Bike Builder

Over the Winter I have become the happy owner of a Handsling CEXevo frame. All I needed were some components.

SRAM is normally the go-to brand of choice for cyclocross bikes, especially if you want a single chainring setup. For me the temptation of Shimano’s new GRX groupset was too great so I chose to use the single chainring mechanical option.

Once I’d chosen the rest of the parts, I just had to build the bike up. Enter our new friend Ian Stuart.

Ian is a professional photographer and he was looking for content for his new Youtube channel. I agreed to let him video me and we spent a day producing hundreds of gigabytes of footage, which he then edited down to 25 minutes. He’s a clever chap.

There’s a list of all the parts used down below and a link to the video on Youtube. I’ve got some other plans for this bike, including my first CX sportive on the South Downs Way in the Summer.

Some deep section wheels will turn it into a capable road bike and I’m also going to use the superb Tailfin rack I reviewed to do a bit of touring on it.

There’s a lot of satisfaction to building your own bike, even if you do build other people’s bikes for a living!

Build List

• Handsling CEXevo 54cm frame and fork (available in custom paintschemes).
• Handsling Hookless 40mm carbon wheels.
• Schwalbe X One Speed tyres (for now, but looking at other options).
• Shimano GRX RX600 Groupset with 40t chainring and 11-42t cassette.
• Deda Zero2 stem and RHM02 bars.
• Prologo Dimension NDR saddle and bar tape.
• SM-RT81 Brake rotors, 160mm front and 140mm rear.

See handslingbikes.com for more information on the bike.