[vvill]

@Judd 146899 wrote:

I take the logic the other way. Since there’s generally less supply of large (and very small) frames on Craigslist, sellers should gouge appropriately.

I’d also offer a cautionary tale about selecting frame sizes. I’m 6’3″ and every time I go bike shopping the sales person insists on rolling out the 62-64 cm size frames, when a 58 cm fits me way better. I recall there being a few good online calculators where you can enter your body measurements and it will spit out a suggested frame size.

I’ve always thought CX frames would be easier to sell before CX season, studded tires before winter, etc. and conversely studded tires would be tougher to sell after winter – less demand. I’d agree if it were a rare highly sought after frame in a 53-57 that it would be more expensive, but as I said (and you mention) 63 is really big! Like… almost beyond most of the bell curve of heights. There’s [flexible] 6″ people on 54 frames, etc. Take it to an even more extreme: try selling, I dunno one of Shawn Bradley’s 80cm bike frames for more than it’s otherwise worth.

[vvill]

@huskerdont 146841 wrote:

I am so not worthy. This yard sale is why:

Still better than my set-up, and I don’t have any watercraft.

[vvill]

@hozn 146925 wrote:

If you want to try this on the cheap(er), consider using a 10sp MTB derailleur (e.g. X7/X9/GX/NX), since that is same for road 10sp *and* road 11sp. (SRAM MTB 11sp is different [and not compatible with road 11sp]!) And ebay is a good place to find N/W rings; I just picked up a new (take-off) 50t for $65, which doesn’t sound super cheap but is at least less than buying a set of new rings. I haven’t found N/W rings to wear out any faster than normal rings; I preemptively replaced my 46t N/W after 2 cassettes — or ~10k miles — but I assume I could have probably gotten more life out of it.

Thanks! Plan is to just do a Shimano 10 speed MTB Shadow+ RD with a MTB shifter. As it’ll be a spare geared bike I don’t feel like I’ll need drop bars, and I never quite fit right on this bike with the drop bars (I guess because when I got it, I was sized with flat bars on). If I want to go with Shimano STI later I could keep the RD and use the Wolftooth Tanpan (it looks dumb, but I assume it would work well). At this point I’m not used to SRAM dropbar controls so don’t want to go further down that road (yet)!

[vvill]

@hozn 146920 wrote:

Yeah, that’s exactly what I plan to do with my hydro cable when I drop the [internally routed] FD cable for my new frame:

I would say that the specialized equipment is a very good argument against 1x. It is specialized and generally expensive. I think that security of FD is maybe debatable; I’ve dropped my chain a lot more on the road bike w/ FD (and a chain catcher!) than I have on my CX bike w/ the N/W ring (and clutch RD) riding off-road, etc. Avoiding chain drops is an argument favoring 1x for me. The gaps will be noticeable in group rides, I’m sure, but obviously people have survived with much larger gaps in the past, so I don’t think it’ll have any practical impact.

It’s funny how much more pleasing it is to have one less cable!

That’s good to hear positive feedback – I haven’t used a narrow-wide set up yet, and I’ve had two bikes on 1x, one 1×9 using some hardware store parts for chain retention (used to hop off easily on Custis bumps, bridge joints, etc.), and a 1×10 using an old FD that only previously hopped off offroad. I am planning to convert my old flat-bar road bike (the one that now has the Ritchey CX fork) back to a geared road bike with a proper narrow-wide chainring and clutched RD as a sort of test. (Getting sick of the eccentric eno road wheel on a “CX” bike – can’t run tubeless or more than a 30mm tire on that frame.)

[vvill]

@hozn 146903 wrote:

My calculations so far says that 1x really won’t save weight unless you go to the high-end driver cassettes. Or give up range and run a smaller-sized cassette. The 1x RDs are 100g heavier and the X-Sync rings are a lot heavier too, but cassettes are probably the biggest factor. The 11-40 Sunrace 11sp cassette is 380g, which is probably the best value since it is somewhere around $60-80. The XTR 11-40 is 320-330g and has a street price around $180. Then there is the SeqLite 11-40 which is ~260g and $130 but all 3 big cogs are aluminum, so apparently it doesn’t last long. And the cheaper cassette is somewhere around 310g but costs $200. Which is lot of money for a disposable part. (Those weights and prices are from memory so may not all be accurate.)

Yeah I noticed the RD is heavier, and the saving on the left shifter, cable and FD may not offset the big cassettes. I guess it’s more that if I was going to upgrade the crankset I would first consider 1x as an upgrade to do at the same time. Also, it would be nice to have no visible cables going under the bike (the hydro line can be run internally in place of the FD cable).

Part of my reluctance to jump on the 1x thing is needing more specialized equipment – big cassette, longer chain, narrow-wide chainring, clutched RD, etc. and losing the security of a FD for the chain. The gear jumps aren’t really too much a concern for me, although I’d imagine in a race situation with a peloton it could be an issue.

@Sunyata 146912 wrote:

My bars are too narrow. The 53 came stock with 40mm bars, which are a smidge too narrow (my old road bike had 42’s, and those were okay, but I would have probably been more comfortable with 44’s, since they were not flared). If you do decide that yours are too wide, we can either trade or I can sell you mine for cheap. I need something to tide me over until the new Easton EC70AX’s are available (I am so excited about these bars, carbon with a 16 degree flare!).

I am interested in a bar swap, but not 100% sure yet – I won’t be riding my Warbird much until my wrist gets better Mine is a 55 and I measured the bars at 42 center-to-center. Those Eastons sound pretty awesome though.

[vvill]

Being a made in Italy steel Bianchi with a Campagnolo drivetrain does give it a bit of extra cachet. On the other hand, a 63cm size bike should probably be cheaper, as there’s generally less demand for that size (that’s a really big bike).

[vvill]

Focus on the exhaling

[vvill]

I’d take it back to whoever sold you this PoS.

Like Dismal said it could be something else… BB/cranks/pedals/hubs, etc. But if the noise only started with the new chain I’d guess it’s the cog or chainring. I don’t recall yet changing any of my FG/SS chains so I’m not sure what kind of wear one of those cogs really gets.

[vvill]

@Sunyata 146822 wrote:

Yep. The 2017 Warbird. I have been waiting on this bike for almost a year

Same! I almost got a different bike (considered the Raleigh Roker, Jamis Supernova, etc. had a peek at the Diamondback Haanjo and GT Grade and gawked at the Open Cycles U.P.) but ended up coming back to the Warbird. I really liked the idea behind the Warbird ever since Salsa first came out with it.

I haven’t ridden mine enough to give it a fair evaluation because of a current wrist issue but I did throw on pedals and spin around the block.

So far I have trouble shifting with the SRAM shifters (never owned a SRAM bike before), and the braking seems a lot more modulated than the TRP hydros on my Raleigh SSCX – so both of those make it feel weird. The bars almost feel too wide but I may well change my tune on long gravel rides, which is what the bike’s really made for. There’s no toe overlap at all which is awesome (all my drop bar bikes to date have toe overlap) but I can definitely tell the front end is slacker (70.5 HTA compared with 72 on my SSCX and FG and 73 on my road bike). Again, that’s probably a good thing once I go back to riding off-road. Otherwise, the geometry is quite similar to the Kona Jake I sold. The stem is probably too high up for my liking and the bartape feels like a little slippery so those may need changes too.

FWIW the stock saddle/seatpost combo is over 600g, so planning to swap that out for some easy weight savings. This is also my first carbon frame so I may actually do some weight weenie-ing of other parts, although I don’t see too many other easy swaps. A light crankset and/or 1x would save a significant amount of weight but would be pricey, and I still like having a double.

[vvill]

Put it in a stand and turn the pedals (carefully! being a fixed gear finger chopper and all). Watch the chain/cog interface.

If it’s not chain tension or imperfect chainring run out, it could be that the chain doesn’t match the slightly longer teeth of a fixed/SS cog. I had this issue once trying to use a Surly cog with a chain made for geared drivetrains. If you’re running 1/8th on both I doubt you’ll have that issue. I run 3/32″ though.

[vvill]

If you ride fixed gear seated up every hill you will develop a pretty good base for when you actually want to stand up in the saddle and put down a lot of power.

But the more typical advice these days is get in a good spinny gear and pace yourself. Like Judd says, it depends on what kind of hill you’re climbing and how long you’re riding for.

Of course if you go far back enough (1903-1906), fixed gear was what everyone used in the Tour de France!
http://hizokucycles.bigcartel.com/single-speed-history

[vvill]

@jabberwocky 146802 wrote:

The hooks are from Home Depot and are plenty heavy duty. The bike on the left is 45-50 pounds. Alternating front wheel and back wheel lets you get them pretty close together (the room is 150 inches wide and I have 10 bikes across it).

Is there any issue storing hydro disc brake bikes like that? Thought I read something about it once

[vvill]

I’ll take the Presta tubes and the Ritchey tire if you can’t find any takers.

Funnily enough I currently run that Tioga combo on my beater bike (stock from GT Avalanche from 2005 or so), but the rear is getting worn down a lot.

I can probably meet in Falls Church <=> Ballston area sometime this week.

[vvill]

The cost of buying foods that don’t even taste good kind of gets to me too when I think of it as just calories – I much prefer being able to ride on more normal, tasty food. I’ve never really figured it out right as I’ve tended to undereat on long rides (partly because I’m not the steadiest rider in terms of effort). I will fork out the money for stuff like skratch labs on big/”important” rides and also make my own version of rice cakes – but otherwise Gatorade, chips, ham sandwiches, candy, whatever is generally fine for me.

I agree if you’re not doing a hard ride you don’t need to eat for 1-2 hours, maybe more depending on your conditioning. I’ve also read a [very] little about fat-trained endurance athletes and thought it sounded pretty amazing – but I’m not prepared to try to change my body / diet that much. I do like eating carbs.

[vvill]

@huskerdont 146598 wrote:

I’ve read those articles and understand what they’re saying about the contact patch length vs. width, but it hasn’t jibed with my experience riding, especially when going up hills.

I think it makes sense that if a lower pressure wider tire is faster on imperfect flat roads because of reduced energy loss from ‘bouncing’, you’re going to lose some stiffness going uphill especially if you’re riding a shorter / higher power climb. Most of the tests I’ve seen are done under very controlled environments and I don’t think they’d accurately simulate say, a 15% grade where the rider is out of the saddle wailing on their handlebars.

I’ve run 28s and 25s for road riding and think I still slightly prefer 25s. But I don’t buy 23s anymore (although still have some in rotation, and they don’t particularly bother me).

[Author]

Replies