Building Xiaoiqin's Ritchey Montebello

 Last year, we purchased a Lynskey GR300 for Xiaoqin. But she never really liked the bike that much though she appreciated the SRAM Force electronic shifting, which was quiet, fast, and consistent. There were probably many reasons for this -- the frame was probably too overbuilt and stiff for someone in her weight class. The bike was about 4 pounds heavier than her Ritchey Road Logic (which at this point has nearly 8000 miles on it!), the fitting never quite got there. Furthermore, the SRAM Force gearing bottomed out at 30/36, which is still a higher gear than what her Road Logic had --- that along with the bigger tires meant that the highest gear was much too high and the lowest gear wasn't as low as what was on her Ritchey logic. I've long been convinced that manufacturers design road bike gearing for fit 25 year olds with good knees and SRAM while much better than Shimano in this regards is still inadequate.

So we sold it. We had several ideas for a replacement, since having wider tires would enable her to do rides that her Road Logic (with its 32mm max tire clearance) don't quite have sufficient clearance for. These were the Fairlight Strael, the Ritchey Montebello, or the David Kirk Onesto. The Montebello won because it was most available (the other frames had at least a 6 month wait). The Trump tariffs also made the Fairlight much more expensive than it otherwise would have been.

Taking advantage of some black friday sales, I bought a bunch of parts and had Velotech in Palo Alto put the bike together:

• Ritchey Comp Zeta Disc Wheels
• Shimano Duraace BB paired with 160mm Shimano 105 Cranks
• Wolftooth 38t narrow wide chainring
• SRAM Force Mullet Groupset (Force brake levers and brakes, X01 Eagle Rear Derailleur, XX1 Rainbow Cassette 10-52, SRAM Eagle XX1 chain)
• Thompson Elite Seat post
• Ritchey WCS Skyline handlebars
• Ritchey RL-1 84 Stem
• Specialized Power Arc Pro Elaston saddle
• SRAM Force 140mm brake rotors
• Rene Herse Barlow Pass tires 700x38

I used the Stem Reach Calculator to compute the correct stem length to bring the reach and stack as close to her Ritchey Road Logic as possible, but didn't realize that Wade had shortened her stem on the Ritchey logic on a previous visit. It turned out that the Montebello's stack height was tall enough, however, that she wanted the extra reach, and we ended up not having to leave as much of the stem stick out as we thought we would need.

I tried to stick to as many Ritchey parts as possible on this build, save for the stuff that I knew worked well or were similar to her Road Logic. In particular, I had noted that the Lynskey's SRAM Force BB and Crankset were painful to extract compared to the Shimano cranksets I was used to, so stuck with the Shimano. The 12 speed gearing also allowed me to use a slightly smaller chainring (38t) to grant both a lower low gear and a higher high gear than her Ritchey Road Logic. I also decided to go for 140mm brake rotors for more weight reduction, saving weight not only by using smaller rotors, but also by eliminating the need for the adapter required to match the rear brake with 160mm rotors.

I considered the Shimano Di2 wireless system --- now that they have a wireless rear derailleur that can handle a 10-51 cassette they were actually worth considering. But I ruled Shimano out because the microspline standard makes it hard to get standard road wheels (once again, Shimano makes life hard for people who like low gears on road bikes), and the Ultegra level road brifters on Shimano components comes not with carbon fiber blades but with metal blades. Over the years, I've discovered that carbon brake levers act as insulators instead of conductors and are key to being able to use short finger gloves (or no gloves) while riding in cooler conditions. I do not believe I can recommend modern Shimano components to anyone who's not racing. I've been watching fellow tourists all switch one by one to SRAM setups, and I think Shimano has seriously screwed themselves by deliberately segregating their road and MTB gearing systems.

The net result was that the Ritchey Montebello came in only 1kg heavier than her Road Logic, no mean feat given that disc brakes, wireless electronic shifting, and hydraulics all contribute significant weight to a bike, not to mention the heavier frame, which came in at a hair over 2kg, which was disappointing as her Road Logic came in at 1600g, which was 150g lighter than specified.

What impressed me the most about Velotech was the master mechanic, Tom (who's the only mechanic in the shop) assembled the first bike with disc brakes I've seen that doesn't squeal, no matter how sharply I braked on my test ride.

Xiaoqin reports that the bike felt very smooth and comfortable, but the true test of any bike is whether you ride it a lot, so we'll have to see what the long term outlook likes like.