiCliff]

Looks great!

I had a customer that went Waltly custom, and boy, that was a disaster. The first fork they sent had the flat mount out of spec, so you couldn't get the brake pads parallel with the rotor. The second fork they sent was horrendous. Customer ended up buying a Whisky fork.

The frame flat mounts for the caliper were too far in, so it had to be sent back to be corrected. They said they didn't modify it, but when it came back you could tell the bores had been milled.

It's definitely budget Ti, and it's noticeable when you place it next to a Seven, but the customer has been loving his.

The biggest concern I have is the derailleur hanger. That thing won't ever bend, so you better have an extra derailleur floating around....

[oldpotatoe]

Wonder if they are the same builders as these..

https://www.habcycles.com/

[MaraudingWalrus]

Originally Posted by oldpotatoe

Wonder if they are the same builders as these..

https://www.habcycles.com/

Possible it's out of the same place. Who knows. Waltly has been at it long enough to have had a couple others spin off, including Titan, with whom my frame I'm currently waiting on is ordered...and Titan has been a standalone thing for like five years already.

I know Titan are out of Xi'an (sort of central China, very inland - if you drew an equilateral triangle with one leg being roughly vertical from Beijing to Shanghai, Xi'an is at the third point), and Waltly are out of Xiamen, mainland China directly northwest of the island of Taiwan.

I don't see where in China the Habs originate, but if it's one of those two places, it's likely the same.

[MaraudingWalrus]

Finally got this bike back together - had lent out the shifter to finish a build for a customer while their parts were backordered to do their ride that weekend....took months for me to get mine back, not doing that again.

Also first ride on the new wheels I built up! Aivee MP2 hubs laced to Edge 2.68 tubulars with Specialized Sworks Hell of the North tubulars. Ride of these wheels and tires is phenomenal.

Also need to track down another Cambium saddle, as I've stolen mine off this bike to ride on my belt drive fixed gear.

[macaroon]

What's going on with all the stem spacers?

If it's custom, why not spec a longer headtube?

Or even just use a stem that angles upward?

[MaraudingWalrus]

Originally Posted by macaroon

What's going on with all the stem spacers?

If it's custom, why not spec a longer headtube?

Or even just use a stem that angles upward?

I think I said up thread somewhere, the bike already has a medium tall headtube for its length for one, so much more and it'd start looking silly. More relevant, the headtube height is such that if I do get back into better shape, and am more comfortable in a lower position, the stem nearly slammed will be where my bikes were a couple years ago when I was racing and riding a lot more.

[macaroon]

Originally Posted by MaraudingWalrus

I think I said up thread somewhere, the bike already has a medium tall headtube for its length for one, so much more and it'd start looking silly. More relevant, the headtube height is such that if I do get back into better shape, and am more comfortable in a lower position, the stem nearly slammed will be where my bikes were a couple years ago when I was racing and riding a lot more.

Fair one! I only skimmed the thread.

[MaraudingWalrus]

A year+ in I really dig this bike - a lot. It's shown no issues, which is to be expected. I charged it once, maybe twice - can't really recall. Probably haven't actually needed to charge it but about 0.9 times, but have done so for peace of mind reasons.

As the thread indicates in several places, I have a stack of spacers above the headtube. I hadn't been riding much in the last year, but the past month have been back on the wagon so to speak, so there are some signs of bringing the bars down a spacer in the future. So that's nice.

The multiple wheelsets thing is a fun time. The bike is totally capable as a road bike with "normal" wheels and tires, either the onyx wheelset or the Aivee/Edge tubular wheelset. With the "road plus" wheelset it is a bit slower feeling, and I think that pans out in actual speed to. But definitely really a blast to ride with the bigger tires/smaller wheels. Really capable on rougher stuff, especially with looser surfaces. I put some of the finish line sealant in the WTBs a couple months ago, once the other stuff had totally dried out. The customers I have put that stuff in their bikes have enjoyed it.

I really like the Paul Set and Forget through axle skewers, although they have required a bit of maintenance to stay feeling smooth - a bit of corrosion has crept in on the cam mechanism and required some lubrication.

I also believe my two sets of the Ritchey Micro WCS pedals make up like 15% of the entire supply of them out in the world. I really dig them. Small with good clearance over obstacles etc. They seem to shed mud well enough, plus they're a bit different than what everyone else has on their bikes.

There are two foibles I have encountered with running a plurality of wheelsets, each centered around the fact that the three hubs are not all going to be perfectly identical in their spacial positioning of both their endcaps or their rotor placement.

The rotors are in the same place in the White Industries and Onyx hubs (both centerlock), so that swap is easy from that regard, and the rotors just move between those two wheelsets. But in the Aivee hubset (which are 6bolt and have their own set of rotors), the rotors are fractionally more inboard. I have solved that with some 6bolt rotor spacers for those hubs.

The second "issue" is with the "overlocknut" dimension of the three wheelsets being each slightly different - the joy of the Paul Set and Forgets is that you get to have the skewer positioned in the same spot every time perfectly. Once you set it, you can forget how to adjust it, or that you even need to. If you're swapping around a pile of different wheels, you've got to adjust the set and forgets each time - and during the elapsed time you may have forgotten how to adjust them.

I also managed to squish and etube wire while futzing around with the seatpost - I'd picked wires all a bit more than a bit longer than I measured needing, on the better safe than sorry mantra. When putting the seatpost back in one time I evidently rolled the excess wire going up to the battery up between the seatpost and seattube.

Other etube notes, the Y-Wire is interesting in the handlebars - running from the bar end junction on the right side to the lefthand lever, with the extra end popping out the center of the bar into the stem to the wireless unit. If I were building again, I'd probably run one of those Y-Wires from the B-Junction to the front and rear derailleurs, just to have less wires for no real reason.

I have had the WU111 (inline bluetooth/ant+ adaptor) in the stem, and have never had any connectivity issues despite what Shimano says about making sure it's outside any tubing. It's silly, but I enjoy having the gear info available should I go poking for it through the pages of the computer - confirms that I am indeed fat and out of shape when I want another gear. I mostly like it for it showing the battery status indicator on the computer. It always confirms that I do not need to charge the thing yet.

I can also imagine picking up one of the RX derailleurs to replace the stock 6870 one - it's been a little bit slappy on some rougher rockier roads I've found. I also do quite like the look and feel of the R8070 shifters I put on another bike I built up for a customer. They're a bit slimmer, which fits my hands a bit nicer, plus the buttons on the tops are fun. Paging through the functions on the computer sounds amusing as well. I may get a set of those, and pass the shifters and derailleurs on to a friend who will be building up a bike soon.

One of these days I'll grab a titanium stem, as well - although I'm not looking forward to the task of drilling a hole in that for an etube wire to pop through. I've temporarily liberated a steback Thomson post from my father's bike while w're messing around with the fit on his bike to try and help correct some issues he's having so that has staved off my grabbing of a ti seatpost as well.