Move to basement

Okay, so now I have reached the point where I start hanging components on the frame. A professional mechanic would move the frame to a repair stand to get the various tasks up off the floor to a level where the tasks can be performed standing up. I don't have a stand and being as building a bicycle is going to be a very rare event in my life, I just went ahead and worked with what I do have. I decided that I could bend or squat down to the do the work. But before I could proceed with even this plan I needed for the bicycle to stand up and I needed it to remain in a stable position.Obviously the time had come to install the wheels. I moved all of the parts to the basement. The skewers went into the wheels and the wheels locked into place on the dropouts. The bicycle stands up on its own for the first time. It is starting to look like a bike.

The brakes originally were on back order but now they showed up in a most timely fashion. They were the first component installed. All of the Campagnolo component groups, henceforth "grupettos", include brakes. The Chorus brakes are as well regarded as the rest of the Chorus parts but I deviate from the Chorus build to go with the Mavic SSC brakes.

I made this choice for a couple of reasons. I had the Mavic brakes on my other bike and always found them to be completely functional and therefore acceptable from an operations point of view. They are a tiny bit lighter than the Chorus brakes, and a bit more expensive.

However, the real reason I chose the Mavic is because they are black. Black bike, black parts.

I also had to make my first trip to the bike shop to install these parts. The brakes come with a threaded post which fits through a bridge on the fork for the front brake and on the seat stays for the rear brake. The post is fitted with an elongated nut which completes the reach through the bridge and holds the brakes in place. In this case the front fork bridge was too thick and the nut that came with the brakes would not reach.

I went to County Cycles, Scott went in the back room and came out with the longer sizes, of which there were two. I took no chances and bought them both (at a buck each) and left secure in the knowledge that it was almost certain that one or the other of them would work.