I took delivery of my new Blue Pig and am building it up now. I also bought a nice new Salsa Flip-lock seat clamp for it.

The flip lock is deeper section than most seat clamps, meaning that the supplied shim only partially fits it .

What do people thinking about me doubling up on shims? This would mean the second shim poking out the bottom of the clamp.

Anyone know of deep section shims being available.

A lot of hassle just to put your seat up and down.

Cheers

Alex

Can’t you just get a seatpost that fits, or am I missing something here?

I’m completely in the dark as to what you are talking about. What is this shim?

Nope – the internal diameter of the tube is 30.9mm – fine and dandy.

But the exterior diameter is a none-standard size – i.e. you have to shim it to get a clamp to fit, ragley don’t do a clamp in that size either, so they pop a shim in with every frame.

The problem is that my seat-post clamp is deeper than the depth of the shim.

ajt123 – Member – Quote
Nope – the internal diameter of the tube is 30.9mm – fine and dandy.

But the exterior diameter is a none-standard size – 😯

Seriously? What klutz designed that? Surely there is a clamp you can buy that doesn’t need a shim.

Presumably they think the shim is deep enough to provide all the necessary force, therefore it doesn’t really matter if the lower part of your clamp is just clamping air?

What klutz designed that?

waves

Presumably they think the shim is deep enough to provide all the necessary force, therefore it doesn’t really matter if the lower part of your clamp is just clamping air?

yes

Why don’t you just use the Ragley clamp with the shim? Works fine for me.

brant – just out of interest, what was the reason for designing it that way?

Why don’t you just use the Ragley clamp with the shim? Works fine for me

Well, because the Salsa clamp is much nicer – it should be for 3 times the price.

Thanks for the response Brant.

brant – just out of interest, what was the reason for designing it that way?

Something to do with weight saving on the seat-tube. I can’t see why when the other tubes are externally butted this couldn’t be also.

I’m sure it works out cost/benefit on paper, but it is irritating; much better to have plug and play capabilities, when you have a nice 400 quid frame you don’t want to be faffing with fiddly bits of tin.

Brant, should I use carbon-paste / friction-paste to improve the operation of the shim?

Cheers

Alex

With 27.2mm posts, OD is 29.8mm, which gives a 1.3mm wall thickness.

If you want a 30.9 or 31.6mm seat post, and also want a 1.3mm wall thickness then you end up at 33.5mm or 34.2mm. Neither of which is a common seatclamp size.

Adding thickness to a lot of the tube just to fit a seat clamp with steel is heavy and stupid. Really heavy. I thought the shim was quite elegant.

It can get lost/cause these problems, which is why if I ever do it again, I’ll braze on a shim to the tube in the area that’s needed.
Which we might have done if we were prototyping 456 Evo2’s, which of course we might have done. Maybe.

And if you use a very deep clamp, yes, this maybe too will end up clamping fresh air.

I did intend to make a Ragley clamp which was the correct diameter, but forgot before I left.

Something to do with weight saving on the seat-tube.

How much does the whole frame weigh, out of interest?

Brant, should I use carbon-paste / friction-paste to improve the operation of the shim?

Do you mean carbon paste inside the seat tube?

How much does the whole frame weigh, out of interest?

50g less than if I used a load of steel instead of a small piece of alloy.

How much does the whole frame weigh, out of interest?

Dead-light – box says 3kg, haven’t weighed as is impressively light to the touch. Very nice frame, building it up over the next few days.

Haven’t ridden it get, but looks like it will be sweet ride.

Do you mean carbon paste inside the seat tube?

I meant carbon paste like;

Tacx

I was worried that the shim might ‘migrate’ down the tube after a while.

Also, I’d have been even more happy with a 3050 gram frame 😉

Alex

Frame doesn’t weigh 3kg

Shim can’t migrate as it should have a lip on it to hook onto top of seat tube.

From experence, my blue pig was a bastard to clamp the seatpost. Had to revert to some afrotechniques in the end to get it to work.

Shim can’t migrate as it should have a lip on it to hook onto top of seat tube.

Fair play, suppose we will see.

Motorman – please elaborate 😉

Alex

I have had two Blue Pig X ‘s with no trouble from the shim and the clamping of the seat post at all.