Squid SoEZ bike build – Tracklocross / Commuter

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00:00 intro
00:09 my squid 🦑
01:16 frame view
01:49 paint prep
02:49 paint
04:05 decals on
05:34 more painting
08:02 decal reveal
08:56 clearcoat
10:24 assembly
10:46 headset
12:26 stem/bars
12:48 cranks/chainring
17:47 bottom bracket install
19:22 wheel building
23:14 cutting steerer tube
24:18 star nut install
24:50 fork install
25:06 bar/topcap install
25:40 front wheel
26:13 pedals/straps
28:00 rear tyre
28:42 cog install
29:29 chain tensioners
29:51 rear wheel install
30:17 chain install
32:12 bottle cage
32:33 tightening lockring
33:23 ✨ completed look ✨
34:38 ride time 💨
39:02 I try wheelies? 😳
40:33 toe overlap
41:07 happiness
41:32 more riding
43:58 summary
45:08 upcoming videos
46:17 see you next time, bye!

This is really cool for me this is the first new frame that I bought since like back in my vmx days so I ordered a 58 cm squid so easy from jams just stro about a month and a bit ago and then it was lost in one of the postal carriers

Possession UPS or something there’s a few people that bring it between Australia and New Zealand through bike flights um but somebody lost it so it’s still somewhere up in The Ether somewhere no idea but James Destro had a 56 so all the 58s were gone so we’re

Next size down was a 56 some people have said that they run pretty big so I don’t really have a big issue with downsizing anyway so we’ve got a 56 the 6 is showing up safely it only took about a week and a bit from Jen’s G which is

Really cool um thanks heat to Jen’s Destro for all of this like there was a lot of back and forth of emails and keeping me updated they got here safely so I’m I’m happy as so a quick little rundown of this good so easy frame set it’s a 135 R

Spacing track lacrosse cholo steel setup it’s got this cool monay rear seat stays and the fork that comes with the bike is pretty cool as well it sort of looks like an old orange or something similar to that like a segmented three-piece Fork pretty cool so they do come Ed coated so you

Can’t really run it raw I guess you could sand it all off and then you know rust it out if you wanted to but we’re going to be painting this up so they recommend scuffing it with some I think 400 grit or somewhere around their

Sandpaper so just wet sand it a bit just to sort of dull the finish that way the paint will stick a bit better they recommend using spray bike that’s what we’re going to be using today but you can obviously use any other paint that you want so you really

Just want to Scuff the paint scratch it all up try not to go too hard though because you will wear through in some of the parts where it’s a bit thinner so to hang the bike up I just use this 25.4 quill stem uh just to do it up a little bit

Not too tightly otherwise you’re going to mess up that seat tube then wipe the frame down with some isopropyl alcohol get it all ready for paint so these are some of my spray do bike colors this one is suburb pink is kind of like a a bubblegum pink people call it

We’ll also be using a few colors over the top and like a cling film speckled sort of marbled look this gives quite a cool effect um you can just use any other style that you like I was thinking of doing a splatter job but I decided on the cling F style

Instead so the purple on the bottom right there is Memphis purple and that’s one of the other main colors that we’re going to be using on the bike if you haven’t used spray dot bike before it’s pretty easy to use it’s just completely different to a regular spray

Paint so you spray it up really close otherwise it goes powdery um and then sort of dries before it hits the material that you’re painting so you want to spray it up quite close it it is really hard to make it run but it is possible so make sure

You research it and spray it within the distances that they recommend good thing about this is you don’t really need to do multiple coats you can just do one coat um sometimes going over with a second one if it’s too thin in areas or let you miss spots and stuff

But generally one coat and the colors are nice and thick or vibrant so after I’ve got the color down for the vinyl um I put the vinyl over the top and then later on peel those off and then that’ll be left there so I’m going to be using pink and

Some Blue Splatter for the vinyl like littering so we’re going to put that down and then put the decals over the top of that wanted a bit of a splatter to the decals as well so I’m going over with the floral blue then once that’s dry we’re going to

Put the decal on and then go over the bike with the paint that we want and then at the end we’ll take the decal off so this is basically just acting as like masking tape and the design that I want so these decals or vinyl masks come with the

Frame but you can cut out masking tape or vinyl or something like that and sort of incorporate that into your design so you can do you know any kind of shape that you want just cut that out or you can get a vinyl cutter uh cat and then yeah create all kinds of

Designs and stuff then once I’ve got all of them on one on the fork as well we’re going to cover it back up with the color that I want so this is just so the background is more uniform you don’t really have to do this but because I want the marble

Effect it would be uneven if I don’t do this pain again so yeah we’re going to use the Memphis and to do that we’re going to be using some cling film um in New Zealand I know this has clad wrap but that’s the brand of it and I just use like this

Little bowl so you just want to spray it a little bit in a can or cap or something this is a bit too much it ends up being too blotchy so you want a little bit less paint on the Glad wrap by that you can just sort of tap it

Over or you can tap it on the bowl that you’re using so like tap it on the outside of the bowl and then go to the material it’s best to use like a bit of a test frame or something if you’re unfamiliar with it so you can see me

There I tap it on the outside of the bowl and then go to the frame just to get sort of the the texture and the look that I want and pretty much just go over that a bunch of times you can use different colors and

Stuff and just build it up as you see fit really so I think that was the Flor blue and possibly was it Chapel White I could be wrong um the Flor blue doesn’t really look B fluro but this is the Memphis purple really like is purple looks pretty cool on the B

Especially with the pink so you pretty much can go as much or as little with this as you like but this is about how I like it it’s sort of hard to tell between which color you put on First and it has this really cool marble effect added a bit

More pink and blue in places and just trying to make sure that the fork will match up so you sort of have to have the fork there with the frame as you’re doing it then taking those vinyl lettering off that we put on at the start so you can see here it reveals

That pink with some of the Blue Splatter which I think looks really cool sort of ties into the top coat nicely but still stands up quite a bit which is pretty much exactly what I wanted so going over now with some gloss CLE Co Bunnings didn’t have any of the matte

Stuff so we’re just going to make do but because the paint is so textured it’s not going to sh glossy unless we sanded it down a bit so if you did want the spray bike paint to be a bit glossy you would have to scuff it down I think I

Used six or 800 grit sandpaper on my pink and green specialized to give it a bit of a gloss look and last but not least it’s time to put the H Sho badge on it’s a bit of an old trick to making adhesive tape and adhesive stuff a little bit more sticky

Is to heat it up so we’re just going to take a flame to it for a little bit and then being careful we’re not going to burn ourselves just Trucking on the head tube I like hu badges to be offset um a little bit above the

Center I think it just looks better so that’s what we’re going to do here putting the seat post clamp on now this is a purple one I got from Blue log thought it look really cool especially with the charged spoon saddle that we’ve got on the

Bike then we’re going to throw it in the stand and build up the rest of it so this headset came all the way from the UK from Monkey shred so thanks he for sending that over so apparently New Zealand doesn’t stock Chris King no thread sets in any cover apart from black

Now so some of the newer ones you know the tapered headsets and stuff we can get colored but the northri sets just come to New Zealand black I don’t know if that’s a thing across the board but um this is an old one monkey shed had

And I wanted it so yeah I think it sits the bike really well put some of the blue and the paint so ties in nicely just throwing that in with the DIY headset tool this is basically just uh some threaded rod with a couple of nuts and some washers and stuff it’s

Never let me down you just got to be careful putting it in so this is the factory Crown race that comes with the Criss King headset and on the right is the toall base plate so this is about a 5 mm extra height we’re going to be using this to

Provide a little bit of extra Tire clearance to the down tube cuz in the future I think it’ll be cool to Lear some bus spins um and on I think it was the fod Gang video they said that um 38s they don’t think clear um for busins without it so I

Thought that that’s a nice little trick we’re going to put it on just so we don’t have any issues if we do manage to learn pass spins not something I’m going to be trying today but yeah something that I want to try at some point these headsets Races they also

Came from Blue log and Japan and they match the headset really well stem is from Blue log and the handle bar I got in New Zealand it’s a hunter Smooth Move bar they do come in a highrise and a lowrise this is the lowrise version another spacer on top and then

We’re going to mark that and cut it a bit later these are the cranks that came on the specialized tricross Serino 75s I I think I might strip these and paint them or I mean polish them up silver at some point you can sort of see the njs logo

There now the bottom brackets for sigo 75 cranks uh a bit strange they’re not really ISO taper and not J JIS sort of somewhere in between but apparently you can use either so I’m just going to use the one that came on the bike or with the

Cranks the chain ring we’re using this very fancy bespoked chain ring cost a whole buttload of money but apparently they they run a really long time and they just look awesome so this is like an oil slip colorway this sort of came across from the BMX sort of scene I

Think so this is a runwell Kuroko this is a new chain ring bolt tool I wanted to try this out for a little bit it’s not that expensive so I thought even if it’s Naf it doesn’t really matter too much one thing I did notice is it

Doesn’t really sit in all of the chain ring nuts as well as some of the others so the’re really special P they’re really cheap sorry Park Tool regular chain ring bolt tool this one here it seems to get in all of the nuts really nicely and it holds them strong

Enough so I’ve never really had any issues with this but but I thought you know it’d be nice to have something a little bit better so I think it’ll be cool to keep the coroco in like my tool bag that I take with me but I don’t think it’ll

Keep or hold a place in my workshop just cuz it’s not as usable it’s a little bit harder to use as well because I think compared to the park tool one cuz the park toour one is flat so you can have it just up against the chain ring but

This one you have to have an allen key and that protrudes out a bit and it’s just a little bit more Awkward to use but handy it serves its purpose but um it’s just not a replacement so some of the nuts were stuck in the

Crank arm so I had to give them like a little tap and that loosen them out I had these stashed away specifically for this bike these are some pretty cool looking pink bits so we’ve got the self removing self- extracting crank cap thing um and then yeah some pink bolts

As well I only have four of these pink bolts so I think we’ll alternate with some other ones Unfortunately they were a bit too long though so we had to cut them down a little trick that I learned way back um is that you can put the bolts in to the

Female side backwards and then trim them down a bit just use a hecka or these alloy ones file down pretty easily then just sort of take the bur off and they’ll thread back in nicely so I did that just took a few millimet off each one and then they bolted in

Securely no more wiggling should look really cool with that self- extracting cap there and yeah I found some purple chaining bolts so I decided to do one either side of the arm and then three pink ones should look pretty cool the self extracting caps um these

Are these are pretty handy to have just means that you don’t need a crank tool to remove the arm so it’s basically just a bolt a washer and then the cap just need a little bit of grease to make sure that the bolt doesn’t push the cap out as you undo it

These are a feature on the shimu 600 arabes cranks and a couple of other cranks it’s just a nice thing to have so you can just undo that bolt and that’ll pull the arm off I just use some long nose pliers to get it on just make sure that you’re not

Too loose on it and then making sure that the bolt still turns freely doesn’t create any binding or anything so tighted up that bottom bracket quickly and it had a little bit of surface r on it but it feels nice and smooth so throwing some grease in the

Threads and everything to make sure it’s not going to get stuck in there it is Ed coated though so it shouldn’t really rust but you know you know how steel goes so I think this is about 115 mm bottom bracket I could be wrong um they recommend 120 for this

Room with these cranks so in hindsight I should have know I should have known that it wasn’t going to work out but we threw it in and I thought because you can offset it a little bit we might be able to get it to work but we checked it in and then put

The crank arms on and they just nicked the chain State a little bit so I thought uh we’ll just throw in the 120 instead and that’ll solve it the bottom bracket with the 120 mm axle also had wider shells as well so they allowed for use of a lockering on one

Side which is pretty handy like the old style ones and that gave enough clearance for the crank arms the wheels we’re going to be using on the bike are Grand comp really nice gold ones I got these off say than say definitely going to be put to good use on this

Bike that’s them with the gravel King on the front so the rear as I mentioned it’s a 135 rear spacing which um sly do a hub and I think this like a white Industries Hub or po Hub and a couple others but we’re going to be building up something

Custom so this is a Fisher New Zealand built pretty cool old Hub it’s got a carbon Center piece and then alloy Alters has a really cool look to it in the sun especially so this one was made it’s in a dude Shar day Fisher um there’s not

Much info out there but this is a 130 rear spacing Hub so it’s track one side and Freewheel the other side so like a flip-flop Hub and Bolton as well so I can set it up fixed really nice sealed bearings in really good condition I got for chees

Just going to give it a bit of a tidy up and then lace it up to the other Grand comp room so yeah some Auto so just to polish up the insides of it here it’s just going to make it easier to polish now while it’s all apart rather than

Trying to polish it once the wheels are built up polished up really nicely I mean it’s going to get filthy but you know it’s nice to do this now makes cleaning it up a bit easier on is all together later beautiful looking Hub unfortunately the sticker is going to be

Backwards because you can see the the track side is on the left so yeah oh well just throwing some grease in the ls now I don’t go through all the details of wheel building there’s so much info out there in tutorials and stuff so just going to skip through it it’s definitely

A skill that’s worth knowing um it took me a few tries and I’m still not proficient at it but I’m confident enough now just to tackle it like if I want a custom wheel built done um I’ll go through and do it so I don’t have any special tools or

Anything this is just a screwdriver that’s sort of being shaped to fit spoke nipples this is a I use a cut down spoke as like a what do you call it like a not a nipple driver but uh something to poke the nipple through double w rims and stuff to hold it

There it’s really nice activity to do outside so I try and do it especially on sunny days I try and do it outside giv see like a nice view and stuff it’s quite relaxing just some of the wheel combinations and the custom stuff that you can create

Just by being able to custom build up wheels it’s just so handy to have Oran every now and then I sort of mess that up um sort of changing from the left or you know from one side to the other um sometimes I have to take out a couple

Of Spokes and then go back but it always ends up really great um yeah nice strong reliable wheel builds so these ones I built up with double bed spokes I normally just build up with champion if it’s just going to be like a commuter wheel or something like that

Um but yeah these ones are double buted so moving on to trimming the stero tube down now I use a pipe cutter I’ve used this for a year or two now um really you’re not really supposed to use a pipe cutter on steel serer tubes but I don’t

Cut too many things down with it so I haven’t really had any issues with it it’s still cutting just fine but yeah if you’re going to be using or cutting a lot of steer tubes down then just use a hexa with like a cutting guide or something

It’s really satisfying when it gets to that last click soort of starts cracking around so you do have to file up the edges and stuff just to get rid of any burs um with the pipe cutter it sort of flar out the outside diameter as well so

You have to file that down a little bit but it’s a nice um even cut I’ve seen so many stereo tubes that are cut wonky uh but yeah the pipe cutter Cuts nice and even so this is a ster installation tool it’s just a cheap one but it works out

Really well just puts it in nice and even you don’t have to worry about trying to line it up with like sockets and stuff this was pretty cheap tool too so zann had the really good idea thanks he Zay zay’s got some really cool ideas um of painting the crown race just

So it Blends in a bit more so it’s not this awful looking steel piece underneath the uh headset so it looks a lot better now so it’s installing the fork back in putting the handlebar back on I had two top caps so one that came

With the hiet and I also had a purple one I thought it’ be cool to put the purple one on um I can always alternate between the two I’m happy with my choice though the purple looks cool on it I really like these little blue lug tags

That they put on their parts and stuff put of a blue lug Fanboy but yeah some really cool parts from there so if you haven’t been on Blue lug site check them out they do use DHL shipping which can be pretty expensive but um unless you live in the United States you’re

Probably used to paying quite a bit for shipping anyway throwing the front wheel on now I don’t know what the max clearance is in the front it can fit quite a a big tire um yeah nice Grand comp sealed bearing hubs only thing is they don’t make these

Tires anymore so when I eventually wear these out I’m going to put on a different color gravel Kang another part that came from Blue log is these shark ped quite a nice wide form pedal these are the plastic ones but they do come in alloy and colored and stuff as

Well so just throwing them on the straps that I’m going to be using on the bike I was hoping that I would fit these cheesy Supply straps on these really cool blue ones to match the bike and stuff really nice quality 2v Supply nice and thick straps as

Well um but I tried putting these through the shark pedal and the little hole in the side of the petal is too thin so I tried it both ways just to make sure it wasn’t crazy um but it turns out yeah they’re just not going to

Fit so I’ve got these fear with straps which are a bit thinner I’ve had these for a little while and they work great but I just wanted something you know new and bit more colorful to to suit the bike so just use these straps for

Now I thought I might be able to use like the receiver part of the fear with strap together with the cheesy Supply ones but the velcro is sort of reversed so they just won’t stick to each other so just throwing this on for now the cheesy Supply one would certainly th

It a bit better um srer a l I do put this on before the first ride so so because I’ve had these tires sitting around for over a year now I don’t know how long I’ve had these for but they’ve been sitting around for a while and they’ve

Faded quite a bit just in this one patch on the rear tire um not really a big deal but St just looks funny it’s faded to like more of a salmon pink throwing the red Tire on and then we’re going to put the rear Cog on so

The gearing for this bike it’s a 47 to chain ring up front and we’re going to be using a 2 to Cog in the rear um it’s pretty low but it’s not uh not incredibly low um I know the TR Cross C they run um lower gearing than

This as well but but I’m going to be wanting to use this like on commuting and stuff so I wanted something like a bit of a middle ground something that can ride off-road but it’s not going to annoy me too much by running it on road so just making sure there’s plenty

Of grease on the threads and then screwing that on just leaving it snug for an hour and then when the wheel is in the bike we’re going to put the chain on and then pedal it uphill to sort of secure the Cog a bit more the lock ring we’re just going to

Leave it a little bit loose until that Cog is secure the frame has built in chain tensioners as well we’re going to be putting these in and securing up the rear wheel with them so just putting some grease in the hole then threading those in I was thinking because I didn’t

Actually put anything in to mask this hole off I thought I would have to chase them out um get the paint out so you can see there the rear end has a decent amount of flex that I can just do by hand so the rear hub is a 130 spaced

Rear hub and the frame is 135 but because it’s steel it’s safe enough just to flex it down a little bit can do that by hand really easily so I don’t need to cold sit or anything um if it didn’t want to flex I would have to use like a plank of wood

And stuff and sort of Bend in the rear triangle a bit do quite like isumi chains I had this one I think I bought it on trade me it’s got like the MJS U master link on it which is like aort of a flathead screw link but I bought this

Jet black one off blue log they’re pretty reasonably priced a lot cheaper than the njs ones and kind of don’t really need it yeah really nice nice quality really cool master link as well the gold making sure you put this on the right way so the

Clip uh the clip can go on wrong way and then it can clip off and then just yeah you’ll die you you won’t it’s not a guarantee that you’ll die but um if you’re not going to run brakes the chain is sort of your Lifeline really so you make want to make sure

That your chain is up to Snuff so the 2 mm Allen key to get these chain tensioners wound in so just doing them up and off you can see the chain here moving a bit we want that uh to have a bit of playe in there we don’t want it to be super

Tight the first few rides the chain will sort of sort of look to loosen off a little bit as well so we want about an inch or 2 and 1 half CM or so of vertical play so push it down put your finger there and then push it back

Up one of the last things is the bottle cages so something I really like about this bike is that it has two bottle cage mounts a lot of like track frames and stuff they don’t really have bottle cage mounts but I really like to have a bottle with

Me I normally take like a liter of water then second to last or the last thing is tightening up the rear Cog so I just ped it up a little bit and that secures the rear Cog but as far as it can go so you just really want to do it

Up some nice strong Hills but without back pedaling so you just want to Pedal up some hills making sure not to backpedal at all then tighten up the lock ring it’s best to do this with the chain on the bike that sort of helps the Cog stay in

Place um but this is a dinky little lock ring that wasn’t wide enough so I had to take the chain off but the Cog didn’t move at all so not really an issue there and then the bik’s all together Okay hey bird uh you’re getting rid the pain how’s that I mean no H i knew this thing would be nimble and stuff wa but I didn’t know like it’s so sick like what is it tracks good the size DRS really good for me um the 58 would have been okay too I just would have had to have a shorter

Steem I think this is a good length steem for this side for me oh they’re closed off that no close it off go a little the Garing is actually pretty good through here I mean the bars are a bit wide making me a little nervous my head

I feel way too confident considering I don’t really ride brake with f gear I know what that was he [Applause] how do how do you whe these things like I get the getting it up par but once it comes back around to like the other rotation that was the tiniest babiest

Little wheelie but it was one two I’m just going to spend the rest of the time just trying to practice like couple little babies at least oh my God two and a half sort of yes oh it feels so cool I tried them on the chel Gaza one

Time and I just didn’t have the confidence like it was on a wet day and like it was on concrete I don’t know why but on gravel it feels a bit safer like it’s I guess it’s a little bit softer than falling on concrete [Applause] so I wasn’t even recording but I

Remembered that wavy asked about the tow overlap and I didn’t actually notice until I started trying it but it actually clears it just gives like the tiniest little buzz and that’s sort of if I’m trying to make it hit this thing is cool as track across this thing is this thing is so

Cool I can see why so many people are into track Lacross it’s not really that big in New Zealand um there’s really only like a couple little groups that do it but um I can see why they second the congregations of it worldwide so cool this bike is so

Cool I’m so happy with the paint job but like the rest of the parts I think I might change out the crank if I find a silver one but it actually looks pretty good I’ll just keep an out for a silver one yeah What I can see why people do it it’s pretty dangerous for me in my opinion on the roads um but with this gearing I think we’re going to be going so slow that it’s not going to be much of an issue um I just need to be a bit more cautious and

Stuff I think we are going to put a front brake on it you can rock them like it does have a front brake hole you just need Long Reach brakes I’ve got a duel pivot one I think it’s like a tech TR or something or something similar we’ve got one that can

Fit and I’ve got an odyssey monol lever to put on it and then if I want to I can take that on and off it’s just two bolts um because the Odyssey monol lver has a hinge plamp on it so we can just pop that on and undo the Bol vice versa for

The brake we got a front brake on it [Applause] yeah cruising so that’s all of the riding that I recorded for the video I have done a few Road rides and stuff um sort of some commutes in between West Oakland and town and I really liked riding it on

The road as well it’s a really nice handling bike it’s not too Twitchy I didn’t really know how it was going to handle going into it I have heard really good reviews and I know it’s really popular bike and stuff but being sort of set up for track across I even knew how

Twitchy it was going to feel but it feels really nice I can no hands it and stuff um the gearing works out really well something I didn’t know because I’m not too familiar with riding break list F gear I didn’t know how it’s was going

To go but about the only times where I really sort of felt that I was lacking a front brake was coming to a complete stop like the last couple little pet Strokes is I think when I grabbed the front brake just cuz I’m in my head I’m

Like I’m stopped I can just grab the brake um and going down like long slow inclines it’s just nice to head that front brake to sort of drag breaker bre so as I mentioned in the past video we’ve got quite a few cool projects coming up this white Niki alien will be coming

Up next um then we’ve got I don’t know probably close to a dozen other bikes the specialized Rock combo is one that I’m really looking forward to but we’ve also got a state clunker which is pretty rare to find in New Zealand um I know they’re really popular in the states and

Stuff and quite a nice cheap entry level sort of clunker 275 wheels and stuff quite of cool set up from from out of the box really 1/8 headset and stuff heaps of Tire clearance comes with 2.3 in tires I’ve also picked up a canondale cyclocross which is a factory 700c yeah cyclocross bike

Um it doesn’t have too much TI cements in the back we should be able to fit some 35s and then a 40c up front yeah it’s all Factory pretty tidy bike I’m going to be going through that at some point too we’ve also got a GT steel discon converted old Avalanche

Which I’m going to be building up into a commuter too I so happy with it thanks for watching the video I’ll see you in the next one bye