BMC Time Machine TT02

OK, here they are… the long awaited pics of my Time Machine. This is not really a second string bike to my fixed gear Condor.. rather a side-step to when I want to ride gears ;o)

I picked the BMC frame mainly because it’s roughly half the price of a Cervelo P3C and the geometry was more suited to my ’shape’ (it was easy to get identical positioning to my Condor).. the fact that it looks pretty nice and I haven’t seen anyone else riding one down here are bonuses. The frame is a mix of carbon and alloy, it rides very very nicely indeed – stiff but doesn’t feel harsh at all. The only criticism I have is that the gear cable routing is untidy… I would much rather have had top tube routed cables or at least do something cleaner with the cable entry points into the down tube. Next year I’ll fit some Nokon gear cables which will enable a much ‘tighter’ installation around the head tube area.

I’ll post a build list for anyone interested later this week as I’m heading out kayaking in a moment. The only real things to note are the USE Tula bars I suppose, and the bottom bracket which is an Aerozine one from Superstar Components. The stock Dura Ace has so much seal drag in it I couldn’t be happy even though the reality may only be a fraction of a watt of wasted energy. I wasn’t about to shell out silly money for a ceramic unit either so instead I struck a happy (very happy) compromise and fitted the Aerozine one which uses decent SKF bearings and spins beautifully – as free as an “old skool” square taper job. It only cost about 35 quid as well :o)

and this last pic shows the drive side of the bike but with the low sun this morning I could only get in a position that was backlit and high contrast so the only way to make it vaguely presentable was a quick twiddle in photoshop to simply make it into a graphic object…. it’s a bit naff but what the heck.