As the title, with any luck I’ll be receiving a new bike frame soon and I’ll be building it up myself. Pretty new to biking but like tinkering in general so looking forward to it. Think I’ve got all my components but after any tips from the experienced on what bits and bobs are useful and any potential pitfalls a rookie could stumble into.. Things like tool recommendations and different grease/lubes for each job would be much appreciated.
It’s a steel hardtail with a threaded bottom bracket and the headset will come pre installed.
Thanks in advance!

things i always forget on builds which then lead to a last minute trip to the bike shop:

gear cable
cable ferrules
barb & olives for shortening brake hoses
quick link for chain
enough stem spacers

if you haven’t got a decent work stand already, get one, it’ll make your life so much easier. that as well as decent cable cutters and decent hose cutter for brakes. i always seem to use a large amount of cable ties as well for some reason

other than that, take your time and you tube is your friend and it’ll be fine

Don’t forget as well when you shorten the brake cables you will probably end up having to bleed them so I would get a bleed kit.

Prepare to swear a lot at the internal routing if you have it and on some frames it might be easier to route your cables before you install the bottom bracket cranks and headset as you have more access.

things i always forget on builds which then lead to a last minute trip to the bike shop:

Can I add tubeless valves & sealant to the list? Also grips…

Decent workstand and an understanding of the basics – plenty of how to’s on youtube from Park Tool or GMBN.
Make sure the threads are clean on the BB shell and put them in the correct side and remember that drive side has a left hand thread.
Other than a workstand a decent set of hex wrenches and a torque wrench.

Good luck – it’s a great feeling building your own steed.

Work on getting cable lengths right. Not easy but satisfying.

Tea , chocolate hobnobs and a good playlist.

Even if the headset is installed into the frame, you may need some way to press the crown race onto the fork.

Other than that it should mostly be allen keys and bolt everything together.
You’ll need a BB tool for whatever BB you’re using, and most likely a cassette tool.
Proper cable cutters (vs pliers) are great and worth buying IMHO.
Some assembly grease and Locktite are useful although arguably not essential.

Just done this myself for the first time too 🙂
Just trying to think of the extra little bits that held me up…

Bleed kit as mentioned – may not be needed but probably will be.

Stem spacers, get a nice selection of sizes. Something like this.

Fork cutting – I got the LBS to do this and install the star nut. Measure it (several times!) by putting it in the headset with the spacers in place, don’t mess around with tape measures. Make sure to bear in mind the ~3mm gap for the top cap.

Any odd tools you’ll need like bottom bracket tool or the adapter thingummy for centrelock rotors.

I used Halford’s red bike grease for everything in the end, and needed it much less than I expected as most parts came pre-greased. Also didn’t need threadlock as everything relevant had it on the screws already (but it may differ of course depending on your components).

I was convinced I’d gone and cut the chain too short, even went out and bought an extra quick link intending to add a few links, then realised I hadn’t adjusted the derailleur B screw which was way off!

Enjoy 🙂

Things to concentrate on & really take your time over:

– Cable/Hose installation
– Cutting fork steerer if required. Perhaps leave a bit long to start with, with extra spacers. Shorten properly once you’ve fiddled about a bit & know what height you want the bars at.
– Bleeding brakes (if you have to split the system to fit).

Don’t rush it. If something isn’t going together right, then you probably have the wrong parts or are doing it wrong. Don’t force stuff – take a break & come back to it.

A workstand is a definite massive help, as are the right tools for the job. You can end up spending quite a bit on these if starting from scratch.

Take your time and enjoy it, proper satisfying

and a torque wrench

Definitely worth every penny for a good one, and will get years of use post-build.

If you’re using Centre lock then make sure the caps are appropriate for your axles

Torx drivers – there’s bound to be something that’s not a hex bolt.

Copper grease on BB and pedal threads. Grease the seatpost too, or use fibre grip if the frame is carbon.

forgot about steerer tube cutting. not difficult but a pain in the arse if you get it wrong. the old adage of measure twice and cut once is never so true as when you mess up your steerer tube and spend the next two years with your bars never quite high enough! also tool like a cutting guide and something for setting the star nut may seem like and excessive luxury that you’ll hardly ever use, which they are, but the make the job so much easier and can be had cheap these days

Bike building you say?

Step one… Hands up who knows what’s coming in my next post…

Take your time. It’s not a race. Watch that video again or measure up that cable again if necessary. It’s so satisfying to get right. And many mistakes take longer to fix than just doing it slowly to start with.

Work on getting cable lengths right. Not easy but satisfying.

This!

I’ve never got it right because I’m never thinking it all the way through. I’ll check routes and make sure each cable is taking the smoothest line (I’m talking cable brakes and cable gears here obviously) and once it all goes together it looks and works fine BUT if you end up with all the cables bunched up near the stem face plate then you have a lot of potential rattling.

I guess this is more a road bike think when all the cables come out from under the bar tape, but when you’re routing cables spare a though to whether they’ll rattle off other cables.

When I next change cables on my ‘nice’ road bike I’ll be spending a lot of time getting this right…

Re the crown race – Hope headsets have a split race that makes life a lot easier for the home mechanic. I sometimes split a race myself (Dremel) if it does not come with one.

Steerer cutting – OK on externally routed (front brake) frame as you can put everything together, ride it and take it apart easily once you decide on the right lenth without needing to rebleed brakes. More of a faff with integral routing, esp gravel/road frames as you are likely to need to disconect and then rebleed the brakes if you ride it first.

Thanks everyone this is great. Already got a workstand and 1/4” torque wrench for small things. For larger stuff like bottom bracket/cassette/centerlock rotors do most people just go off feel for tightness? Don’t really want to buy a larger torque wrench just for that.. and the margins are probably greater?
Have cut a steerer and installed star nut on my previous bike so fairly happy with that. And I managed to set the crown race with a bit of scaffold which seemed to do the job! It’s the cable runs that I’m most concerned about – how much loop to leave at front of the bike.. And also setting up the derailleur tho I’m sure I can find a good video on that.
Good shout on the bleed kit, I’ll get one in case. It’s all external routing for brakes but they’re coming off another bike so they may need changing in length.

djflexure

Just seen your message, yes it is a hope headset

Re. cable loops: leave enough so that your bars can turn right round (180 degrees).
If when you crash and your bars spin round with the bike on top, you don’t want the cables ripping off your levers! You may want to play around see if it works better with crossing over to the opposite side of the frame or not.
Apart from that just make it as neat as possible.

Tightness for big stuff – yes just go off feel, heave away at it!

Shimano components don’t come with any instructions but Google for the dealer manuals if necessary, detailed instructions for fitting can be found there. Probably applies to any manufacturer…

And what savoyad said. Again.

Get a bike stand, good quality tools, torque wrench, all the greases.

Helitape the frame whilst its clean and easy to do!

Which greases do you recommend and for what dethbeard?

Spannermonkey – had considered invisiframing but pricey and sounds like a pita so just going to patch locally for cable rub I think

I’ve built two now. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but took a while.

– Make sure you have the right BB tool
– Don’t forget ferrules and tyre sealant / tape / valves
– Forget tea, beer is the appropriate drink!

I use Juice Lubes grease, it seems to be excellent. RE Invisiframe….I really wish I had done it on my carbon Nomad V4. But, on my steel bike, which is powdercoated (I think, it’s thick anyway!) I’m not worried about it.

Enjoy it you’ll learn so much. However it won’t be until about your 3rd or 4th bike build before you have everything you need to do it in one go. Well in my case anyway, there is always some goofy little thing you forget about, but the posts above have covered most of this off. Couple of extras:

– make sure you have the right brake caliper adaptors for your frame/fork and rotor size
– yours is a hardtail so this won’t apply – but worth knowing anyway for future reference – if a full suspension frame has a lot of chain growth through its travel you may need to get the right chain length with the suspension fully compressed. I only learnt this after bending 2 XT rear mechs

Anti-seize will be fairly important, as you have a steel frame, and most components will be alu (I assume)
Carbon installation paste if yo are going for fancy plastic.
Lithium grease for other parts

(I preach but don’t practice, I just anti-seized everything on my last steel frame build)
Seat post, headset and BB are the important ones, otherwise it is possible there will be galvanic corrosion and they will (essentially) fuse together

First thing to do is go back in time to when most bikes and frames worked off the same sizing standards. BB width, Hub width, Headset, Brake Mounts all vary between bikes and its a bloody pain. And mixing Sram and Shimano systems? Urgh.

@rstephenson Love Invisiframe but too spendy for me! I just helitaped the usual areas on mine 🙂

Heatshrink. Makes for a very clean build.
Dropper and left brake lever in one, shifter and right brake in the other.
It eliminates cable rattle.

Make sure you understand bottom bracket threads

The best cutters you can afford for outer. Work slowly and patiently rotating the cable and cutting a little more each time