Slowly converting old 10 speed to bad ass commuter

[B.B.]

In article <[email protected]>,
Threeducks <[email protected]> wrote:

>Don't bother fixing it up. Buy something new/used on eBay. Lots of
>deals to be had.

Yeah, but I hate ebay, and buying a whole bike isn't anywhere near as
much fun anyway.

--
B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail dot net
movies.crooksandliars.com/Countdown-Timeline-Katrina.mov

 

[B.B.]

In article <[email protected]>,
Michael Press <[email protected]> wrote:

[...]

>I find shifting in traffic unnecessary, but will shift in
>`quiet moments'. You really do not need to down shift at
>traffic stops. For instance on a 50/18 gear you can ride
>10 mph just ambling along at a cadence of 45, and ramp up
>to +20 mph at a cadence of 100. Find a good gear and ride
>it; you will surprise yourself. Plenty of bicycle
>messengers ride a single speed bicycle. Get clipless
>pedals and shoes. Shimano mountain bicycle shoes or the
>equivalent are excellent.
>
>As you are on a budget, leave brifters for the last.

Umm, dunno about your traffic, but around here a slow start at a
light or stop => ****** off drivers => excess danger to me. The typical
pattern is that if I get off the line quickly I'll establish a gap
between myself and the car behind me which the driver will usually
maintain until a chance to get over and pass comes up. OTOH, if I don't
proactively establish that gap the driver sure won't either. So I get
tailgated or run off the road.
Because of that I've gotten solidly into the habit of taking off in a
low gear so I can accelerate as quickly as possible and then just
cruise. Trying to mash pedals for a bit to get up to speed would at the
very least feel too weird to me.
Brifters are now a maybe because someone brought up bar end shifters.
But if I do go for brifters anyway they will definitely be the last part
of this project.

--
B.B. --I am not a goat! thegoat4 at airmail dot net
movies.crooksandliars.com/Countdown-Timeline-Katrina.mov

 

[Cam]

Jasper Janssen wrote:
>
> Yeh, but getting to the 10 mph in that gear can be a pain. You can stand
> up for a few strokes, but in traffic that'll make you unpredictable and
> cause the other bicyclists around you to have to maintain a larger
> distance than they would otherwise need to.

I'll second that. There aren't many single speed bikes on my commute
but there are lots of riders who don't bother shifting down at a red
light. They are a pain to get past as they try to mash their way up to
speed.

Cam

 

[[email protected]]

paint the frame's inside's with white rusto on a hot day., twirl and
dance.
the complete redo costs abt $400 bought during feb-winter sales
deore hubs/derays/new seat/cr-18 rims/$30 tires/cables/housings/ergo
bar fit to shoulder width(get a wide one better to breathe by)and
tools. try wheels solid axles at oversize.
see nashbar and biketoolsect
the result is better than the $700 category cause you get your best
individual specs-the manufacturer doesn't chose for you.
unless you need a different sized frame which is a major consideration

 

[Threeducks]

B.B. wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Threeducks <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
>>Don't bother fixing it up. Buy something new/used on eBay. Lots of
>>deals to be had.
>
>
> Yeah, but I hate ebay, and buying a whole bike isn't anywhere near as
> much fun anyway.
>
I hate eBAy too, but money is money and used bikes are worth next to
nothing once they get to be more than 2-3 years old.

 

[Michael Press]

In article <[email protected]>,
Jasper Janssen <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 02:49:07 GMT, Michael Press <[email protected]> wrote:
> >In article <[email protected]>,
>
> >> Yeh, but getting to the 10 mph in that gear can be a pain. You can stand
> >> up for a few strokes, but in traffic that'll make you unpredictable and
> >> cause the other bicyclists around you to have to maintain a larger
> >> distance than they would otherwise need to.
> >
> >Does not have to be a pain; take it easy and you will be
> >up to speed in a surprisingly short time. You can
> >accelerate faster than you may think, even from a dead
> >stop.
>
> The problem is that until you are accelerated, it's hard to make a good
> straight line. When the light turns green at quite a few places here, it's
> a lot like a mass-start race where 90% of the riders will never do
> anything but go slow and are not so great at avoiding bumping in to
> people.

Someone may find it hard to go on a straight line; then
with practice will find it simple and easy. At one stage
when I would be riding on a quiet stretch I would simply
observe the line I took and sensed my balance, force of
hands on bars, muscle tension, and pressure on the saddle.
Eventually I could ride much straighter.

I am not used to bicycle mass starts so we are probably
approaching this from different places.

I find that all my stop and go traffic riding is on flat
terrain (relatively so, on the east side of the
San Francisco Bay). Picking a gear and staying in it is
practicable and a great help.

>
> >> Excuse me, are you saying that clipping in your feet (particularly having
> >> to clip in before you're even moving) will make it easier for you to do a
> >> standing start on a gear that's too high?
> >
> >I am not a strong rider, and I do this all the time. And I
> >often turn the cranks a couple times before clipping in
> >the second shoe. The first shoe is already in.
>
> Hmm, yeah, that could work.

Oh, and the gear is not `too high'. It is a relatively
high gear that I can get going without strain. When the
gear is too high, I downshift. I mentioned 50/18, and that
is on the high side of what I will run; sometimes it is
50/21, or 38/17, or ...

--
Michael Press

 

[Michael Press]

In article
<[email protected]>,
"Cam" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Jasper Janssen wrote:
> >
> > Yeh, but getting to the 10 mph in that gear can be a pain. You can stand
> > up for a few strokes, but in traffic that'll make you unpredictable and
> > cause the other bicyclists around you to have to maintain a larger
> > distance than they would otherwise need to.
>
> I'll second that. There aren't many single speed bikes on my commute
> but there are lots of riders who don't bother shifting down at a red
> light. They are a pain to get past as they try to mash their way up to
> speed.

Maybe I am a little stronger than I thought, since I get
out of traffic stops without hindering anyone, and often
ahead of other cyclists. Usually we cyclists have sized
each other up, and leave the traffic stop in an tacitly
agreed order.

I very much do not like shifting at traffic stops, even
with indexed shifting.

--
Michael Press

 

[Jasper Janssen]

On Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:29:19 GMT, Michael Press <[email protected]> wrote:

>Oh, and the gear is not `too high'. It is a relatively
>high gear that I can get going without strain. When the
>gear is too high, I downshift. I mentioned 50/18, and that
>is on the high side of what I will run; sometimes it is
>50/21, or 38/17, or ...

I'm coming at this from my three-speed, which is what I usually ride in
the heavy traffic, and it has a 46/19 base gear; in 3 that's the
equivalent of a 46/just over 14. *That*'s too tall for me to accelerate
quickly enough that balance is not an issue. But, fair enough, I do
actually have relatively bad balance, always have had.

Jasper

 

[Jasper Janssen]

On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:08:21 -0400, Peter Cole <[email protected]>
wrote:

>Not sure what you mean by "angle of motion". AFAIK, the only difference
>between "road" and "mountain" rear derailers is the cage length.

A slant parallelogram, unlike an oldfashioned one, moves down with each
shift as well as sideways. That allows it to be closer under the small
cogs, nearly as much so as under the large cog. A road casette typically
has a fairly slack angle there, while a mountain cassette has a steeper
angle.

I'm not so sure that there's a real difference between real rear
derailers, let alone that it's significant in affecting shifting, but
there's at least the theoretical possibility of one.

Jasper

 

[Günther Schwarz]

Jasper Janssen wrote:

> On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:08:21 -0400, Peter Cole
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>Not sure what you mean by "angle of motion". AFAIK, the only
>>difference between "road" and "mountain" rear derailers is the cage
>>length.
>
> A slant parallelogram, unlike an oldfashioned one, moves down with
> each shift as well as sideways. That allows it to be closer under the
> small cogs, nearly as much so as under the large cog. A road casette
> typically has a fairly slack angle there, while a mountain cassette
> has a steeper angle.
>
> I'm not so sure that there's a real difference between real rear
> derailers, let alone that it's significant in affecting shifting, but
> there's at least the theoretical possibility of one.

Well, my SRAM X.9 unit is obviously designed for something like a 11-32
cassette. It indeed moves at a steeper angle than my current 13-28
cluster has. If chain length and the small screw are set up correctly
for the smallest sprocket the pulley will be quite high above the
biggest one. But then I'm not sure if there is a difference between
Shimano parallelograms of road and mountain shifters. I am most
definetely too lazy to replace the derailer with a road type one just
to check geometry. Even if the distance between sprocket and pulley is
not optimal shifts will be fine. Not a very important point IME.

Guenther

 

[Phil, Squid-in-Training]

Jasper Janssen wrote:
> On Mon, 17 Oct 2005 23:12:26 -0400, "Phil, Squid-in-Training"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>>> MTB vs road rear derailer is a marketing distinction. MTB derailers
>>> are usually "long cage", which means they will accept a wider range
>>> cassette.
>>
>> Not true. The parallelogram has a different angle of motion,
>> better-suited to a close-range cassette.
>
> But a long versus medium versus short cage would also have that
> difference in angle. It's cage length that's correlated with cassette
> type, not 'road' versus 'mountain'. Of course, it's possible some of
> the mountain derailers are a bit heavier for their money and better
> sealed against the elements, even if otherwise identical to a road
> counterpart.
>
> Jasper

Not really. Take a look at my short-cage XT and my short Exage 400.

http://plaza.ufl.edu/phillee/xt.jpg
http://plaza.ufl.edu/phillee/exage.jpg

I did my best to show the angles... both images are aligned vertical WRT the
derailleur cage. I used short cables to "tension" the derailleurs. Even
though they're not tensioned equally, you can still see where the knuckle
and all that stuff links together.

IMO, there still is a functional "road" and "mountain."

--
Phil, Squid-in-Training

 

[Phil, Squid-in-Training]

Peter Cole wrote:
> Phil, Squid-in-Training wrote:
>>> MTB vs road rear derailer is a marketing distinction. MTB derailers
>>> are usually "long cage", which means they will accept a wider range
>>> cassette.
>>
>>
>> Not true. The parallelogram has a different angle of motion,
>> better-suited to a close-range cassette.
>>
>>
>
> Not sure what you mean by "angle of motion". AFAIK, the only
> difference between "road" and "mountain" rear derailers is the cage
> length.
> <http://www.sheldonbrown.com/k7.html>

Take a look at my reply to Jasper a couple messages down.
--
Phil, Squid-in-Training

 

[Peter Cole]

Jasper Janssen wrote:
> On Tue, 18 Oct 2005 10:08:21 -0400, Peter Cole <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>
>>Not sure what you mean by "angle of motion". AFAIK, the only difference
>>between "road" and "mountain" rear derailers is the cage length.
>
>
> A slant parallelogram, unlike an oldfashioned one, moves down with each
> shift as well as sideways. That allows it to be closer under the small
> cogs, nearly as much so as under the large cog. A road casette typically
> has a fairly slack angle there, while a mountain cassette has a steeper
> angle.

Eyeballing the 2 pictures and taking some rough measurements from a new
derailer, I'd estimate that the change in angle of the parallelogram
between the 2 derailers would result in about a 0.4" (10mm) difference
in vertical jockey wheel position over the full shift range. Doesn't
sound like much. (Say 1.4" (35mm) for a 45 deg, vs. 1.0"(25mm) for a 30
deg).

> I'm not so sure that there's a real difference between real rear
> derailers, let alone that it's significant in affecting shifting, but
> there's at least the theoretical possibility of one.

I've switched derailers from "road" to "mountain" and haven't noticed
any difference at all. Likewise, I've used "mountain" derailers on
"road" cassettes and not noticed any change in shifting. Because of
this, I just use "mountain" derailers now on all my bikes so I can use
whatever cassette I want to.

 

[Peter Cole]

Phil, Squid-in-Training wrote:
> Peter Cole wrote:
>
>>Phil, Squid-in-Training wrote:
>>
>>>>MTB vs road rear derailer is a marketing distinction. MTB derailers
>>>>are usually "long cage", which means they will accept a wider range
>>>>cassette.
>>>
>>>
>>>Not true. The parallelogram has a different angle of motion,
>>>better-suited to a close-range cassette.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>Not sure what you mean by "angle of motion". AFAIK, the only
>>difference between "road" and "mountain" rear derailers is the cage
>>length.
>><http://www.sheldonbrown.com/k7.html>
>
>
> Take a look at my reply to Jasper a couple messages down.

See my reply to Jasper.