This is an ICAN AC388 gravel bike I recently assembled for some dirt/gravel/rough road commuting fun.
I haven't seen much about ICAN or EliteWheels, both China carbon on many forums so I thought I would give it a go.
First the frameset. This is the second carbon frame I've bought from Aliexpress and I have yet to encounter a problem. The internal routing for the brake hose was fully integrated so all I had to do was push it through. With a few loose hoses, the shift cable was pretty easy to get through the frame as well.
Paint finish is spectacular and the green had some unexpected speckle.
The Wheelset is from EliteWheels. This is my second pair of carbon wheels from them and they're spectacular. The first set is for my road bike, 50mm deep aero. The gravel is 32mm and is just yummy. This is my first set of tubeless wheels and have Panaracer GravelKingSS on them. I have to admit that I couldn't get them seated and had to go to the LBS. The floor pump with soap suds didn't cut it. They have been running exceptionally well in the spring mud, ice and slush. I expect the best after putting the road wheels through about 2500km without any incidents.
For the groupset I ran GRX810 as it was the only thing I could find. Although I tried my hardest to source locally, in the end, I found it was probably a few hundred cheaper to buy on Aliexpress. Came in a cardboard box and oodles of bubble wrap. Not a scratch and everything as described. Bonus: left lever even came with the dropper post option.
I got the sub brake levers which were a definite challenge having never set up hydraulic brakes before. Lots of lessons learned but in the end it came together well - the bike stops =). I spent hours debating the best way to route the brake hose since the sub brakes direct the cables straight back and the frame has a dedicated hole in the downtube on the left side.
The Ergon women saddle was the hardest thing to find. This my wife would use this bike more than me, I wanted it to be as comfortable as possible. This saddle was on back back order from PBK. Eventually canceled it and went with Jenson. Again, impossible to find locally up in the great white north.
All in all the build came out as expected and definitely caught the bug for some off road/asphalt riding. Looks like a second one needs to be built =)
Thanks for reading!
