Cycling Kit Rant Update

Good news for tall freaks. There are two different bib shorts from 2XU that have 12" inseams. They are not listed as tall bib shorts but they certainly are. They are the "Active Cycle Bib Short" and the "Road Comp Cycle Bib Short". Here are two pics. In the first one I am wearing the 12" 2XU "Active Cycle Bib" and in the other I am wearing Mavic 9" inseam shorts. Both look OK in the picture but the problem is when you are riding the 9" ones climb up too high for my liking. I wear a 36 waist and 38 inseam in jeans and these shorts are size XXL and fit real good.

2XU Active Cycle Bib - 12" inseam

9" inseam shorts

I have ordered the  "Road Comp Cycle Bib Short" and a 2XU jersey in XXL and I will let you know how they fit.

Cycling Kit Rant

Just a quick rant. Why doesn't anyone make a cycling kit tat fits tall people that is cool and not a million $$$?

I broke down and spent a bunch of money on a Mavic HC 125 anniversary kit and it looks bad ass and is all that and stuff. It even matches my wheels - BUT the bibs fit like hot pants. Maybe not that bad but they ride up pretty high.

There are three cycling clothing company's that make tall cycling kits (Jerseys and Bibs) that I know of. But they each have an issue in my opinion.

Aerotech Designs - I bought a pair of their back tall (11" inseam) sized bib shorts and they fit great and the construction is good. But their designs are just not my style.
http://www.aerotechdesigns.com/big-and-tall-cycling-apparel.html

Zinn - Design of their tall kits are OK. The single grey leg panel on the bibs does not do anything for me. Of course you pay a big $$$ for this plain design. The jacket looks pretty cool though.
http://www.bigandtallbike.com/Big-Tall-clothing_c_58.html

Hill Killer Apparel Company - These guys have a bunch of tall cycling clothing and the pricing is pretty good. Their bibs have 12.5" inseams. They have a bunch of state flag jerseys and an Old Bay seasoning jersey. Not my style. They do have a cool jersey that says "Hill Killer" across the front. I like the look but I need to get my conditioning up before I wear that across my chest on a group ride...
http://hillkiller.com/mens/tall

Anyone know of another company out there that makes tall cycling apparel for tall freaks?

DriveTrain Upgrade

I will be upgrading the drivetrain to be a 1 x 10 with good high and low range. Since the bike is currently set up with two chain rings in the front and 6 cogs in the rear one would assume the bike has twelve different gear combinations. However, when I ran a gear calculator I learned that two gear ratios are exactly the same and that two others are really close (within 0.1). So in essence I have 9 usable gear combinations. The gearing on my bike now is rather narrow with a 14 tooth small cog and a 28 tooth large cog. I am going to get that range a bit wider with a 11-36 cassette. I am omitting the front derailleur for three reasons.

Reason 1: I don't like cross chaining or even having to worry about cross chaining. Cross chaining is the condition where the chain is running across the drivetrain centerline -- for example:  From the BIG Front chain ring to Biggest Rear cassette cogs, or from the SMALL Front chain ring to the Smallest Rear cassette cogs.

The diagram below shows the 2 different cross chaining conditions.  Shown in Top view, looking down on the chain, chainrings, and cassette.  (It is shown as a triple, but is applicable for a double just as well.)

Description via: http://www.bicyclechainrings.com/crosschaining.html

Reason 2: I want to reduce weight by not having a second chain ring, derailleur, shifter and cables

Reason 3: Simplicity

Here are the components I am using and the reasons for each.

CRANKS

I just picked up some through axle cranks off of a facebook bike swap page. They are going to be lighter than the old square taper cranks that are on the bike now. These new ones have 172.5mm vs. the 170mm crank arms on there now. That should give me a sight bit more leverage but will cost me some ground clearance with my low bottom bracket Schwinn frame. But 2.5mm is going to be negligible either way. I also just purchased some titanium single speed chain ring bolts from ebay - mainly to be cool - and they were not that expensive vs. steel ones. I just did not want my bolts to start rusting as this bike already sees plenty of rain and mud.

BOTTOM BRACKET

SRAM GXP - No brainer. Will be plenty smooth and light.

CHAIN

10 speed chain - Not sure what one yet. I think Stainless steel will be the way to go. I will not get a Shimano chain that requires those special break off pins.

CHAIN RING

Going to get a narrow wide 130 BCD - 38 T. The new narrow wide chain rings apparently work great in combination with a clutch type rear derailleur. They prevent the front chain coming off the front chain ring. I have a standard chain ring 1 x 9 setup on my mountain bike and had to put a chain keeper on. Hopefully, this narrow wide chain ring will do the trick. There are three major brands out there making them: SRAM, Raceface and Wooth Tooth Components. I am leaning toward the Wolf Tooth Components model because I like the unassuming look of it. Sadly I have not found a silver narrow wide chain ring to match the rest of the bikes silver components.

CASSETTE

Going to get a 11-36 Shimano XT most likely.

SHIFTERS

I picked up a set of GEVENALLE (Retro Shift) shifters. This should be interesting. The two drawbacks I see are that you can't get to the shifter from in the drops - but my current shifters are on the stem now - and that you can't hide the shifter cable under the bar wrap. They appear to be good quality and are much less $$$ then a set of brifters. I will see how they work!

REAR DERAILOR

I purchased a new Deore clutch type rear derailleur. It features Shadow Plus! What a great marketing name. It allows you to lock the derailleur from bouncing up and down when you go over bumps. You can unlock it when you need to remove the rear tire. Again will be interesting to see how this works.

FRONT DERAILOR

NA!

WHEELS

Still researching.

What's New

Well not too much new to report on the Schwinn. I have been riding a good deal on the bike in it's current state. For the small amount of $$$ I have spent on it, it rides really good and I have not had any major breakdowns. I did recently kill each tube when I over inflated the tires to 80 PSI (vs. the max marked pressure of 70 PSI). Over the course of two days both tubes failed at the valve. When I changed them the tubes looked at least 15 years old and were a good deal thicker and heavier than the ones that replaced them. So my ride is now lighter.

With a little mud

Slightly cleaner and with the back pannier on

The next upgrade is going to be the drive train. I have two complaints with the stem mounted shifters.

1. They are too close to my knees when I am out of the saddle.
2. They keep losing tension and every now and then will phantom shift down a gear.

I am going to convert the bike to a 1 X 10 using one of the new Shimano clutch derailleurs, a narrow wide front chain ring and a Gevenalle (Retroshift) brake lever mounted shifter. That will give me me 10 gears that are comparable to what I have now. Currently I have the original 6 speed rear and two chain-rings up front. The original gearing has a gear ratio that overlaps so really it is only an 11 speed. I am going to gear it a bit lower so I can climb and explore off road a bit more. I will most likely get a new 104 BCD mountain bike crank set when I do the upgrade. I would like a through axle to make the cranks lighter and stronger and the 104 BDC narrow wide chain rings area about half the price of a 5 bolt version narrow wide chain ring. The upgrade gets to be a bit more detailed as I will need at least a new rear wheel to fit a 10 speed cassette onto. Especially more detailed since I am thinking about building the wheel myself. more to come on that...

Old vs. New Gear Ratios

The new drivetrain I am planning is a 1x10 that will give me 10 total gears. The drivetrain I am replacing is a 2x6 that provides 12 gears. However, I calculated out the gear ratio for each combination and found that there were some overlaps. To my surprise I only have 9 unique gear combinations inthe current   drivetrain. I will get more gear combinations with the 1x10.

Here is the current 2x6 gearing using "gain ratio". The yellow items are the overlapping gears showing 9 actual gear combinations. I am using 46T and 36T front rings with a 14-28 six-speed freewheel.

Here  is the 1x10 set up. There are 10 gears with a higher and lower gear combo than the old setup. I will use a 39T chain ring and a 11-36 cassette.

Brazing Rack Mounts

Did some rack braze-ons last weekend. It was a little tough because I used MAPP gas and it took a awhile to get to brazing temperature. There was a sweet spot temperature that was hard to get to without burning off too much of the flux. The biggest solution came when I was taking flux from other parts of the assembly and moving it into the area I was working on. I practiced a bunch on a piece of scrap chrome-Molly and felt comfortable enough trying it on the bike.

Getting the parts hot enough for the silver to flow when I had the parts clamped together was a challenge. Once I put a tack weld of silver solder on and could remove the clamp the silver flowed OK. I don't think I will win any awards for the looks of my brazing but the mounts are on very solid.

February Update

I have done a little work on the bike since the last post but I hope to be getting some things done in the next couple of months. I moved in November and have been busy setting up the house and my new bike workshop. Here is a picture of the bike after a nice gravel ride around the new neighborhood. It rides great but still needs work.




After a slightly sloppy gravel road ride

New updates include:

Brazed on new cable stops on the top tube
Brazed on cantilever post on the seat stays
Brazed on a brake bridge (Need to put a new one on one day as this on is too small)
Put lower geared chain rings on up front (46 and 34 tooth front chain rings)
Put on new drop bars and brake levers
Put on a new 350mm steerer tube fork

Schwinn update

I threw on some old 700C wheels with roughly 31cm wide tires (temp sizing wheels), put on Shimano clipless pedals and repacked the bearings on the axles and bottom bracket.



It is looking and riding better...

Seat and seat post finished

I finished the seat and seat post install yesterday.

First I drilled out the relief hole in the seat tube slot.



Widening the seat tube relief hole

Then I cleaned up the inside of the seat tube using a flex hone. I bought the hone from Jegs.com and it was about $8. It worked really well.

I also used a wire wheel to the seat post bindings as they had a bunch of surface rust. After that I sprayed it with some primer.

It is much shinier in there then the photo shows

 

A little primer to keep the rust a bay

 

When I put the new seat post in it was still too tight and it got a little scrapped up. I took a large screw driver and put it in to the slot and widened the gap a bit. That did the trick and it slid in no problem.

I cut a bit off of the new seat post and grinded down the edges and put a liberal coating of grease on it. Not that I am worried about weight on this project but I thought it would be fun to cut the seat post then clean the edges up.

I then put in an actual seat post binder bolt vs. the junk drawer bolt that was in there.

$5 seat post binder bolt

Here is the finished results.

I did 12 miles on it today when I rode to a friends house. I was very comfortable, much better than the old Schwinn/Viscount seat that was on it.

Seat & seat post

The first official upgrade is going to be my seat and seat post.

I would have liked to use the original seat post but it is only 200mm tall. Not tall enough for me. I bought a 300mm seat post in the right 26.4mm diameter. But before I put it in I want to clean out the seat tube. I was not sure why but the original seat post is gouged up pretty bad. I took a file to the edge of the seat tube to clean it up but I did not see anything that would have caused the scratches. I am going to use a flex hone to clean it out before I put the new post in.

Old post

I also noticed that the seat tube slot does not have much of a strain relief hole at the end of it. I am debating whether I drill one in before I do the honing. The hole usually reduces the occurrence of cracks from the base of the binder slot.

The seat I am going to use is a Specialized Toupe that I had on one of my other bikes. It's a great seat and very light. It might be a bit under padded for gravel but the top is thin and it flexes pretty good which makes it more comfortable than it looks.

And lastly I have to add a true binder bolt.

First commute

I did my first commute on the new (old) bike last week. This is what I had waiting for me at 6:45AM on Halloween!

Yup, dark.

Not scary at all. Actually the scariest thing about the ride is the sound of big truck air brakes hissing behind me!

Here comes the sun

 The gravel was in great shape. It was packed pretty good and almost like asphalt with a few washboard sections here and there. The ride was 13 miles each way. It is not a bad commute. I saw a handful of deer and a bat that was on the ground. Not sure what he was doing there but pretty cool.

The bike rode really well. Actually, I am pretty surprised at how well this old bike rides. The issues are minor. The seat was pointing too far down in the front and as a result I kept pushing myself up with the handle bars. That is a quick fix. The only other issue is that the gears are pretty steep! Best fix there is to strengthen my legs...

Of course I have plenty of upgrades to do but it is pretty fun riding as is for now.

1" threadless 350mmm steerer tube fork

I found a great fork for my project the other day. It is pretty much perfect. The steer tube is 1" and threadless but the great part is that it is 350mm long. It should allow plenty of stem height adjustment. It is also made with curved lower legs that will give it a stock look. I particularly like the gussets on the inside of the fork legs.

- Tange Infinity CrMo
- Lugged flat crown
- Cantilever bosses
- 44mm rake
- Axle to crown: 389mm
- Double set of dropout eyelets
- Low rider pannier mounts
- Chrome-plated
- Extra long 350mm steerer
-Available in threadless 1" or 1- 1/8"

Before pics of the project bike

I picked up my gravel grinder project bike the other night. Bought it off of Craigslist and I am very happy with the purchase. On my first test ride in the parking lot the whole thing was creaking and pining. But the frame felt solid unlike other whippy bikes I have ridden.

I spent a little time taking off reflectors, foam bar grips, truing the wheels and lubing the chain. The stem shifters needed a little help because they would drift out of gear, but a quick turn of their bolts fixed it.

Over all the thing rides great. I kind of forgot how finicky friction shifter are. It definitely makes me appreciate my SRAM Rival setup on the Gunnar. The seat is ungodly uncomfortable and the seat post is way too short. Also the cranks arms are only 170mm but oddly it was not too bad spinning away. The handle bars are only 40cm wide and feel way too narrow. But all that will be fixed.

I took two rides on it this weekend. Both were very fun. One was just around the block and the other one was a night ride where I tried out some gravel roads. On the gravel it worked awesome even with the original parts. I am looking forward to getting it all customized for the gravel.

Tires are 1 1/4" (31.75mm) on 27" wheels

Tires are 1 1/4" (31.75mm) on 27" wheels

170mm crank arms

Way narrow 40cm bars

Comuter/Gravel Grinder Build

I am looking to build up a new project bike this winter.

Come November I am moving to an area that has many miles of gravel roads, so I am going to build a bike that can handle the terrain using an old lugged steel frame.

I am also going to use this bike for commuting as well. Right now I do my commutes on my mountain bike mainly because of some short dirt sections in my route. A bigger tired road bike should help speed up the commute.

I am going to purchase an old 66cm frame and braze on some cantilever brake bosses and racks. Maybe even some fenders and generally bring it close to modern standards.

I have found a great candidate frame on Craigslist and am hoping to pick it up this weekend.

Photos and build sheet to follow.

Craigslist tall bike find

Bike Fit



In the drops

On the hoods

Finished!

Build Up

Here is the latest photo. I am waiting for my Mavic wheels to come in but decided to throw my wife's Super-Six wheel set on just to see how it looks and fits. Very happy with the way it looks. Her wheels have red spoke nipples that match my red Chris King headset. The bike in this configuration weighs 19lbs. with her wheels and no chain. Hopefully the Mavics are lighter and stronger.

As for fit, it is hard to tell just coasting around the front of the house. It definitely feels good. The seat stays are a little shorter than my old frame and I hit the back of my shoes on the rear derailleur. But I had on running shoes and I think I will be fine with actual cycling shoes. Also, I am a bit concerned that the handlebars are not high enough and that the 45 rake fork (vs. 43) might make for some sluggish steering. Hard to tell as the tires I had on were low on air pressure.

Decision made

Don't I look happy? This is right after we picked up the frame. Decided to go with the 68cm Gunnar Rodie for a couple of reasons. It offered the highest head tube at 270mm tall. My Raleigh Super Course only had a 225mm head tube so I should notice a big difference. The top tube length seems just about right at 62cm, and its a virtual 68cm so the seat tube is only 65cm tall. I also liked the price and the fact that it is made in the USA. This was not the cheapest in the line up at $900 but I feel a reasonable price. I have always ridden steel road bikes so I know what to expect from ride quality and maintenance. I do love the look of carbon bikes but could not bring myself to shell out $2500 just for a frame, let alone the fact that I could not find one in my size! I will post pics as the build up commences. Also after all the decisions were made, guess the blog should have been called 68cm Tall Bike...

Couple things to note here. I chose a Charcoal Grey Metallic, it looks great. I also choose to have the decals removed. All but the made in USA on the non-drive side chain stay. Frame weighs 5lbs.

Test ride of 64cm Roubaix SL3 Pro

I had a chance to see a 64cm Roubaix SL3 Pro in person and test ride it. Well, it rides great and is a real nice bike. The carbon feel is pretty cool, hard to describe but I could feel the vibration damping qualities. Not sure how much of that is the carbon and how much is the “Zertz” inserts in the fork and seat stays. The Roubaix was plenty stiff so no problem there. Problem is that it is the same size as my current bike. Actually the bars were a bit lower and the seat post (350mm) was not able to go high enough. If you look at the secs it should be much larger than my current frame. I could get a new 400mm seat post and a higher rise 140mm stem, but I do not want to make the frame work by adding weird sized parts. I want a frame that fits.

Here are some photos of me on my current bike and me on the Roubaix.

Funny to see myself on these. Both look really small. Maybe it's just me. I do not have the correct bend in my arms. So this test ride helps me make my decision about the CAAD5 as well. The CAAD5 has roughly the same measurements except it has a longer seat tube and a lower head tube. Longer seat post - cool. Lower head tube - bad.

At this point the 68cm Gunnar Rodie is the winner.

Components

Most items on this bike are from US companies. Some parts made here in the US, others overseas. The only component I am aware of that is a non US company are the Mavic wheels. But those are real light and within my budget!

Here is the build sheet:

Fork Enve Composites 2.0 Fork 1 1/8 350mm steer tube rake 45
Headset Chris King Sotto Voce Headset Red
Stem Thomson Elite X2 Stem 135mm x 15deg or 130mm x 10deg
Seat post Collar Thomson the seatpost collar
Handlebars - 44cm Bontrager Shallow Drop (rode those on the Specialized, very comfortable)
Cranks SRAM Rival - 180mm
Cassette SRAM PC-1051 cassette
Front Derailer SRAM Rival
Braze-on adaptor
Rear Derailer SRAM Rival - 10-speed
Chain SRAM PC-1031 - 10-speed
Wheels Mavic Ksyrium Elite
seat post Thomson Elite Inline Seatpost -410mm
Seat - 142 Specialized Toupe
Tires Bontrager R2 700C-25
Tubes
Shifters SRAM Rival - 10-speed
Brakes SRAM Rival
Pedals Speedplay Light Action stainless steel
Bar Tape SRAM Cork Tape
King Cages Stainless Steel