[bluerider]

Thanks Dirt,
Your knowledge of what works and what doesn’t, what breaks and what doesn’t, and what sucks and what doesn’t is a much appreciated resource. Thanks for your willingness to share and allow others to learn from your mistakes.

[bluerider]

Justin and Dirt,
Thanks for the recommendations. Right now I am leaning towards the Giro Privateer. I tried on a pair and really liked them. Very comfortable and the ratch. I like the Mavics but finding a dealer that carries them has been difficult. Baltimore Bicycle Work has them but not in my size. I would feel guilty having them order my size into the store and then not like them. I tried on the one size too small. Felt good except for the shortness. I am a little concerned by the flexibility of the Mavic sole as well.

So the Privateer is my top choice to replace my Shimano M220s (I thinks that the model). They are from about 2004-5….sadly (bright blue, carbon sole). They just aren’t comfortable anymore and insoles haven’t helped much. So its well past time.

[bluerider]

@KayakCyndi 48408 wrote:

I think you’ll find that most people around here love their cross bikes. You know I’m loving the my Viaje. I doubt you need a “real” mountain bike unless you plan on “real” mountain biking. Cross, I think, would be fine for the CCT (which by do you have any interest in doing this).

Knowing what your main ride is though, definitely think about what you would want to ride in snow/ice. Make sure the bike can take fenders with big (perhaps studded) tires. The “racier” cross bikes might not be able to do that.

Oh, and if you want to try my Viaje just let me know.

She makes a good point. While I love the carbon cross bike it has no mounts for fenders, racks, etc. Its purely for day trips and speed. I have learned to travel lightly.

[bluerider]

I love my Blue Norcross EX cross bike. Carbon frame, light, stiff, fast. I want to go Hozn’s route and get a separate set of wheels for road riding.

[bluerider]

@dasgeh 47572 wrote:

LOTS of saddle makers do loaner saddles. My husband went about 6 months on various loaners. I think he ended up sticking with his regular saddle, but bought a noseless saddle after trying it.

Yeah, this is definitely true. However, shops are inconsistent in the loaner saddles vs saddles they actually sell. I lot of times the “loaner” saddles are just saddles they have taken off other bikes they sold that customers didn’t want. So even if you find a great saddle as loaner. There is no guarantee that shop will actually have it. When I was shopping it was pretty consistent at Fizik dealers, they always had the bright green Fizik loaner saddles available.

[bluerider]

Dickie,
Your post reminded me of something. Most Fizik dealers have bright green “loaner” saddles available to try out. I tried all three of their road saddles courtesy of BicycleSpace over the course of a month. It was great to put some real miles under their saddles before investing in their product.

[bluerider]

I am a fan of the Fizik Antares. It’s sort of a middle ground of their road saddles, not the most minimalist Arione but not the plushy Aliante either. It just fits me.

[bluerider]

Yep, I am in.

[bluerider]

I would be interested

[bluerider]

I have always been a Crank Brothers Eggbeater kind of guy with mountain shoes. They just work….consistently everything regardless of conditions.

[bluerider]

@dcv 40931 wrote:

Reviving zombie thread

Thats on the W&OD 3 or 4 miles outside Purcellville.

[bluerider]

Recently when I ride the W&OD trail, drivers stop for me before I reach the intersection (insert Happy Helperson jokes here). Obviously, I take extreme caution crossing but when drivers in both directions stop before I reach the intersection to stop myself, I usually ride through the interaction without stopping simply to not piss off the drivers that made the effort to stop even if no signage required them to do so. That being said, I wish drivers would just drive. I will stop and cross when I deem it safe. I don’t think I am asking for much.

[bluerider]

@dcv 40449 wrote:

new compact drops. guess where this is

I really love that Felt. I wish I would have seen that on CL.

[bluerider]

@KLizotte 40286 wrote:

I think the cycling gods were punishing you for not cycling MORE! Especially on nice afternoons like today; god, I wish I could have played hooky today.

That is very possible. Someone was trying to make me suffer enough to consider my choices: hooky, lack of biking, or otherwise.

[bluerider]

I will attempt to reply to multiple posts. My question was really too parts. 1.) do you change chain and cassette together as a general rule? 2.) If I change cassettes will going from 12-26 to 12-28 work with a short cage SRAM Force derailleur?

@mstone 40225 wrote:

The specs on the derailleur should specify the gear range (both min/max on the rear as well as the total capacity on the front). Going to a smaller rear cog is generally fine, but there’s usually an upper limit on how big they can get. It shouldn’t be necessary to change out the whole drive train at 2k miles unless it’s unusually worn (in which case, up your maintenance routine).

My maintenance routine is pretty good. I have the Park Tool chain washer I use every 300 miles or so (more if ridden in the rain and crap). I apply lube regularly. That being said, I have done a lot of rain riding this year including a Century entirely in the rain. Note: the chain is within the range to be replaced, its not horrid yet but its winter time bike maintenance season and I want to do everything I need to do. Since I am somewhat new at doing this, TheCyclingEconomist is going to help do it and teach me the finer points.

Sorry, but for Bluerider’s question, it’s the gear-inches that determine whether a derailleur can soak up the extra chain, as well as provide enough chain for the “big-big” combo. It’s not the number of cogs. Shifting won’t be affected, but chain-length will be, and if your derailleur doesn’t have a long enough cage, then you could do catastrophic damage (broken rear derailleur and chain, and possible a crash too) due to the drive train locking up… yes, I’ve had a customer have this happen after he home-modded his setup without knowing how to properly determine chain-length and his short-cage derailleur couldn’t hand his new mega-range cassette).

I don’t think he was asking about the horizontal shifting accuracy of the derailleur.

Just my take on it…

Safe riding and God bless!

thecyclingeconomist is right on target. My question is about chain length which isn’t a big deal when adding a new chain assuming you set the length correctly. My question was more about cassette sizes vs derailleur cage length. I know I can’t run a 12-34 cassette with the short cage derailleur, you need SRAMs WiLi setup to do that. But going from 12-26 to 12-28 is a minor jump. I just didn’t want to make the change and experience binding, poor shifting, etc because the 12-28 cassette and Force short cage derailleur weren’t compatible with each other. I has since dug deep into the bowls of SRAM website and found that I can run this setup.

[Author]

Posts