Thursday, May 29, 2008

my road fix

Haven't rode my geared road bike yet this year, been pedaling the fat fix everywhere.


Now I have a skinny fix.


Put a pair of 35c Schwalbe Marathon Supremes on the stock wheels. Barely squeezed a 48t salsa ring on, combined with a 20t tomicog, gives me a 66" gear. Don't want any taller than that pulling bob around. Looking forward to some road miles.

7 comments:

Biker Bob/Runner Bob said...

Nice... and a rigid fork so you can mash up the hills when needed. Hmm... I wonder if I can put 400 psi into my suspension fork ;-)

munsoned said...

Isn't it inconvenient to switch chainrings when you want to go from road to dirt? I wish there was a way around that whole situation. I tried a dingle setup for a while, but the chain tension never quite worked out right. Was either too tight or too loose. I also figured out that fixed was not for me. I'm very impressed you have the knack for it. Keep on, keepin on.

dale said...

bob, you can either buy the hardware for the ride characteristics you want or you adapt to the limitations of your hardware. ss on a nonlockout fork has limitations.

It depends on what ride experience you want to have, develope, or adapt to. The body is very adaptive; the biggest obsticle is the mental side - deciding to want or like the experience. The more time you spend with the hardware, the more the body/mind adapts to it. I want to ride fix and I'm adapting to my fix/rigid hardware.

Switching chainrings? I'm not going to. Once the dirt dries out, I will be taking the skinny fix on tranquility and check out the experience. I may want to adapt to skinny-fix-on-dirt limitations too. At least for the easier climbing trails. 8-)

dale said...

A couple years ago at Interbike, I saw a guy who setup a 3x1 drivetrain - triple crank with one cog. Don't remember if he had index or friction shifter. For around here, you could get buy with a double. Yes, a FD and tensioner doesn't look as clean as a ss, but that is a functional way around the whole situation.

munsoned said...

Huh! Interesting. With that 1 cog/2 chairing setup, you could possibly get by with one of those sprung, single speed tensioners instead of a full on derailleur. I'm not sure you could do a huge change in chainrings, maybe only 4 or 6 teeth, but it'd be fun to dink with.

I love dinking with bikes. If I had no debt, I'd be working in a bike shop right now. I just have to make more money at this point in my life. Once the debt is gone though, I may very well change careers. After all, almost all of my money goes into biking stuff. And I don't see that changing anytime soon.

dale said...

Going from 38x18 to 48x20, I had to add 3 links, +/- ebb adjustment. You could go with a rohloff chain tensioner and guessing, get +10t or so.

What worked for me is finding a wife that earns more money than I did and learn to live on what she makes. Than all the part-time money made at the bike shop can be kept on my shop account layaway to feed my addiction, er... avocation. 8-)

I work with a great bunch of people, which is more important to job satisfaction than the actual work being performed.

But vocation and avocation are only a part of life; a wife and children enrich and help balance life imo. Homeschooling the kids encourages a love for learning and strong relationships. Finally, the foundation for me that provides big picture perspective and the context for making sense of life is believing in Christ.

dale said...

Loaded the bob and rode out to Fremont for trailwork. Took the flatest way, i.e. Military through Elk City, hwy 36 and old 275. On the way back, I didn't have to walk on the two long climbs so I will try 48x18 (73" gear) for non bob riding. Hopefully, it won't be too tall, otherwise, I will need to buy a 19t tomicog.