It's been a frustrating week. With a week's worth of sub par workouts and a newly mangled rear derailleur, I'm a little on edge.
I had an interval session planned last night, but had to stop because of
a) lack of cooperation from the legs and cardiovascular system
b) noisy drivetrain courtesy of my newly mangled derailleur
One of two, I could have dealt with. But the combo attack left me frustrated. My mind said "fuck it," and I stopped the workout after the third interval so that I could work on the bike.
The incident that mangled my derailleur was my fault. I was cross chained (Big front ring, big rear cog) and shifted right off of the cassette. The chain wedged between the big cog and the spokes and the derailleur wrapped up all funny. I had to force the chain out.
It's still wholly rideable. I adjusted the shifting to the point where it works again. But I was getting substantial chain rub on the cage of the rear derailleur in anything from 50:17 to 50:23 (My four "easiest" cogs).
The hanger wasn't bent, so I went to work on the derailleur cage with a couple of adjustable wrenches, twisting, bending, twisting, bending. Now it only rubs in 50:23 and 50:21. Annoying, yes. But I really shouldn't be riding there anyway.
It's still out of alignment, so it looks like 100 bucks of that money I was hoping to put toward a set of race wheels is going to go to a new derailleur. I'll ride this one out through the weekend and get a new one Monday or Tuesday.
Thursday, 4/10/2008
2 x 25' commutes
1 x 30' on trainer (warmup, 5 jumps, and 1', 2, and an abbreviated 3' @ anaerobic effort: 330W)
Then came the bike work, the grump, and ultimately, the wine.
Friday, April 11, 2008
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3 comments:
That sucks man. Breakage is always a pain in the ass.
I need your help and advices.
I want to get a bike for tooling around town not quite a commuter, not quite a weekender. Something I can ride to jiu-jitsu class, or to the gym, but decent enough I could do a longer ride here or there without getting embarrassed. I have a budget of about $500 (give or take a hundy or so) I was thinking of a cyclo-cross type bike, but the hills out here a fricking massive, and I happen to live on the top of one of the biggest. So I'm worried about the gearing. Basically I don't really know where to start.
J.B.,
My humble opinion is that if I were going to have one do it all bike--good for town, good for some dirt roads, good for a comfortable century ride, good for loading up with racks and using it to carry groceries, etc.--it'd definitely be a cyclocross bike.
You can load them up with all sorts of accoutrements (like racks and fenders for getting around in rainy seattle), you can usually fit burly wide tires for a comfy, puncture resistant ride, and they have a little more relaxed geometry (typically) than your standard road bike...so they make for a nice bike to ride around town.
On the flip side, the rims, frame, and fork are built to handle full sized 700c wheels, so should you want to swap out tires for some high performance road slicks for a long ride, it'd be totally legit.
As for gearing, a cross bike would be right at home with slightly smaller front rings and slightly larger cogs on the back. They are heavier bikes and they are built to ride off road in slop, sand, and whatever you might find. You can usually gear them down as easy as you want to for accomodating any sort of grade you'll encounter.
As for bikes to look for: You can probably score a sweet used cross bike for 500-600. See if you can find a local bike shop guy that you can trust and have them give you an opinion on a used bike, the components that are on it, if it'll be fully serviceable for a few years, if it'll be good for what you want to use it for, etc.
For the sake of durability and longevity, steel bikes are a popular choice for these do it all rigs. Buy a decent steel frame cross bike now, take good care of it, and no matter how much you abuse it, you'll probably still be rolling around on it in 10 years. Surly bikes are very popular and have a pretty good reputation for this sort of project. Something like a cross check or a long haul trucker. As a company, Surly caters to the bike rider/bike commuter/bike tourer rather than the bike racer. I like their products and know a host of mechanics and bike shop guys that ride cross checks as their primary mode of transportation.
I also like aluminum because it's light and stiff. Not as good of a ride, but good performance characteristics. It's also cheap. Though the production aluminum cross bikes seem to be billed as performance race bikes (Kona Jake the Snake or Schwinn Fastback CX), which might not suit your needs as well.
As for components, depending on whether you get a new, production bike or buy a cheap frame and have someone build it...you have a lot of options. Shoot me an email (jqbond@gmail.com) if you have questions about the practicality of this or that.
No doubt, someone will try to convince you that you need carbon cranks and Ultegra STI shifters. But likely, you'll be able to get by just fine with sturdy lower end stuff and some bar end shifters . Again, I find the Surly bikes to be a good balance of functionality, reliability, and practicality.
But again, for these bikes, see if you can find one used for your price range. I think surly sells them new for about a grand.
Lastly, Surly is just one company I like that caters to this sort of riding. I am sure there are other good options out there and you should definitely be able to find something that gets the job done well for 500. Look around, go by a high end bike shop and ask them to fit you on a cyclocross bike so you know with some certainty what size frame you need, check craiglist, check the local shops that sell used gear, etc.
And like I said, drop me a line if you have questions about any of it.
awesome, thanks.. more via email.
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