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Ah… the XC 717, became an
Ah… the XC 717, became an annual tradition of re-rimming my wheels after wearing through a set of 717s every winter.Lovely rims to build with
Actually until recently my
Actually until recently my dad’s old Kona was also still in use, but I sold it to a covetous friend who collected retro MTB gear. Looking forward to seeing his restoration job.
My old Kona top, from back
My old Kona top, from back when Kona was still cool and did skinny steel tubes with Hawaiian jungle graphics (1998 perhaps?). I got a matching jacket and short sleeve jersey set, although the jacket eventually died an honourable death after one filthy, muddy night ride too many.
The jersey is still trucking although starting to get just a leetle too tight. Only comes out for special occasions such as riding up a 10,000ft Hawaiian volcano or racing a local CX circuit with a ‘death spiral’ feature which matches the jersey.
Ribble do a removable brake
Ribble do a removable brake bridge for their CGR, wonder if it would work with the Grail?Quote:
Learn to read the roadExactly, reading the road, riding to conditions, if it’s wet it takes all of a few seconds to dry your rims, and frankly, if I’m riding in wet conditions, I have no interest in setting PBs on descents anyway!
A few pieces of rubber grinding away at a wet aluminium rim is no way to stop in an emergencyAnd a few pieces of hardened metal and fibre grinding away at hard steel are? I’m being flippant of course but rim brakes are far better designed than people give them credit for, soft rubber pads are far less prone to the sort of squeeling in wet conditions which puts me off discs altogether, wet winter riding is unpleasant enough without adding humiliating, deafening screeching into the mix. As it happens I ride through some long wet grass on one of my CX training loops and my discs are useless afterwards, they don’t work as well in the wet as everyone claims they do, still need to dry off!
Good Swisstop pads on aluminium rims have seen me through some atrocious weather conditions, riding down a rivulet of melt water on an unploughed road covered in compacted snow springs to mind, and I’m on the same rims as I was two years ago (although sharing winter duties over two bikes helps that).
Anyway, as someone above posted, this argument will never die, it’s down to personal choice, I just find the ‘no brainer’ attitude a bit hard to swallow.
Rollers are a great warm up
Rollers are a great warm up too before you jump on the turbo, I was doing 20 minutes on the rollers then jumping on turbo for 40 minute sweetspot efforts, a great workout together.
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I regret getting the gravel bike (last March) with discs though right now I’m not sure if you can get a gravel frame for rim brakes or v-brakes /drop barsThere’s very few left on the market although I’m speccing a ‘dream’ gravel/CX build using a Kinesis CX1 frame, available on sale at the moment for £280 in some places (frame only, a suitable carbon fork is £175).
I’ve now got it down to £1850 for a CX/gravel bike which would weigh only 8.1kg in race mode (single chainring, lightweight tyres) and 8.6kg in gravel mode with a 2x 48/32 chainset and fatter gravel tyres. That’s using Avid Shorty Ultimate cantilever brakes which I still see people racing CX on so they must be OK. The alternative would be TRP mini-Vs which are also good (I have them on my commuter) but less mud clearance. At least they are quiet in the wet though using Swisstop pads.
You’d have to spend twice that money to get a disc brake gravel bike that light, and you’d still have scrapey squeely discs in the wet!
If it’s your ‘best’ bike then
If it’s your ‘best’ bike then I would go rim brakes and Ultegra, lighter, quieter and personally the benefits of discs for me are only for really rough, long descents when your arms might get fatigued, or if you’re doing significant mileage in the wet when your rims might get worn down (or maybe carbon rims, I’ve never used them and am unlikely to ever afford them!)
I would hate to spend good money on a high end bike and then have to put up with squealing disc brakes in the wet, or rubbing pads when you’re time trialling along the road and trying to just focus on keeping the gear turning! I’ve had both happen on my gravel bike with disc brakes and now it gets left in the shed unless I really need to take it out.
I thought they were bought
I thought they were bought out by Dorel, who own Cannondale, which is why many Cannondales now come sporting Fabric saddles!
I’d bet road.cc have to
I’d bet road.cc have to promote what they’re asked to promote, it’s a free website after all and they’ll need the income.
They’re hardly the only ones anyway, wiggle/CRC etc. are really bad for this, google almost anything and they’ll come up first, even if they don’t have it or only had it 4 years ago etc. etc.
Actually renders Google slightly less effective as a search engine given that it now throws up poor quality results, but of course what Google care about is the advertising $$ so they won’t care either.
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The sticky tape had less than 1mm on the handlebar. Bloody crap. Much better now.Now then, is it time for a handlebar wrapping debate?
I’m pretty sure the gold standard is for the sticky tape to stop precisely at the edge of the bar tape, no overlap at all?
I’ve never got it to run
I’ve never got it to run entirely clean, fingers still come away mucky if I touch the chain, but it’s nicer than any wet lube I’ve used.
Had been contemplating using it on my winter bikes/CX bike also, would rather it wash off and have to be re-applied than have a sticky black mess of a chain. Just haven’t got round to cleaning chains for application.
Am tempted to try White Lightning, heard lots of good things.
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Disk brakes should be considered essential for winter commutingBecause the noise they make in the wet attracts driver’s attentions?
I’ve commuted through three winters and numerous weather warnings on rim brakes, never occurred to me to ‘upgrade’ to discs.
Any discs you get at £500 will be a massive compromise.
The Specialized has slightly
The Specialized has slightly lower gearing as spec (11-32 cassette instead of 11-28).
Boardman sounds like it has a good frame for upgrading, do you anticipate spending lots of money on better parts over time?
Having said that, the Specialized is a really good frame, I’m sometimes tempted to swap the parts off my good bike just to see how light you could build the Specialized!
With guards and some other tweeks, my Specialized has come out at 9.2kg. Stupidly I swapped the stock cranks for some shorter Tiagra cranks which actually added about 200g!
Overall, I prefer aluminium though, feel like I spend less time chasing creaks on metal frames than on plastic ones!
Also SRAM have somehow made
Also SRAM have somehow made it acceptable to charge more for 1x groupsets, it might be sexy and new but as you point out, there’s less to it!
Wait a while, I bet you’ll start to see 2x GRX cheaper than 1x GRX…
