I
already shared the photos of my wife's RTP frame custom finished by Cento and Tony Spray. Now a little bit more about the specs.
But firstly the frame size. Janet could ride either the XS or the S, but given her riding position and her desire to (or maybe my desire that she) ride more off-road too, the S with an 80mm stem was the way go to. A little more control and toe space, a little less seatpost extension, but comfort-wise the latter is more than compensated for with the tires anyway.
The cockpit is fairly common with the 3T Apto and Superergo LTD. The Superergo is the best-selling 3T bar and it fits so many people so well, and Janet is no exception. The handlebar tape is Fabric for absolutely no reason other than that I told Axel who built the bike to "use whatever you have". The seatpost is from Faserwerk and one we use on many of the OPEN complete bike builds now. It's nice, light, zero offset. It's also quite long, so in this case I could cut it quite a bit shorter rather than having it go down almost all the way to the BB.
The saddle is a bit of a strange story. It's from Trek's in-house component brand Bontrager and was recommended to me by the owners of the Rocacorba B&B when I visited last year. This is less random than it sounds, as Rocacorba is owned by Carl Pasio (a former triathlon pro) and Ashleigh Moolman (one of the best cyclists in the world and the world's first e-sports cycling world champ).
Rocacorba rents out high end bikes at their lodge and this is one of their most popular saddles for their female guests of all skill levels, so not just for pros. It also looks quite nice in comparison to many other woman-specific saddles. Since Janet wasn't super happy with her old saddle, I figured it was worth a try. So far so good. Don't be fooled by the fact that Trek markets this is as a triathlon saddle; this saddle is great for road and gravel as well.
Before I continue, I have to make a comment on the name of this saddle though. It's called Hilo, a town on the big island of Hawaii where the Ironman World Championships are held. Trek used to also have a triathlon bike named the Hilo, in fact it was their first dedicated triathlon bike. But the funny part is, Hilo has nothing to do with the race, it's completely on the other side of the island.
It's never really been revealed why that name was chosen, but I have my theory. One of the most popular triathlon bikes at the time was "my" Cervélo Eyre Tri. The Kilo frame design was almost an exact copy of that (we actually discontinued the Eyre Tri the same show they launched the Hilo, so they were a bit behind from the start). The other very popular triathlon bike back then was made by my arch nemesis (though by now good friend) Dan Empfield. His brand was Quintana Roo and the name Hilo was almost an exact copy of his most popular model's name: Kilo.
S
o by making it look like an (albeit old) Cervélo and naming it like a Quintana Roo, maybe they thought they could kill two birds with one stone. The Hilo never really became a big success, it got lost pretty much like you would be if you would go to Hilo to race the Ironman World Championships. In a way it's funny that they now have a Hilo saddle which is equally lost to the road and gravel market by labeling it as a triathlon saddle.
One last note on the saddle spec, the Hilo comes in a Comp and a Carbon version. The Comp weighs 430g, the Carbon over 100g less. The reason you see the Comp here is not because I don't love my wife enough but because the Carbon was impossible to get at the time. So yes, that is a heavy saddle for a road bike - which seems to be a theme for these two bikes I built - but you could take some weight out easily once supplies improve.
But back to the actual topic of this post! The drivetrain is Ekar, because it's light, sleek, simple with the 1x shifting and still all the gears she needs with the 13-speed cassette. She's running a 10-44T cassette so the bike is ready for everything including the toughest climbs and gravel (unlike the Ekar 9-36T I put on my MIN.D.). Wheels are the same HED Emporia GC3 Pro that are on that MIN.D. for the same reasons; as a tribute to Steve Hed who had a lovely visit with Janet and me here in Amsterdam the year before he passed away.
I already discussed the tire choice, leaving me to point out that for the tubeless setup, we used the HED valve and MucOff sealant. Final touches are the Elite Vico Carbon (see, I do love my wife, as I had 2 sets of Elite cages and I put the carbon ones on her bike and the injection molded cages on my own :-).
Weight comes out to 7.7kg, which given the tire size and the saddle boat anchor is very respectable I think.
