Well, after what seems like an eternity, my new SL9 is finally getting close to being finished!
I originally pre-ordered the frame before the SL9 was officially released. I went for a 54cm in the factory Carbon / Red to Blue / White colourway.
To be honest, I wasn’t particularly bothered about the factory colour. I was happy to take whatever was available in my size, as I’d always planned to have it custom painted anyway.
The frame was finally shipped on 14 August, straight to Stuart at OOEY Custom Paint, who’s a Specialized-approved painter.
Originally, I was told the paintwork would take around four weeks. That eventually turned into six weeks, but these things happen.
Once the painting was finished, getting the bike built turned into another waiting game. My usual mechanic was busy, I went away on holiday, and then I ended up being ill.
The frustrating thing was that I’d already had every single component sitting there ready for the build!
Then came the handlebars!
I’m using my THM Aero handlebars from my previous SL8, which I’ve also had repainted in gloss black. They originally come with a visible 3K carbon weave finish.
Unfortunately, the THM spacer I’d previously used on the SL8 isn’t compatible with the new SL9 spacer stack.
I contacted THM in Germany, who confirmed they hadn’t yet developed a suitable spacer for the SL9.
So I ended up having to send both my existing THM spacer and the new SL9 spacers over to Germany so they could design and 3D-print a compatible solution.
Thankfully, they’ve now done that, and the new spacer was finally shipped today!
So, fingers crossed, the bike might actually get built within the next week!
Now, something I found quite interesting was the frame and fork weights.
All measurements are for my 54cm frame, and the frame weights exclude the hardware.
Original factory paint:
Frame: 714.6g
Fork: 385.2g
Completely stripped of paint:
Frame: 600g
Fork: 353.4g
I was actually quite surprised to see the bare frame weighing just 600g. I hadn’t realised it was quite that light!
After the custom paintwork:
Frame: 683.6g
Fork: 378.3g (uncut steerer)
The new paint is a translucent sparkle green, which still allows the raw carbon underneath to show through.
Interestingly, despite being repainted, the finished SL9 frame actually weighs less than it did with the original factory paint!
For comparison, my previous SL8 frame weighed 701g in its original maganta finish. After I had that repainted in transparent green over the raw carbon, I believe it came in at around 708g.
So the new SL9 frame is actually lighter than my previous SL8, even after the custom paintwork.
As for the complete build weight, I’m estimating somewhere around 5.9kg based on all the components.
Obviously, that remains to be seen once everything is assembled, and I’ll get it on the scales when it’s finished.
It’s certainly been a longer process than I originally anticipated, especially considering I had all the parts ready to go!
Hopefully, there won’t be any more surprises, and I’ll finally have the bike built this week.
I’ll share the full build, component list and final weight once it’s finished.