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• Position your wrists so your palms are angled just a little above your forearm, not locked upward.
• Bend your elbows out a little, just enough to unlock them. Don’t lock them inward.
• Keep your shoulders down and relaxed, not shrugged.
• Don’t lock your back and neck or “arch” or “hunch” them to the limit of their movement. The back and neck are a bigger topic that I will cover in more detail in another article.

The reason we lock these joints is that it allows the bones and ligaments to support our body weight, not our muscles, so we don’t get as tired. But if locked joints sound bad, that’s because they are. Really bad. If your joint is flexed to one end of its range and you hit a bump or something causes unexpected movement, it can force the joint to be flexed beyond its limit. Locked joints can pinch nerves, inflame joints, cause numbness, and irritate arthritis. But these symptoms don’t surface until the long run, so they are not always associated with riding posture. People will ride with their wrists and elbows locked and ask why they have numbness in their hands sometimes. It is not always natural to link the two together. On the other hand, riders feel immediate muscle relief when they lock their joints, so there is a clear relationship between the two.

So you would think the simple answer would be to stop riding with locked joints and that would be the end of the lesson. Unfortunately, riders often experience pain when they start riding with properly flexed joints. This is because they are using muscles for support instead of locked joints. Supporting your weight using these joints in this way is pretty specific to cycling. You don’t do it when you walk, sit, run, swim, etc. So those muscles may not be in very good shape for this kind of activity, and the pain riders experience is most often due to sore muscles, not nerve issues as riders often think.

Further complicating matters is the fact that cycling does not exercise those muscles very well because they don’t move much while riding. This kind of muscle activity is called isometric. Isometrics are very good, but usually in combination with other exercises that move the muscles too. Imagine trying to get strong biceps without actually moving your arms. So simply riding more is not always the answer.

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Where you place your feet/pedals when coasting is important. And pedal placement is different for different situations. When coasting through a curve, rotate the cranks so the outside (of the curve) pedal is down and the inside pedal is up. This lets you transfer your weight properly for cornering and gives you better clearance.

When coasting in a straight line, keep the pedals level, i.e. at 3 and 9 o’clock. This allows you to use your legs as a suspension so you can absorb bumps without being bounced around and move quickly to the right cornering position. In other words: when your pedals are at 6 and 12 they are mostly extended or bent, so you can’t absorb bumps nearly as much and you may have them the opposite way you need them for an unexpected curve or swerve.

When you coast to a stop, rotate one pedal down at the last second to allow you to get a foot to the ground and stop.

If you watch any pro bike video, you will see that this is how they all coast (there are a few other advanced techniques though), it is second nature to experienced cyclists. But beginners may have to consciously think it through for a while before it becomes a habit and just “feels right”.

Continue reading]]> eBikes are getting more popular all the time, so it is easy to buy a complete ready to ride eBike. But it wasn’t always so. For years I have been making eBikes by converting regular bikes with a kit consisting of a motor, battery, controls and electronics. Ready made eBikes often have specific mounts for the battery, but for conversions you need to get creative. The most popular ways to mount a battery are on a rear rack, on the down tube using the water bottle “braze ons”, or strapped to the frame.

For my latest eBike conversion project I made a different kind of mount. I mounted a “triangle” battery in the front triangle of the bike frame with two custom “cradles”. This allows for a very large battery. The cradles are riveted together “L” section aluminum stock that support the battery on the bottom and sides. The cradles serve as both a mount and a partial case/protector. They are more compact than a bag or case and have proven to be durable. By using both water bottle mounts the system is stronger overall than a down tube only battery mount, and in particular it gives the battery much more side to side stability. This mount allows for a low center of gravity, near to the center of the bike lengthwise, and is supported by the biggest and strongest tubing on the bike.

This is not a full how-to plan with lists of parts, dimensions, etc. If you make one yourself it will be custom, so what matters is the overall design. Think of this as a baseline design with modifications as needed. I will share the modifications I had to make as examples. You may not need them all, and you may need to come up with some of your own.

In more detail: The cradles are made with two pieces of L section aluminum stock like you can get at most hardware stores. I used a medium thickness aluminum. The L stock pieces are connected with 2-4 cross strips of aluminum flat stock. Two of the cross strips need to line up with the water bottle braze ons and are drilled for the mount bolts, others can be at the ends of the L sections. The inside of the tray should be lined with padding everywhere the battery touches. The battery needs a strap routed outside of the cradles over the top of the battery since there is no top cover. Locating the strap is between the braze ons will prevent it from sliding past them. I used aluminum pop rivets to connect the various pieces of aluminum stock. Done right, pop rivets are light, low profile fasteners, plenty strong enough for this application.

I was hoping my choice of materials and construction would be durable, and based on a year of testing, it has been. I chose aluminum stock and rivets makes to it light and easier to work than steel hardware.

Note: these pictures may make the cradles more complicated than they really are. They are a simple design with a couple of twists thrown in, and a few mistakes visible in the pictures. If I could make them over again I could fix some of those mistakes, but they don’t affect the function of the cradles so I am leaving them as is.

As for tools, a pop rivet tool is required. I had a little learning curve figuring out how to install a secure pop rivet so you might want to practice and find a how to video about that. I used a Dremel for cutting smaller pieces of aluminum stock and for trimming, buffing and rounding sharp corners. A compact circular saw is good to have for the bigger cuts. You could do big cuts with a Dremel, but it is slow and eats up a lot of cutting wheels. You will need a drill for the pop rivet pilot holes and frame mount bolt holes.

Here are the modifications to the baseline design I needed to make, your mileage may vary:

Removable L section on one cradle for battery installation/removal. The basic design is simple but you will probably need to address the issue of allowing the battery to installed and removed. If you have enough clearance between your battery and frame, you may be able to angle the battery and drop it into the cradle. But my battery fills up too much of the frame to allow for that. I made one L section of the down tube cradle removable. Instead of rivets, it is held in using short bolts, flat nuts, and slots that allow it to slide in and out.

Compensating for battery shape mismatch with the frame. The shape of the battery and your bike frame triangle will probably not be an exact match. To get the best support, the battery should rest squarely at the bottom of the both cradles for the entire length of the cradle. I made the seat tube cradle a “cradle within a cradle” design. The outer cradle aligns with the bike frame and the inner cradle aligns with the battery, and the two cradles are pop riveted together. This double cradle design solved another problem for me: my battery cables exit out the back of the battery in the center (side to side). That is where the seat tube is, and my battery cannot rest against that or it will eventually bend and break those cables. The double cradle also holds the battery away from the frame and gives the wires room to exit without a sharp bend.

Allow room for a front derailleur. My bike has a rear hub motor which allows for the use of a front derailleur and a wide range of gearing. I had to cut away part of the seat tube cradle to make room for my derailleur. There are many kinds of front derailleurs and mounting options, and many people don’t bother with them at all, so this is definitely a custom issue. I used a bit of trial and error to get mine to fit, marking it and trimming away bits of he mount until it worked.

The things I did to monitor the battery for the first year are good ideas to continue as regular maintenance. I periodically remove the battery to clean and inspect it and the mount. I have had to redo some of my rivets that were becoming a little loose. One of my frame braze ons fell off and into the frame. That was an issue with the quality of my bike frame, not the battery mount. I replaced it using a standard bike rivnut tool. The new rivnut is stronger than the original one and was pretty easy to install.

This mount allows me to install a big 1.6kWh battery pack, good for over 100 miles easily, maybe up to 150 miles under ideal conditions with minimal (but still useful) levels of assist. The end result is what I call an “adventure” eBike. Due to the size of the battery, I can use this for doing big all day rides like centuries, exploration, hauling loads, doing errands, touring, etc. without range anxiety. I am happy enough with the results to recommend it and share it with other eBike DIY builders.

Continue reading]]> Adventure / touring / gravel bikes are great, aren’t they? They allow you to get out on the road and almost hang with the best road bikes out there. They also let you depart from said road and nearly keep up with the best cross country mountain bikes around. This is a great fantasy except for one little gremlin that messes it up. And believe it or not, it is not tires, suspension or geometry. It is gearing. It would be great if there was a component group that offered gearing nearly as tall as a 53/11 road bike group and at the same time offering a granny nearly as low as a mountain bike group. That is a big ask, to be sure. But if you are willing to tinker a little or get out there on the edge, it can be done.

Before going any farther, I admit to being a Shimano biased amateur bike mechanic. I will touch on SRAM a little. Campy does not make an MTB group so they don’t really play in this arena. So I may miss some options, but I am pretty sure this covers most of the bases. But if not, please feel free to let me know.

In the distant past there were various ways to make a wide range drop bar group. A triple road group, i.e. with a 3 chainring crankset, was one way. Mixing and matching road and mountain bike components could also be part of the solution. These options worked great up through 9 speed Shimano. Starting with 10 speed, Shimano began to break this compatibility between its road and mountain groups. Road bike 10 speed shifters did not work with 10 speed mountain bike derailleurs anymore. They could work with a 9 speed MTB rear derailleur, but that meant using older components in the mix. When Shimano went 11 speed, compatibility was nearly gone. No road shifters worked with any MTB derailleurs, and high end triple road groups were gone too. Admittedly the loss of road triple was not a big blow: it was possible to get the same range with new 2×11 speed groups. This was all happening at a time when gravel/adventure bikes were rising in popularity, creating a demand for a wide range group that was no longer supported. It seemed that component makers were caught off guard .

In order to understand compatibility between shifters, derailleurs and gears (cogs/chainrings), it is helpful to break down compatibility into three categories: cable pull, gear capacity and max gearing.

Cable Pull This is the amount of cable movement needed move a derailleur enough to shift one gear. The amount of cable pull that a derailleur needs and the amount that the shifter delivers must be the same. If not, derailleurs will not position the chain centered on the gears.

Gear Capacity This is the sum of the range of gears of the cassette and the crankset, expressed in the number of teeth. For example, a compact 50/34T crankset has a range of 16T. An 11/28T cassette has a range of 17T. Used together on a drivetrain they have a capacity of 33T. A wide range drivetrain will have a greater capacity. The chain must be long enough to wrap around the big/big gear combo. When you shift that chain into small/small, there is chain slack to take up. The wider the gear range, the more slack must be taken up. It is the job of the rear derailleur to handle that. The cage (the plates that connect the derailleur pulleys), must be longer to take up more chain slack. Long cages slow down shifting, add weight, and stick out to interfere with the world, so you don’t want a longer cage than needed. Shimano makes 3 cage lengths: SS or short, GS or medium, and SGS or long. In general, SS is for tight ratio road race bikes. GS is for normal 2x gearing, and SGS is for 2x wide range or 3x gear ranges. In the current lineup Shimano offers SS and GS for road and GS and SGS for mountain. They have never offered an SGS rear derailleur for a current 11 speed road group, and that limits the gear range of drop bar groups.

Max Gear Size and Range Rear derailleurs have limits on the max size cog they can handle. SRAM’s commonplace 42T big cog will not work with older derailleurs, for example. The mech simply cannot pivot out far enough to reach the bigger cogs. Sometimes you can make move them out farther with adapters or by using long “b tension” bolts. But that can mean the derailleur will not be able to get close to the small cogs and compromise shifting in that range. Front derailleurs are a little different. The curvature of the shifting plates is designed for different sizes of chainrings. Shimano’s road derailleurs accommodate this. For example with the newest Ultegra R8000 band mount front derailleur is offered in L (large) and M/S (Medium/Small) options.

Other Compatibility I am going to focus on shifter/derailleur/gear compatibility, but that is not the whole picture. As if it were not enough to get the components all working together on paper, they must all work together when bolted onto a frame and under power. Putting a modern road bike crank a mountain bike may not go well. Integrated spindles may not be wide enough. That can be solved sometimes be using older BBs / cranksets where the spindle was part of the BB, like good ol’ square taper or Octalink. Putting a road bike crankset on a mountain bike may work at the bottom bracket, but the frame may not have enough clearance for the rings or a good place to mount the front derailleur. Road front derailleurs are bottom pull only, so keep that in mind. Chainline is another matter. The width of the spacing of the bike at the rear may move the cassette inboard or outboard far enough to make cross chaining even worse than normal and even affect 2 or 3 gears at the extremes. If you start to consider plus side tires or fatbikes, you may have tire clearance between the chain and frame to consider.

So for the options below, let’s presume you have the other compatibility issues sorted, i.e. just look at shifter/derailleur/gear compatibility. I have built bikes using options 1-4 below, so I know they work.

#1: Make a Franken-derailleur. I have found two ways to do this. Number one: hack a Shimano 105 5800 rear derailleur and a Shimano LX T670-SGS rear derailleur. This is documented well here. Remove the long cage from the LX and install it on the 105 and voila, an SGS 11 speed road derailleur! That solves the cable pull and capacity issue. To solve the max gear issue you may have to use the upside down b-tension screw trick, or use a derailleur hanger extension like the Wolf Tooth Road Link. Number two: Same hack but mix a Shimano GRX rear derailleur with an M8000 XT SGS long cage. I have not tried this one myself, but it is demonstrated in this video.

Pros: Relatively simple, no adapters needed.

Cons: You may have to tear apart a derailleur in ways you never have before. The older derailleurs have no shadow low profile or adjustable clutch, so for off road use you might get a lot of old school banging around of the derailleur. Small cog shifting feels numb and slow. And the derailleurs are a little on the heavy side, if that matters to you. The newer GRX/M8000 looks more promising.

#2 SRAM To The Rescue! SRAM offers a clean solution: Their 11 speed drop bar shifters are compatible with their 10 speed mountain bike rear derailleurs and 11 speed mountain bike front derailleurs. I had SRAM Rival shifters, an X-9 10 speed clutch rear derailleur (a rare beast), and a GX 11 speed front derailleur and it worked a charm. Other combos will work. If you are not trying to make existing Shimano components work and you can go all SRAM, this is a good option.

Pros: Lots of options for components, easy compatibility, no hacking or adapters needed.

Cons: Limited to 10 speed rear derailleurs, not the latest and greatest.

#3 Cable Pull Adapters Mix Shimano road shifters and an MTB derailleur with a cable pull adapter. I know of 2: the JTEK Shiftmate 8 / 8A, and the Wolf Tooth Tanpan.

Pros: You can use any 11 speed MTB derailleur you want which means current models.

Cons: Adapters do add complexity to the cable routing. Surprisingly, if there are no other problems in the cable run, they do not affect shifting. But any problems, like kinks in cables, gunk or corrosion in the cables and housing, etc. will all be magnified by an adapter. I like the Tanpan better. The set screw and internal routing keeps the cable from unwinding in the adapter. The adapters are not cheap, but most of these drivetrains means some added cost.

#4: Go Electronic. Shimano allows mixing road shifters and mtb derailleurs with their Di2 groups. SRAM may allow the same, but, well, I am a Shimano guy, remember? 2nd Gen Di2 did not initially allow the mixing and matching of components, but a later firmware update added that ability. You are limited to making both derailleurs mountain bike components, i.e. you cannot use and Ultegra front derailleur and an XTR rear derailleur. I am not sure about first gen Di2 either, if you want to consider that you have some homework to do, sorry.

Pros: Di2 shifting. If you have not experienced it and you don’t have the money for it, do NOT ride Di2. Electronic shifting is not a gimmick or small evolution over mechanical shifting. It is a true game changer.

Cons: The same con as always for electronic shifting: the price. Now that we have 2nd and 3rd generation electronic shifting systems, some deals can be had on older parts or bikes if you are patient. That is how I did it.

#5 Lose the Brifter Presumed in all of these options is the use of “brifters” (combined brake shifter) and indexed shifting. If you consider bar end shifters that offer a friction mode, you open a whole new world of options. You need to keep them in friction mode all the time. That means losing the clicks in your shifting and learning to shift by feel: a skill that has been lost in the history of cycling for most. But considering the way you might want to use a bike like this, it does have its appeal. Almost any shifting problems you encounter with a friction shift bike can be overcome by your own skill, on the fly, anywhere in the world, without special tools or parts. Sounds like an adventure bike spec to me.

Pros: Eliminates the cable pull issue completely and with a simpler drivetrain.

Cons: Friction shifting is not for everyone.

#6 (ish) Hope for other options. If Shimano offered a long cage GRX or Ultegra derailleur that would be the de facto way to go. We can hope. Shimano has also introduced 12 speed mountain bike groups, but not 12 speed for road. Yet. Perhaps when they do, the cable pull of the road shifters will be the same as the MTB derailleurs and we can have the mechanical mix and match nirvana of 9 speed. Farther out on the horizon, maybe a 1x group one day will deliver this kind of range. But we are talking about maybe a 9/60 cassette with 13 or 14 speeds (in order to get decent gear spacing). A new player on the component scene, Rotor, has introduced a 13 speed group. And Shimano has patents on 14 speed components.

So one thing is a constant going forward: change. Fortunately, amidst all of the turmoil of the ever changing bike drivetrain technology, there is usually a way for us outliers to make a group that gives us all of the features we want.

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It is time for another not-very-pretty blog about bike equipment. I made a tank that I think can seat just about any bead lock bike tire. This is an over-the-top tool but I had to go to extremes. Getting my floppy (and awesome) Big Fat Larry tires to seat had proven to be very difficult. I tried everything I could find on the web but anything that worked was very difficult. The inflation tank method I came up with seats them easily.

This is the beast in all of its, um, glory.

This is for bead lock tires and rims. Bead lock means that the bead of the tire (the part that touches the rim when installed) locks into the rim. Once locked in, the tire will stay seated even if it is deflated.

WARNING: This is a bead seater ONLY. Do NOT use this to fully inflate bike tires. The airflow is too high to control for safe tire inflation.

It is pretty simple: an air tank with a trigger release tire pressure gauge with all the Schrader valves removed. To seat a tire you remove the core from the valve on the rim and deliver a high pressure, high volume blast of air with no valves in the way.

It has two gauges but only needs one.

No need for fancy valves or fittings, the pipe clamps work fine.

It would look nicer with shorter pipe clamps I suppose.

Here is how to make one and use it safely. Get a portable air tank. Mine is 10 gallons, but a 5 gallon model would be fine and easier to handle. The tanks have a pressure gauge, a valve, and a hose with a Schrader valve. I take it to a local tire store and they fill it for me. I always offer to pay but they never accept anything for it. They never object to a tip though. The tank is rated for 125 psi and I have them put in max pressure recommended for the tires that I am using.  The fact that you could put in higher pressures than your tires are rated for is the danger of using this tank. You MUST take precautions to use it safely. Never overinflate your tires.

This is what they look like all shiny and new.

Then get a trigger tire inflator gauge. They come in many varieties,  but you are not buying it for the gauge. All you really want is the trigger operated valve to release air in a sudden burst: faster than the built in valve on the tank. You can get triggers separately but it is usually cheaper to get them as part of a gauge.

These are available online easily

Cut the Schrader valves off the ends of the hoses. Install the trigger gauge at the end of the tank hose with a hose clamp. Put a hose clamp lightly tightened around the end of the trigger gauge hose, just enough to keep it from falling off.

Standard issue stuff, available at hardware stores everywhere.

To mount the most difficult tires, seal your rim and seat one bead of the tire, then use this to seat the other bead. Here it is step by step including  all the safety precautions you must follow and all the tips I know. I need to use all these tips for my huge fat bike tires, but you may be able to skip a few steps.

1. Mount the tire on a sealed rim with a tube so that both beads are seated.
   • The beads may make one or more cracking or popping sounds as they seat, sometimes very loud.
   • Some tire/rim combos seat silently. Inspect the bead. The bead will seat a consistent distance away from the rim all the way around.

   • 

     This bead is not seated. The rib on the tire near the rim on the left goes under the rim on the right.

      

     

     This is seated properly. The rib is a consistent distance from the rim all the way around.

2. For a new tire that may have creases or tend to fold up, leave it mounted overnight or take it for a few rides. That will help it hold its shape.
3. Let the air out of the tube, unmount one bead and leave the other bead seated. It should stay seated through rest of the process.
4. Remove the tube from the unseated side.
5. Install the tubeless valve.
   
6. Remove the valve core from the valve.
   
7. Brush the loose bead with very soapy water, thick and soapy enough to make the bead slippery and sudsy.
8. Lay the wheel on its side with the loose bead facing down, inside the  rim with the weight of the tire pushing the bead toward the rim. Laying the wheel over a bucket is a good way to do this.
9. Put the hose from the bead seater over the valve and tighten the hose clamp around the valve.
10. Open the valve on the tank.
    
11. Press the trigger on the gauge to release air, but only for about a second, then release the trigger. The bead should seat.
    
12. If that does not seat the bead, press the trigger slightly longer.
13. It is possible for the bead to seat on some of the rim but not all the way.  Even if you get a partial bead seating, that is OK, remove the hose from the valve. That will let the air out of the tire. The bead should stay partly seated. You should be able to finish seating with a floor pump. This is safer than completely seating the bead with the tank.
    

    Note the valve core cleverly laid on the chuck as a reminder that you should still have the core removed at this point the process.

14. If you cannot seat the bead with a floor pump, seat it again using the tank, but seat the bead more completely and then finish with the floor pump. The goal is to use the tank as little as possible for safety reasons. You may need to completely seat the bead with the tank, but that is pretty rare.
15. Once the bead is fully seated, remove the floor pump or tank. This will let all the air out of the tire again. Add your favorite tubeless tire sealant through the coreless valve.
    
16. Reinstall the valve core.
    
17. Reinflate the tire with a floor pump.
18. Bounce the tire around and use your favorite method to seal the sidewalls. Take it for a ride. You are done!

There are other ways to deal with hard-to-seat beads. Air compressors can deliver high pressure but in small volume. Some come with tanks like this so they can deliver high volumes, but that gets pretty pricey. There are floor pumps made to push lots of volume but nothing like a tank will deliver. There are even floor pumps like the Lezyne Overdrive that pump up a small tank and release that pressure all at once, like a mini version of this. But this is a much bigger tank. If those other solutions work for you, great, but if you are like me and needed something bigger, this tank was an affordable way to go.

Continue reading]]> I recently modified a mountain bike that came with a 2×11 drivetrain. It was nice, but I wanted a wider gear range. The result was a 10/42T 11 speed cassette paired with a 40/24T 2x crankset. I can hear the cries already: “A 24×42 granny gear? That’s madness!” “You will never get shifting to work with that!” “You will create a discontinuity in the space-time continuum!” “What do you need gearing like that for?” Well it is not as crazy as it may sound.

The crankset was originally 36/24T. Now is it is 40/24T.

All I want to deal with in this blog is gear ratios. I am going to look at two things: the ratio of the front to rear gear teeth. i.e. for every rotation of the crank, how many times does the rear wheel rotate? By looking at those numbers we can compare 1x, 2x and 3x drivetrains on level ground. I also want to take one other thing into account, and that is the difference in diameter of the wheels. 29er wheels increase gearing vs 26″ wheels. How much? This is where gear inches come into play. Gear inches are how far the bike moves forward with a single revolution of the crank. Sound familiar? So we can use these two numbers together. More on this later.

Let’s start with a baseline: the classic drivetrain that was the standard of mountain biking for years until 2x, 1x and 29er’s entered the scene. And that is the following: a 3×9 drivetrain with a 11/34T cassette and a 22/32/44T crankset on a 26″ wheels. Here is the total gear range:

Range: 44/22 * 34/11 = 6.18 or 618%

i.e, the high gear is 6.18x higher than the low gear. Keep this in mind when look at 1x and 2x drivetrains. The latest 1x 12 speed groups have a range of 500% (50/10) or 511% (46/9). To put it another way, to get about 618% range in a 1x drivetrain, you would need a 10/62T or 9/56 cassette. Rohloff internally geared hubs have a range of 526%. Shimano Alfine 11 have a range of 409%.

The rear was originally 11/32T. Now it is 10/42T.

As for the 2×11 combo that I put together:

Range: 40/24 * 42/10 = 700%

To replicate that in 1x you would need a 10/70T or a 9/63T cassette, which don’t exist yet. If you want a range like this you need to go 2x, at least for now.

Here are some other parameters I keep in mind. The max spread I go for on the crankset is 16T. That is, the big ring is 16T bigger then the small ring. That is a wide but common range with road bikes and a compact 50/34T crankset. Road and mountain bike front derailleurs seem to handle that kind of range. The standard 10/42T 11 speed cassette has a drop of 32T. So together the crank and cassette have a total drop of 48T, which is about the max a mountain bike long cage rear derailleur can take up. Note that the 9/46T cassette has a drop of  37T, so pairing that with a double crankset would mean reducing the drop of the crankset, since 37+16=53T is just to much for even the longest of rear derailleur cages to deal with.

Let’s have another look at wheels. Gear inches are a function of the circumference of the tire, which in turn depends on the diameter. Circumference is pi times diameter, if you remember your geometry. But since we are going to divide the numbers, we can use just the diameter. The new ISO diameters are the best numbers to use. For 29ers, the diameter is 622mm, for 26″ it is 559mm. So 29ers increase gear inches compared to 26″:

622/559 = 1.11

29er rims are 622mm at the bead. Not to be confused with the ERD of 605mm.

In other words, if the gearing is the same on a 29er and a 26″ bike, the wheel diameter would give the 29er 11% higher gearing. If we want to compare the 3×9 above to the 2×11, we should increase the gearing on the 2×11 by 11% giving us:

High gear: 40/10 = 4.0 x 1.11 = 4.44
Low Gear: 24/42 = .571 x 1.11 = .634

The range is unaffected. So while it may not seem like it, a 24/42 granny on a 29er is actually only slightly lower than 22/34 gear than on a 26″ bike (.634 vs .647). This 2×11 29er drivetrain provides a wider range of gears than our 3×9 26″ benchmark, and mostly on the higher ratios.

Of course the advantages for 1x are numerous. A drivetrain like this wide range 2X11 is not needed for most bikes. In this case it is for an adventure bike that is meant for off road use with a touring load. At the same time the bike is well suited for the road where it is a shame to be without the taller gears. You could use similar gearing on a road touring bike but with larger chainrings (say compact 34/50) and get gearing comparable to traditional 3×9 road touring triple group but with the simplicity of 2x shifting.

This is not the end of the comparison by any means. Some 3×9 groups have wider ranges with a 46T big ring or a 36T big cog. I think we will see wider gear ranges and more gears going forward for 1x drivetrains. i.e. the trend of 10/42T 11 speed to 10/50T 12 speed will continue. Shimano has patents on a 14 speed drivetrain. And what about 27.5 / 650b wheels? Now you know how to compare these drivetrain options.

Continue reading]]> My current multi purpose bike features some unusual component combinations that may be of interest to other bike builders. It is a fairly techy build, so warning: this post may cause eye twitches and other assorted muscle spasms in retro grouches. You have been warned.

The frame is an Airborne Carpe Diem, circa 2004. And since I have new parts on an old(ish) frame, I choose to call it my steampunk project. It is a bit of a stretch, I know, but it is my bike and I can call it whatever I like.

Airborne has since been acquired and is now making completely different bikes. But back then they were all about affordable titanium. The Carpe Diem is a light touring/cyclocross frame. It predates the current wave of adventure/gravel bikes. It does cannot handle a very wide rear tire, which keeps it out of those categories, as well as the fact that is it not suspension corrected so you can’t put your favorite RockShox on the front. Besides having an awesome name, the frame has some interesting design choices. For example, the rear dropouts have 132.5mm spacing, which is just plain showing off one of the great traits of titanium. To be specific, road bikes have 130mm spacing. Mountain bikes back then were all 135mm. Nothing was, is, or ever will be 132.5mm. But titanium can handle being pulled wider or squished in by 2.5mm. Not so much with other materials. So the Carpe Diem can be fitted with either road or mountain wheels without having to modify the dropouts or use spacers, etc.. The frame also has IS disk mount tabs in addition to canti/v-brake mounts. So a road bike/disc brake combo was possible with this frame way back in 2004, a little ahead of its time, don’t you think? The frame also features some nice tube shaping at the junctions, nice looking welds, etc. Some Lynskey/Moots/Seven/Litespeed owners are quick to point out that Airborne had some quality issues with some bike’s welds, and by all accounts it looks like they did, but I think by now it is safe to say my frame has proven to be one of the good ones.

I have been waiting for road integrated shifter/brake levers for hydraulic brakes to come into existence so I could install them on this bike. After a decade of waiting, Shimano’s RS685 were among the first available and I snatched up a set soon after they came out. I got mine as a “pull off” set and they came paired with BR-M447 calipers – a bit of a mismatch because the levers are Ultegra level, while the calipers are probably more like Alivio. But they are totally compatible. My white babies have awesome stopping power nonetheless. I had Avid BB7s on the front before getting these. These deliver more stopping power with less effort and great feel and modulation.

But hydros for a touring bike? Yup. “Aren’t you afraid they will fail and leave you stranded?” Nope. When was the last time you heard about hydro lines bursting or whatever? About as often as you hear of brake cables snapping. I bled these myself and they are super easy to work on. It is just a new skill you need to develop.

My lust for hydro drop bar brakes created a chain reaction of updates because I needed to go 11 speed to get them. That was a problem. Shimano 9 speed road and mountain bike components are highly compatible. You can pair 9 speed road or mountain triple cranksets with road or mountain cassettes with road or mountain rear derailleurs and road or mountain shifters. It is touring bike building nirvana. (Front derailleur compatibility aside). But Shimano got away from this with 10 and 11 speed. So it was SRAM to the rescue. Many of its road and mountain 10 speed components are compatible. But road hydro did not hit the scene until 11 speed, and neither SRAM nor Shimano road and mountain groups are compatible with 11 speed.

But wait, it gets worse!  Road hydro shifters are currently only available as 2x, i.e. no 3×11 road groups are out yet. So no 3×11 crankset either. There are 3×10 cranksets that would work fine if the shifters ever come into existence. This unfortunate situation is happening at the same time touring/gravel/bikepacking bikes are growing in popularity. For those kinds of bikes you want wide range gearing that you can only get by mixing road and mountain components. My fearless prediction is that this situation will be fixed with 12 speed and maybe later with 11 speed. All we really need is long cage 11 speed road rear derailleurs.

But for now the solution to this is 2 parts:

1. An adapter known as the Shiftmate from a company called Jtek. Several other companies now make equivalents. It changes the cable pull ratio of the shifters to allow 11 speed road shifters to throw 11 speed mountain bike rear derailleurs.
2. A great big honking pie plate sized cassette. This delivers a wide gear range with a double crankset. I use an 11/42T Sunrace cassette. Paired with and 34/50T compact road crankset, it has about the same low gear ratio as a 24T chainring paired with a 34T large cog on a 9 speed mountain bike cassette.

I actually like this gearing/drivetrain BETTER than a triple combos. 2x shifting is simpler and better than 3x. You have the option of even wider range cassettes. There are 11-46T Shimano cassettes and 10-50 SRAM cassettes. Some of those are marketed as 1x cassettes, and you may have to modify your rear derailleur to get them to work. Mostly by installing a longer B tension bolt. A few notes about my specific set up:

1. The 50T chainring and 42T granny cog combo takes a full uncut 116 link chain to wrap around it. If you decided to use a bigger cassette or crankset you will need 2 chains. Recumbent riders are used to this, so it is not totally weird, but be aware of it.
2. The drivetrain is quiet and shifts everywhere surprisingly quickly
3. Setting up the Shiftmate is a little fussy. You need to set it up so that the flat section of the adapter does not rotate so far that the cable crosses it again. If you set one up you will see what I mean. AND if you ever release all of the tension on the cable you may have to carefully position the adapter wheel again. But probably not.

Overall this makes for a beefy feeling road/tourer in spite of the relatively lightweight build. The big Salsa Cowchipper bars contribute to the big feel vs. a road bike. It can handle a heavy load with no problem. Compared to full touring frames it handles a little twitchy. Compared to a road bike build it feels like a tank. It can handle light off road duty with cyclocross tires. While it may not be as flexible as the latest round of adventure bikes on the market, it is still my indestructible, unstoppable, post apocalyptic, steampunk urban guerrilla bike.

Continue reading]]> Shoe stretchers are hardly anything new. But I have never heard of anyone using them on bike shoes. I thought it might help the fit of some of my shoes. I tried it and I had good results, so I want to share it here.

A little background: I was having issues with shoe / pedal / cleat comfort for some time. At first I thought I was getting “hot foot” from my choice of pedals on both my road and mountain bike. The fact that it was happening with two different sets of pedals should have been a clue that the pedals were not the culprit. Nonetheless, I switched to bigger platform pedals. They did not make a dramatic improvement. I then noticed the sensation of heat was due to the shoes being too tight around the toe box. I like the feeling of snug shoes when I start riding. But I realized that my feet were swelling as I rode. This is normal, actually. It is why cycling shoes are made with on the fly fit adjusters. All of my shoes were the right length, had a comfy snug heel cup, and the toe box was comfortable for about an hour of riding. But after that the fit was just too tight, even if I loosened all 3 of the adjustments all the way. I realized I needed to get wide shoes. Sidi makes size wide on many of their shoes. But getting all new shoes, or even getting one new pair in size wide was not appealing. My shoes were in great shape and had broken in nicely. I even had an unused pair.

And they were all real leather. So I decided to try stretching them. Bike shoes are “techy” and have a lot of synthetic materials like velcro, composites, etc. compared to fashion shoes. I don’t know if bike shoe makers discourage stretching. And since I have never heard of anyone doing it, I feel like I must make some kind of disclaimer about manufacturers and support and all that. So if you want to try this on your shoes you might want to check with the shoe manufacturer. I didn’t. But I lead a risky life that way.

So here it is:

A shoe stretcher. No carbon fiber, no lightweight alloy. Weird.

A few notes: This is a nicer model with no plastic bits. After reading a few reviews I decided to spring a few more bucks and get the nicer stretcher. I have not been disappointed. With the nicer model you only get one and it works left or right. Unless you are in a hurry to stretch your shoes I see no reason to get a pair. I allowed stretching to go 12 hours so. I just timed it so I was not without shoes. Those metal knobs can be moved to the different holes corresponding to where you are getting hot spots. I stretched my tightest shoes twice with the knobs moved to different positions.

Using a shoe stretcher is as exciting as watching a shoe stretch. But the results are worth it.

When I stretched my shoes I removed the liner. I think the liner would just get crushed. And I undid all the straps. It seemed like stretching with the straps tight would put a lot of stress on them.

Slather them up with whatever they call that shoe stretch liquid stuff

I also used shoe stretcher…um, liquid? Spray? There does not see to be an agreement over what to call it, but the shoe store that fixes all of my shoes recommended it. I have never stretched without it so I can’t really say if it helps. But the result was good and the spray was cheap, so what the heck. The results?

A stretched shoe. Contain your excitement, please.

So far so good. I noticed the difference right away. My shoe fit is now in the middle of the range of strap adjustment and not somewhere past the widest setting. I still loosen as I ride but I never reach the limit of the range of adjustment. And I realize I need to start loosening my shoes before they get too uncomfortable. Recovering from an over tight shoe takes a while and can be downright distracting. I store the shoes with nice wooden shoe trees so they don’t shrivel up and go back to their old size. I don’t know if that would happen actually, but a shoe tree can’t hurt.

So while your mileage may vary, my experience with stretching bike shoes has gone well thus far. Whether or not you need it or if you should stretch your (probably) expensive bike shoes is up to you!

Continue reading]]> I recently posted this image on the Facebook Bicycle Touring group, though by now you may end up seeing it elsewhere (Click on the image for full res):

And I thought I slept well

It was well received. But since it was, I want to come clean: it is a Photoshopped image. That is the easiest way to explain it. I actually used a piece of software called Gimp, but no one knows what you are talking about if you say you Gimped an image. I think most people suspect it was edited, but coming out with it is fun anyway. If you are like me, you might get curious about how these images are made, so I wanted to share a few notes about this image here.

This was a relatively simple composite. I found two images that I did not have to play with color, resolution, focus, or any of the hard stuff. I just did some scaling, blending and cloning to make it work. I could pick it apart, but once you know it was Gimped (I may start a new expression) and look closer, you will probably see all kind of things wrong with it. But first impressions are good, that is what counts

Image number one, taken from here, source image here, just in case the page changes.

It all started as a simple campsite

Image number 2, taken from here, source image here

Just add a little Kansas and voila!

This one went so well may do the occasional “fantasy cycling image” and post here in the future.

Continue reading]]> Yummmmm, dehydrated bikepacking food. Before I look at these beans in more detail it is probably worth talking a little about “why” dehydrated foods and some of your options. The pros of dehydrated foods are that they pack down small and they are lightweight since you are not carrying the water. And they keep for a long time. Dehydrated foods usually require boiling water to rehydrate them and these beans are no exception, so you have to carry some kitchen and cooking equipment and you have to filter or carry more water. The end result is that you get warm food though. You could bring along some sandwiches, for example, but they get nasty after a couple of days, and by the time you add up the weight and size, dehydrated starts to make sense. You can get complete dehydrated meals; there are a lot of well known brands. They offer a lot of variety and convenience, but they can get pretty pricey. You can also dehydrate food yourself. But there are limits to what you can do at home and it can be time consuming, especially at first as you get the hang of it. I like finding individual dehydrated items like eggs and potatoes. They are much less expensive than the complete meals and I feel like I am cooking and I have fun when I prepare them.

The golden package

I found these at the grocery store, which is handy. If they don’t have them at a grocer’s shelf near you, you can get them direct from the bean company themselves, as seen on the url on the label below.

The stats

I like that the ingredients list is short. I need to look up interestified though. I cannot help but compare these with a staple and favorite of mine:

And in this corner

Of course you make very different meals with potatoes, but variety is a good thing. These two have a lot of similarities. I will compare as I go. In terms of nutrition they are close, so close I did not bother showing the potato’s label, but the beans win big when it comes to protein. You get 7g per 6 servings or 42g total in that package of beans. The potatoes deliver 2g per 4 servings for a total of 8g protein. The only surprise there is that the potatoes did not have zero grams of protein. The beans weigh more, but I reckon you get about the same amount of food out of either package.

They look, um, different from what I expected

I dumped them into the pot out of curiosity before I prepared them. They are non uniform flakes of varying color. Curiouser and curiouser. One of the reasons I decided to try these is the traditional trail cooking technique is listed as one of the preparation options:

Double, double toil and trouble. Well, not really

Good old boiling. The next step should come as no surprise:

In they go

One downside of these vs. the potatoes is preparation. With the spuds you boil the water, add the flakes, mix, and you are done. With the frijoles you do the same, but you must then simmer for 5 minutes. So these will use a little more of your cooking fuel for preparation. And you will have to stir and take measures to keep them from sticking to the bottom of the pan. My teflon camp cookware will do the job though.  When they are done they may look a little thin, but as they cool down to a temperature where you can eat them they get thicker. You can adjust the amount of water to make thicker or thinner beans.

The competitors, and finished beans.

You may not be able to add cheese or sauce on the trail, but if you can, go for it. How do they taste? They were excellent, I give them a thumbs up for flavor and texture. I admit to being a little shocked. Other family members  swooped in and took some to make huevos rancheros and also gave them the seal of approval.

I cannot finish a review of refried beans as trail food without mentioning the elephant in the room. Ummm…digestive odor, let’s just say. Beans don’t have that affect on me so much. And if you are alone, no big deal, right? But if you are camping with a group, this may be a concern. Or it might be downright hilarious. Unless you are sharing a tent, then it may get old fast. I don’t know if burning through calories and food fast when you are hungry will make matters worse or not. There is only one way to find out. I am packing some of these on my next trip.