Stephen's Personal Blog

The new rear wheel and cluster arrived today. I swapped it out in a couple of hours with a minor change to the cluster. The old cluster was an 11-32 SRAM PG-950. The new cluster is an 11-34 SRAM PG-980. Instead of an 11-34 cluster of 11-13-..-34, I replaced the 13 with the 12 of the old cluster. The two smaller cogs cluster the gearing on both ends (high and low) and spread it out in the middle. The new 34 is for mountain climbing. The new low gear is now 19 instead of 20 gear inches. The gearing is a bit customized and requires some attention.

The wheels now match; both Mavic Open Pros on Ultegra hubs. The rear is a 36 spoke for the extra weight and the front is a standard 32 spoke. Both handbuilt from Bikeman. Very nice.

Today, I ordered a few things for the bike instead of training. It was cold and threatened rain all day. Even after truing the original back wheel seems out of whack slightly. It was wobbly and I had that fixed, but it’s still not right. The ride feels fine, but it looks weird when looking at it spin. Like a little jitter up and down, not quite perfectly circular. Normally, I would just write this off, but the wheel I bought from Bikeman last year to replace the one I ran over is rock solid after over 1000 miles. So, I ordered another one like that with 36 spokes instead of 32 (normal). It’s an Ultegra hub on Mavic Open Pro silver rims.

While I’m fiddling with the back wheel, which I hate, I decided to replace the cluster. It bugs me that I have the very cheapest cluster and chain. These are rather important parts, constantly in motion, and without which the bike doesn’t go anywhere. The replacement is a SRAM PG-980 11-34 and the chain, a PC-991 Cross Step. You replace chains about when you replace derailleurs, clusters, etc. or over a certain mileage. The current setup is a SRAM PG-950 11-32 with a PC-951 chain. The new setup is 200+ grams lighter and changes the gearing again. The top gear is up a bit. The bottom gear drops even lower, because of the 34T gear. 11-34 is as wide as it gets. And the 24/38/50 up front is nearly as wide.

The training rides, especially the 44 miles yesterday have been great with the new gearing. I spend most of the time in the middle ring. The big ring does come in to play on downhill, especially with a tailwind. The gear is easy to remember. The middle and big chainrings make the rear gears 2 clicks apart. So, shifting from middle to big also shifts the rear down 2 to find a similar gear.

To look at it another way, I have a small chainring with 6 or 7 unique gears. Then the middle gives me 9 with 7 overlapping the big ring, which gives me 2 more high gears. It feels like I have 18 distinct gears, but I want the overlap between the middle and big ring, because that’s were most of the work is and it makes things predictable. Though sometimes I think about a 52, 53, or 54 tooth big ring.

I got a bit of riding done this week, 19 on Tuesday and Friday and 24 on Saturday. That’s a lot from 0 for a month. Still my speeds are higher, 14mph vs 12-13 in February and March. So, I didn’t lose as much as I thought. I can feel that a lot of muscle mass is gone in my thighs and calves. That has to be rebuilt and more.

The bike has new gearing; 24, 38, 50 in the front. The first 2 rides had a lot of grinding against the derailleur. Gears adjusted while jacked up on the bike trainer don’t take account flex in the bike frame from riding. They seemed adjusted and then the rides disproved that.

I want a perfectly silent drive train and very, very close yesterday. On the trainer again and with some more leeway in what keeps the chain on the middle chain ring I got it as close as I could. Basically, the 38 and 50 tooth gears are my primary and the 24 is my granny goat climber. It only has to work on the 6 largest cogs, while the big 50 only has to work on the 6 smallest cogs. Actually, I got all 9 cogs with the 24 and 38. And the smallest 8 on the 50. Most importantly the chain stopped jumping from the 50, past the 38, down to the 24. There just a touch of rubbing on certain gear combinations, because the frame flexes during the pedal stroke.

It really is amazing to see the front and rear derailleurs at work. I’ve used the new high gear, but not the low one. Just about anything in that ring is too low. We haven’t had the 30mph headwinds this week. It’s been really spectacular weather.

One other change. The rear rack and fender are off. The Velo Orange seat bag is more than big enough for a tub, tiny tools, wallet, phone, keys, and even a cycling jacket. It’s not one of those tiny wedge packs. This swap is the reason for the speed increase on yesterday’s ride. The saddle bag (bike seats are called saddles and mine is leather too) is a classic cotton sack with leather straps and two oversized zippers. Let’s face it. My ass is never going to be narrow enough to take advantage of a 6″ wide wedge pack.

The first return ride I experience some odd sensations in my legs, especially, the hurt knee. There was some tensing as if expecting pain and odd cycling motion in both. It was as if both legs were unchanged, back one month ago, and compensating for the pain in one of them. Not so for the other rides. Everything returned to normal. Sort of. My saddle is a good 1″-1.5″ taller. The new angles aren’t too comfortable on my arms, but they don’t have to pedal.

Less than three months to go for the StP ride. I need some pairs of 80 mile per day weekends and a 100 mile day.

BTW, mileage is kept here.

The other day I added the replacement 24 and 50 tooth chain rings and the front derailleur became a problem to adjust. The range is just too wide. The best I can adjust it is to rattle on the 24T plus upper cluster gears and the 50T plus lowest gear. Rattling is really annoying. This drops out 4 gears giving me really about 19 distinct gears.

While I was working on it I noticed how disgustingly gunky the chain and rear derailleur was. After many repeated baths in natural oil and standard degreaser and hot water it finally returned to its steel color. Then the cluster looked aweful. So, I disassembled the cage and two little wheels. At last I sprayed down the cluster with natural oil cleaner and water baths until it returned to a nice shiny chrome color.

To prevent rust I placed all the removed components in the oven as low as it would go. It should be weather resistant, but there’s no reason to sit in so much water after I made sure it got soaked all the way through.

Next, I’ll oil the saddle and she should be ready for the road. The next ride up is Seattle to Portland in mid-July. I haven’t been able to ride since the bike trip a month ago and I’m feelin’ it. The first week my knee was too hurt, then preparing for my party, then bike parts arrived and the weather turned crummy. It’s still crummy. Maybe, one or two days have been ridable in the past two weeks. Most of it is wind. Really extreme wind conditions lately.

Time to get ready to go.