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A friend of mine has SRAM 10
A friend of mine has SRAM 10 speed on his gravel bike with cable discs. He eventually lost patience with the double tap brifter action and fitted Tiagra 4700 brifters instead after checking the pull ratio was the same. It works very well with the SRAM derailleur.
Not the OP’s exact issue, and I can’t recall which SRAM model it is – but goes to show it’s not always impossible to mix the two.
One approximation that can be
One approximation that can be useful to cut through the geometry maze is to divide reach by stack. Look up the numbers for your current bike and check the ratio against the frames you are interested in.
That’s how I managed to buy a bike that is painful for my aged back. It’s not perfect but a reasonable comparator.
This raises some interesting
This raises some interesting questions about engineering tolerances and how the chain tools are made. We expect them to be accurate when measuring 0.75% wear, but what does that really mean? When I measure (with the Park tool) and find mine is end of life, I’m not going to instantly condemn the chain, but I will order a new one. It won’t stop me from riding until it arrives. So might my chain be at 0.9% at that stage? Is that knackering rings and sprockets? Not so far.If anyone can do this for £4, Decathlon can, but how is the tool made? Can a pressing (cookie cutter style) can be all that good? I assume that’s how they are made.
I also look after my partner’s hybrid (3×8 speed), which is little used and a cast off given to her years ago. The Park tool doesn’t drop into the gap between rollers, but only because the chain is so worn that the next roller is in the way. Huge amount of sideways movement as well, but somehow it all still works. So perhaps you can get away with a bit more than you think, and perhaps I should get on and replace it today – but will the new chain work with the rest of the drive train?
Can swap out for something
Can swap out for something cheaper too. Merlin have Continental Ultrasport II (oldie but goodie) at £12.50 in 28 mm. Worth saving the cx tyres for when you need them.Happens to me sporadically on
Happens to me sporadically on win10 / Chrome which I have locked down for security in ways I am too ignorant to tune properly. So can’t see customer reviews on some sites, as well as this Ajax error. Hence I have a vanilla installation of Firefox with no tin foil hat add ins which always seems to work.How strong are the freewheels
How strong are the freewheels in the Bitex hubs? I have broken 2 on my gravel bike despite being as low powered as a watch battery. The OEM Fulcrum Racing Sport DB (which are unpopular for many reasons) and a ProBuild AlexRims / Chosen hub which I bought in a hurry to get back on the road. It’s like underpants – one on, one in the drawer.
So I am quite interested in whose rear hubs are a bit more durable.
I got down to 30 psi on 36 mm
I got down to 30 psi on 36 mm tubed tyres on my Ridley gravel bike purely through neglect. At that point the comfort had been overtaken by the rather wobbly feel. No pinch flats or tyre departure from rims, just it felt sloppy.I usually have 28 mm tyres at about 50-55 psi. Weighing 80 kg this makes some of my club mates wince but the comfort is so nice.
Very much agree with the eBay
Very much agree with the eBay idea and the suggestion of buying a new example once you find something you like. I’ve been through a Selle TRK medium, very fat, a Drakan (too thin) a Specialized something (too angular), a couple that came with bikes and borrowed from friends. Current favourite is a Madison Flux (slightly more padded Charge Spoon) that I bought new as they are too cheap already to make sense on eBay.It’s not perfect, and I do notice some saddles work better with some shorts. I also shift on the saddle a lot, standing up, stretching glutes and so on. If you are sitting still for such a long time, perhaps a touring saddle or a Brooks might help. Not very roadie but no one can see you indoors…
I think they’ve at last
I think they’ve at last realised that the “wow, look at my new PR, faster than Jimmy on my Sunday club run” has the most value overall, and the network effect (gotta be on F book if all my friends are) may have hit a point of no return.But in bundling that simple stuff (yeah, needs data centers / cloud capacity but the programming isn’t all that complex compared with other things they do) with all the analysis of your sensor data and other fancy things, which many casual and new users do not understand, let alone want, for half a Netflix sub?
Could be a MySpace moment.
Personally (and this is just me) I don’t use their app on my aged phone, I do my route planning on ridewithgps and would not pay nearly that much to allow others to see how slow I am – and I am part of the product given how much I prop up the leader boards to make others feel better.
Make it up. 10 mph perhaps.
Make it up. 10 mph perhaps.If the motorist is too ignorant to know that cycle lanes are optional and frequently have wandering pedestrians, dog lead garotting devices and broken glass, they’re unlikely to try to find the truth and even less likely to understand and remember it. So you’d only be giving them a handy rule of thumb, not a spin doctor standard economy with the truth.
And truth is in short supply so don’t be using it recklessly and wastefully.
I’m short-sighted and deeply
I’m short-sighted and deeply cynical about big brand sunglasses. My optician showed me their best sellers to cyclists, but as the frame alone was £175 I struggled not to laugh. I’m sure they are terrific even without high modulus unobtainium nose pieces but after glazing would have been about £400.I looked at some of the cheaper type with a secondary lens holder, but even without glazing the holder, I could tell it would be too close to my eyes and quite heavy, but they do allow a wrap around style which is difficult to produce with a prescription.
I found some prescription sunglasses on Amazon for very low prices but the lens power is the same both sides and my eyes are not. There were also none of the other corrections that are important if you’re going to wear the glasses for hours at a time.
So I decided to by from an online optician, and only considered those who take all the numbers from your prescription. I spent £80 at spex4less.com and have been very happy. The style is good, the optics are good, and summer rides up to 6 hours are no problem for my eyes. There are plenty of such websites, some a bit less up front with pricing.
Hope this is useful.
Whilst upgrading to hydraulic
Whilst upgrading to hydraulic is nice for power and modulation, once you add up the cost of calipers and levers it is quite an outlay. An improvement can be made at lower cost with better designed cable calipers (eg TRP Spyre) or hybrid (cable to the caliper, hydraulic within it).
I have TRP Spyre on my gravel bike and am happy – the key benefit is that both pads move and are individually adjusted. This allows for less true rotors and less than perfect adjustment.
The few times I have ridden full hydraulic braked bikes have shown them to be much nicer to use but good cable disc brakes are pretty decent.By now you know there are
By now you know there are lots of opinions, so to be helpful I’ll add to the confusion… By far the most important thing is that the shoes fit – obvious but way more important than which system you use.
On systems:
I moved from clips and straps to SPD (2 bolt) years ago. This is best if you need to walk far and you are happy in MTB shoes with tread that surrounds the cleat. Other good reasons are the cleats last a long time, lots of the cheaper shoes use 2 bolt cleats, and you can get double sided pedals (almost all are), or SPD one side, flat the other which is handy for casual riding eg to the pub. Latterly I used road-style shoes where the 2 bolt cleat still protrudes; this is possibly the least stable for walking but OK at a cafe stop. Had to be careful at home as metal cleats can damage flooring. My pedals were Shimano PD520s and A600s – the latter look a lot cooler and are lighter but are one sided and I have always found them a challenge to clip in, as the feel on the foot of “right way up but not engaged” and “wrong way up” is pretty similar. And in the dark you can’t see which way is which.
But I am moving now on to Look Keo (3 bolt) because I have a niggling pain in one foot that seems to take longer to appear on a ride using 3 bolt. Still the same shoes (Btwin 500) as they fit both 2 and 3 bolt, and there are quite a few low end shoes like that. Flicking the Look pedals over is a lot easier than the Shimano A600s in my opinion and I am totally sold on the switch now.
Why Look and not SPD-SL? Just because my son uses Look, so I pinched some spare PlanetX pedals (£20 worth) and cleats from him. I think it’s harder to find really cheap SPD-SL pedals, because it hasn’t been copied by lots of other manufacturers (yet). From my reading, I might slightly prefer SPD-SL due to the slightly wider contact between the pedal and the shoe and the cleats seem to last longer, but this is not enough of a difference to spend much.
All this can be done on the cheap with ebay, as long as you’ve chosen your standard. There are lots of shoes in various states of repair and stinkiness, so if you can’t wait until the shops re-open and you can try things on, get some old and cheap shoes from a major manufacturer (eg Specialized) in your size or slightly larger, and see how it goes. If you hate them, sell them on. But at least you’ll know your size in that manufacturer and gain some experience.
To get used to clipping in and out (latter more important), spend a few minutes practising in your kitchen – worktops are an ideal height to lean on. Set the tension really low to start, decide which is your preferred foot to put down and make sure you can really get it out whenever you want. I don’t believe anyone who claims not to have had a 0 mph fall at the start of their attached career – it will happen, but just try not to fall into traffic and don’t break your wrist – fall on your side with your arm down if you can. It’s far less painful to the body than the ego.
If you’re faster than someone
If you’re faster than someone on a new bike, you get that lovely glow of “I’m faster than you because I’m more talented and look after my bike really well because I’m a mechanical guru”. If you’re slower than them, it’s becaue they’re on a fancy new bike. Either way it’s win-win. And it’s why my 1988 steel bike needs restoration as my 1968 corpse is not that well maintained and I’m dropped by nearly everyone without stabilisers.
I have a Garmin 810, my son
I have a Garmin 810, my son Wahoo Element Bolt. Garmin is better for the map and turn by turn navigation – it is usually excellent and you can ride with your usual data screen, waiting for the bleeps and map to pop up at the turns. Ironically the Wahoo scores here because it just shows the way, so if a route is badly done with minor detours at junctions etc, the Garmin tries to make you follow it exactly. The Wahoo just gives you the crumb trail.But the Garmin pressure sensor fails in the rain (mostly sorted by rubber case) and it won’t talk to my unbranded cadence sensor. The touch screen is annoying too because when you take the GPS off the bike at the café stop you have to carry it carefully. The wahoo buttons make more sense.
I agree that connecting to a computer to upload the ride is a pain, but the automatic connection via Bluetooth and phone has been the only unreliable part of the Wahoo.
