Blog#6: SCH-WIN.
The last time we encountered our hero he was riding a hybrid... and painting a house. Both sound about as interesting as watching paint dry...which in the last few weeks I have done quite a bit of! I have yet to finish said house but this week I had some other things going on so I took some time off from painting. However if all goes well tomorrow it will be done! Then I have another one to do...in September! Got to make those bike dollas! (Holds up a sign saying "need bike money. anything helps. bless.)
THE RIDE: My seven year old son was back from a two week stay with the grand parents. He wants to ride pretty much everyday and he loves trail which is very cool. It's kind of like having that roommate situation where your roomie likes to ride so you have that built in riding buddy. He may not be the most skilled or fastest but he is so passionate about riding. Today I pushed him a bit harder and despite quite a few spills he was all smiles! How inspiring!
Last night I did the Beaver Island Bikes Beers and Burritos ride. It's a party pace-slow roll as cool as it sounds! There's only one more ride left for the season....whomp!
Speaking of being inspired I have a new bike to ride! I am referring to my latest build: the Schwinn Trailway! More on that below.
N+? NEWS: Not much to report in this area but I'm ready to diversify and ride some of my other stuff. There is also maintenance and changes that needs to be done especially on my fat bike (yes the white stuff will be here before we know it!). I also have several mid eighties vintage mtb I need to sell that need work but I might have to have some fun with them first...that will be next week. Never a dull bike moment around here!
NUTS AND BOLTS: This week was all about the Schwinn. And now that it's almost completely dialed in it was well worth the attention!
Some tech bits and then ride report.
I pretty much had the bike together last week but there were a lot of tweaks and changes to be made. The Exotic brand fork came on Saturday so I got that on over the weekend. It's a nice piece for the money and came in like two days! As I mentioned before I got the wheels for free at a garage sale years ago. They were missing the axles so after replacing them I found out they were bent. Not total write off bent but I've been working them back in to shape and while they aren't perfect they are pretty good. And since the bike has rim brakes they have to be at least "pretty good" or better as the brake pads need to be pretty close to the rim to get the best braking performance. I am using the brakes and pads that bike came with and they are quite good! The only change I made on those were the addition of barrel adjusters. It's kind of a hack but it works!
Back to the wheels the other problem I have is with the tires. I am running tubeless tires on non tubeless rims and sometimes with this type of application the tires don't want to seat right and they end up kind of wobbly. The front tire was really bad so I took it off and the rim strip was shifted off center in a couple of spots. I removed it and used electrical tape. The tire still isn't perfect but it's much better. A tire and wheel swap is certainly in this bikes future. The rear tire is actually seated pretty well but I installed it backwards and now I don't want to change it because I don't want to mess it up! The back wheel is also a bit off center. I have dished it a bit to counter this but I will have to make it right at the axle by doing something with the lock nuts.
Not much to say about the cockpit other than I sprang for new bar tape and changed out the stem for a shorter 50mm stem.
Probably the biggest change came to the drivetrain. I swapped out the four bolt chain ring crankset for an older (much older) five bolt crankset mainly because I didn't have much for chain ring options for the four bolt. Since the bike has an old school square taper bottom bracket that opened up a few vintage five bolt options. I decided to go with the mtb crank as it allows for super small, "granny gear" chain rings. Having said that I am running a 42t big ring and a super tiny 22t small ring! Now that sounds crazy but is actually how it would have been minus a 30 something middle ring back in the day. I could run a 3x setup at some point but the Sora front brifter is only two speeds. Speaking of the front derailleur I am using the stock derailleur. It's way cheapo but it's the only thing I have and it works just fine. I have a better one but the problem is that it is "bottom pull" meaning the cable has to come up from the bottom where as my cable is routed over the top so naturally after mounting it I noticed it was wrong. It's old school 28mm so there are lots of cheap options out there.
In the back I put on a 11-34 cassette. Now that may not sound very interesting but when you combine a 34t with a 22t you get an astoundingly low .65 gear ratio! In comparison most 1x setups are something like a 42t rear low and a front 32t chainring that makes for a .76 ratio. The real beauty of my setup apart from the low cost is that I can have great range, an awesome low gear ratio and yet also have nice close, cadence friendly gear ratios! I may swap out the 42t front ring for a slightly lower ring like a 38t and there are tons of budget friendly options out there. Old school is still cool and applicable!!! (Thanks dad...to which I reply you're welcome...because I am that dads mtb dad! Shit!).
Ok enough nerdery how does it ride?! It rides great! Like the Giant it's really exceeded my expectations! I can't believe it! A few things right off the bat: I can't believe how well the Sora group shifts! Nice crisp, accurate shifts! Also the V-brakes stop on a dime. Now conditions have been favorable and I am a true disc brake lover but I have forgot just how powerful a set of V-brakes can be. In terms of power they are comparable to some of my hydraulic disc brake bikes. I may convert the bike to disc but for now why bother?
As I mentioned prior I will most likely change the tires out. Probably for something slightly smaller, however the big 2 inchers give the bike really good capability over different surfaces. I did some singletrack trail with my kid today and although I still don't prefer drop bars for trail having generous rolling stock and good brakes make it a valid performer. Overall the bike just feels solid. It also looks great! I love the look of the dark blue frame against the black wheels. And with the big tires and drops it just looks monster! It looks so right you would think Schwinn came out with gravel bike. One last thing that brings a smile to my face while riding it is just how little I have invested in it. At this point about $160 with most of that being in the fork. But I may make some of that back by selling the take off parts. (Update: I sold one of the bikes that I got in the group including this bike for $150).
A couple of minor minuses: The water mounts are pretty close together so with some regular metal cages on I couldn't push the down tube bottle all the way down as it hits the seat tube mounted bottle. The other is weight. It's lost almost 3lbs with the new fork but it still comes in at about 26-27lbs. Still not terrible as there are WAY heavier bikes out there. I most likely will be able to affordably shave a pound or two off it. And for the record I am not a weight weenie, I don't have any titanium bolts. I do still consider weight as lighter bikes are better. I do consider my weight too and have lost at least a tour de france bike in the last couple months!
Anyways I look forward to riding the crap out of it! Thanks for reading!
In the next exiting episode...."GET IT GONE (I swear I can get rid of bikes)."
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