So you all were being polite.

IIRC my first comment on it (can’t recall if it was here or Facebook) was – “couldn’t you get one to fit you?”

Thats polite for you 🙂

Lovely bike and story. As someone’s already said, silver components can look great with the right colour (and wear better too)

One obscure q – what’s the black ring that Rohloff now put round the edge of the hub flange? They didn’t have that originally

Its a strengthening ring.  some folk managed to break the spoke flanges – dunno how as on the tandem we didn’t despite hammering it so this is to support the spoke flange.  should have been silver as well really

I thought I would do an update seeing as I have now done the first real ride on the bike as intended. 300 miles round the highlands with over 25 000 ft of climbing on the whole range of trails from ” drag the bike thru a swamp” to A roads. mainly “gravel” riding tho and dragging trailer behind me with all my kit ( bob yak)

What can I say? i am delighted with it still. Its now running a 70mm stem ( much better) and 20 mm of headset spacers ( still not decided on the exact amount so still uncut steerer) and I have sorted the cabling so its much neater. I also took 40mm off each side off the bars bring them to 720mm

So in that ride not a single issue with the bike ( not caused by me – oops) Bontrager SSR saddle meant a comfy botty the whole time. No arm pain, no back pain, no arse pain. Its the comfiest bike I have ever had for long distances.

Edit – and loads of folk complementing me on the bikes looks including some french folk who have more style in one finger than the whole of STW so ppffptpt to those who don’t like it 🙂