Independent Fabrication Crown Jewel SE

Wheels should be in the mail to me today..... stem is in the mail.... seatpost arrives Thursday.....

Shaping up to be red/black with a splash of yellow, ti, and carbon

And one more bit of info:

Wow , some detail there - I've not sure I've seen saddle height and headset spacers on a spec before.

More!
(wheels arrived and they are awwwesome)

It's pretty standard. Normally the head tube is sized to have a maximum of 30mm of spacers under the stem.

Proper shots someday, as there are still a few things to dial in. But here are a few cell phone pics from the shake down ride.

I had the shop assemble it instead of me buying Campy tools and futzing. You'll notice that they inaugurated the non-driveside chain stay so that I don't have to worry about getting the first chip in the paint. The wheels are superb and smooth as silk. Before the chain was on, if you gently spun the back wheel the cassette would hover perfectly in place. I am really liking the Chorus group too.

Issues: fit is nice, but I might like the bars a bit lower--the stem was a placeholder I had on hand. The steerer will need to be cut. When I find the TIME I'll LOOK into road-specific clipless, but I think for a while I'll stick to my mtb systems. I need to find some different skewers-- something that gets more than just a few threads on the front due to those fat carbon fork ends.

But until then, I am stoked. Rides like a charm. Interesting to note the handling differences between the classic Chance and this IF.

Weight as pictured, 18.5 pounds. Not uber-light, but lighter than my keirin bike

1st impression: very good. Looking forward to the "proper shots"

Agree with Melvin. Are you going to get a boutique-ey stem? I would. As well as being too pointy-up I think Thompson looks a bit Team America for an elegant bike.
Kent Eriksen seat post? You have good taste. I'm very jealous, of the whole thing.

With the right stem that will look perfect. July RBoTM?
I hope they apologised profusely for damaging your paintwork and at the very least offered to get matching touch-up paint.

Mark.

The Eriksen is sweet

What do you recommend road stem-wise? There are just so many generic stems in the road world. I don't really want carbon. Thomsons are great but I hear ya. In any case, I'll have a proper fitting before too long, but I feel like it needs to come down a bit already, and I like a flat stem better aesthetically. Flipping this one would be too neg, though.

As for the chip, I'm not too worried. I'll mention it the next time I go in, but I imagine there will be other chips in the future. I plan to have this bike for a long time....