Honeman Flyer: Parts

Image courtesy of Erik Mathy

I thought Friday would be the day I got my mitts on my King Fabrications Honeman Flyer, but that was delayed until today. In fact, it was tracked in town on Saturday, at the UPS distribution center, but it won't show up at the delivery spot until this afternoon. (Maybe by the time that you read this.) 

So, while I thought I might be sharing images of the completed build today, I instead will be building it today. The bike, that is, and until that finishes up, I thought I'd share some of the parts that are going into this. 

My personal build procession goes something like this: Fit the seat collar, insert the seat post, hang the frame by the post in the work stand. Then I fit the head set and put the fork on with a stand-in set of spacers and a stem. 

Next is getting the threads chased in the bottom bracket shell, (if needed), and then fitting the bottom bracket and crankset. On a single speed I would then fit the wheels, brake calipers, and turn my attention to the cockpit with a lot of measuring and finally cutting down of the steer tube. Then I would fit the saddle, the final stem, handle bar, brake levers, and set up the brakes. I then would wrap the bars. I don't know why, but the chain is almost always the last thing I put on a bike I build. 

Weird, but maybe that's just me. 

I chose a Cane Creek head set for this build. I think black anodized parts work best to highlight this wild paint job on the bike. I just so happened to have had a Cane Creek 40 head set for a 44mm head tube on hand that was new. 

Honestly, the brand of head set doesn't matter that much to me. Cane Creek is good. Wolf Tooth is great, especially if you want color. Chris King is bling, but again, only if you want anodized colors. Black? Heck..... At that point a Cane Creek is hard to beat. So, I think it will likely stay in there as long as I have this bike, and I doubt I'll ever have to service it or do anything but clean the outside once in a while. 

The Honeman Flyer was built to accept a 27.2mm seat post by King Fabrications. That's the "standard" size for gravel these days, and there are a TON of choices I could have gone with. 

My conundrum with the Honeman Flyer was with the design. It's based on a 1930's track bike design, which back in those days used a seat post with a brazed forward extension and a very slack seat tube angle. This set up had the appearance of a stem for a handle bar. The extension would be fitted with a clamp. That clamp could slide fore and aft to allow for different positions for different riders. During my research on 1900's to mid-century track bikes, I learned that these forward extended seat posts and stems were done because many times racing bicycles were so expensive that sometimes several riders would use the same machine. The sliding saddle and handle bar set ups allowed for the precise fitment of different riders. 

Okay, so back to 2024. The Honeman Flyer has a slack, 70° seat tube. Generally I ride 73° seat tube angled bikes and a fair amount of saddle set-back using set-back seat posts. To get in approximately the same position on the Honeman Flyer as I would on my other gravel bikes, I would necessarily need a 0 degree set back post to have any chance of getting the angle right. 

That led me to an old friend in the parts bin. A carbon fiber Tamer seat post from the late 1990's/early 00's. When I last used this, oh....maybe 12 -15 years ago, I remember it being pretty flexy and comfortable. The Honeman Flyer will have less exposed seat post than almost any bike I have other than maybe the Twin Six Standard Rando v2, so this Tamer post should do the trick for me. 

Wolf Tooth is represented on the build by their Morse Cages and rear through axle. I love Wolf Tooth's B-Rad rails that allow me to move water bottle mounting points around on my various bikes, but the Morse Cage also allows for several mounting options as well. 

I've never used the stainless steel Morse Cages so I am curious to see how they will handle the rigors of gravel riding. They look pretty well thought out and the construction looks top-notch. I'll be reviewing them in the future so stay tuned for my thoughts on them coming in the following weeks and months. 

The rear through axle should work well, as long as I picked the right length one! I had to take a stab in the dark since I don't have the frame in front of me to measure things and King Fab didn't give me those precise dimensions when I asked either. So......we will see. 

Wheels Manufacturing got the nod for the SRAM compatible bottom bracket. (Not DUB! yecch!) This particular version they sell has Enduro bearings, (GOOD!), and a double-row bearing on the drive side cup. Plus these are angular contact bearings, which should be better for the rigors that a bottom bracket will see. 

It was spendy but I think it will be worth it. Yes......it is not black! That wasn't an option, and anyway - who looks at bottom brackets? They are hidden behind crank sets and covered in dust. It'll be fine. Don't worry about it!

I'll be inserting my SRAM Rival crank with a 40T ring on it, so this is why I chose this particular bottom bracket. I gave some thought to doing a full-on Enduro Max-Hit bottom bracket, but those are even more expensive and maybe when this wears out, well, we will see.... I suspect this one will last quite some time. 

How could I not include these sleek, black levers I received from "Charlie", a blog reader here, who gifted these like-new levers for the build. (Maybe they are new? Don't know)

The TRP design is the very same that I was thinking of using anyway, and these fit the design manifesto like a hand in glove. All black and shiny!

These will be pulling cable in Jagwire black housing which in turn will work against the flat mount TRP Spyre calipers, so it all makes for a fitting system. 

Rotors will be six bolt SRAM affairs due to the WORD Disc not having Center Lock capabilities. Otherwise I might have used TRP rotors here as well. 

Okay, that's a big part of the build right there and hopefully by tomorrow I should have some build images to share. I was afeard that this all would come down to a short time span before Mid-South, and this is about as minimal, in terms of time, as I would feel comfortable with. I sure hope it all falls into place as planned, because if it doesn't, I think it will be time to push the panic button. Especially if I have to order in more parts. 

Stay tuned......