Mambo#5: Looking up from the rabbit hole.

August 14, 2020

Mambo#5: Looking up from the rabbit hole.

I could not get to sleep last night....I don't know if it was the result of watching the 80's Tom Cruise flick "Legend" until 11:30 (it's a great flick, Ridley Scott, glitter and the devil played by Tim Curry, don't judge) or if I was still coming off my group ride? Simple wrestlessness? I dunno but either way I went from dog tired from a long and very hot day and week to wide awake at almost 1 am?! It happens...

I finished this Midnight Special build for a friend...a friend with parts for me! And yes, he cut the steerer tube.

RIDING: I was working yet again this week. I have been painting a friends house for the last two weeks and it's been so time consuming that I haven't had much time for anything else. I did some trail last weekend and the weekly local brewery ride last night. The ride was pretty tame and given my condition that's what I wanted but I get a little bored with the slow roll so I played Ninja here and there ducking off into some trails and such then rejoining the group. I kind of had a need for speed and herd mentality for the last couple months but having satisfied that itch my leanings have gone back to trail. I do have plans for some bigger rides but more on that later.

THE GIANT: As I mentioned last week I finally got a suspension fork and installed it on the XTC. The fork is older but having a "sus" fork is pretty new territory and while I have been riding it pretty much everyday I really only managed to get some trail in last Saturday. I had a load to go to the local compost site. There is a two mile trail called Plum Creek that almost circles the site. I threw my bike on the trailer with the rest of the load and did a two-fer! After that I drove to another trail system for a couple more miles of "testing". I ran into some friends at the trail and joined them.

Having a sus fork is interesting...and good, don't get me wrong! It's just different. It's kind of like it's there and not there. It is better for sure in the trails. I don't need to dodge the tree roots as much. Of course what the front soaks up the rear still hits but at least I can get off the seat (thoughts of full suspension came to mind as well as the resulting price tag...and weight) and take less of the impact.

There is one big penalty though: weight. Although a decent weight the Magura brought the Giant from about 24lbs up to 27lbs. I was able to mitigate some of this weight with the use of a different much lighter front wheel and tire combo (Mavic SLR Crossmax and Racing Ralph 2.35), which I had to use given that the fork is thru axle. Speaking of axle standards I was thinking about getting a fork with quick release drop outs so I could keep the same wheel on the front but I'm glad this fork is thru because it's a stiffer setup. I think this is essentially where the thru axle came from. Disc brakes also came from the mtb world and found out that my 160mm rotor was too small! So down came a fat bike wheel and a 180mm rotor. One other difference was in the head tube angle. I think the bike may have been designed with a 100mm travel fork in mind where this fork is 120mm. I'm not sure but it is taller than the carbon fork I had on it. This makes for a more relaxed head tube angle and less adept handling but I'm kind of used to it now. Oh and when your riding in the trail you get all kinds of head tube angles!

Initially, when I got the fork it was pretty pumped up and stiff. The prior owner must have weighed more than me. I gave the air valve one quick push and that made quite a difference. I also scored a shock pump for $20 from Marketplace. I still have yet to mess around with the settings but I think it feels pretty good. Overall the bike still feels fast but eventually I think I am going to move the fork to my carbon hard tail where the weight for that combo will come in at around 23lbs. Overall I'm stoked to have a fork! I also like how the bike looks: Tour Divide mode?!

In other Giant news it has been plagued with some creaks and ticking noises. If one thing drives me the most mad on a ride it's noises like creaking, ticking rubbing. It turned out that most of the creaking was coming from my seat post which oddly enough was greased?! After wiping it down the creaking went away...strange. I still have a ticking noise when pedaling but I just haven't had the time to figure it out.

The other problem I have had, again, was losing pressure from my rear tire. The tire is used and the sidewalls are pretty worn. Given the wear, on the first mount it bled sealant for several weeks from the sidewalls but eventually it quit and was fine. I had to remount it after fixing a bunch of busted spokes (kind of tough to do with a tubeless, taped wheel) and now it's like I am back to square one. More sealant for the fix. It's still bleeding sealant but it's at least holding some decent pressure so I don't have to air it up everyday. There is or was a brand new version of the same tire on Marketplace but I looked up reviews and someone had a problem with a new tire doing the same thing and even worse! So I got scared....but I should probably buy it anyway....ugh!

Don't: Trying to solve my bleed sitch....probably not.

Do: Round here we get sealant by the quart.

NUTS AND BOLTS: The Schwinn $0 Budget Build. I didn't have much time to work on the Trailway but even without touching it I had a problem. That problem being focus. Originally I planned on making it a drop bar bike but I didn't have the parts on hand and since I require immediate gratification I decided to go with flat bars as I had pretty much everything necessary to make that happen but I ran into a problem with the shifter. The Sram 10spd grip shift (I adore grip shift and very much dislike under bar shifters) that came with the Giant didn't want to play nice with the rear cassette. It may be a compatibility issue but the shifter itself felt sluggish.

In flat bar guise...if you can make it out amongst the clutter!

Nope.

Thinking more about the focus of the build I looked at the mockup pic of it with the drops on it and decided I wanted it to mainly be a long distance gravel grinder. I decided that I wanted it to have drops and that trail capability isn't as much of a concern as it was the Giant.

Git er done....how bout those frame alignment tools!

With this in mind it was time to move forward and tackle the ensuing problems that came after. The first being shifting. With drop bars there aren't many shifter options and after a lot of thought I decided I wanted to go with the brake-shifter otherwise know as the brifter. The problem with that scenario is the cost of brifters, especially when you get into 10spd and up. Even more so when you want hydraulic brifters. To the computer I went. Ebay, Craigslist, Marketplace.... I did find a set of 10 speed brifters for $30 but the owner wasn't down for shipping them to me. They were also fairly old and meant for tiny rim brakes that work with "short pull" brake levers. The Schwinn has V-brakes which require "long pull" brake levers. So it was probably for the better that things didn't work out. More searching...then a thought came to mind. A friend of mine had upgraded his bike to 105 leaving his Sora group just lying around taking up space! This group is 9 speed but that is only a minor negative as it meets all the other needs for the build and he wants next to nothing for them. I still want to go 10 or 11 speeds as it simply gives more range and efficiency but for now a 9 speed drivetrain will be more than adequate especially since I'll have a 2x multiplier up front. Not to mention it will allow me to build the bike and get it out on the road sooner.

Denied...but that's probably a good thing.

The next hurdle to over come with this build was a kind of a combination of forks and brakes. The bike has V-brakes, which I am not opposed to. However I am opposed to the fork and with it the overall weight of the bike, which is about 27lbs. The stock fork is a suspension fork with only V-brake mounts and it's junk...

More searching....

I have a number of Chinese carbon forks on hand. Nothing that will work for this application as they have tapered head tubes and disc brake only mounts but I am familiar with them and have had good results with them. They are light, strong and inexpensive. They can usually be found on ebay for about $100. And I did find some but I was really considering the budget for this bike (bye bye $0 build!) but more so the brake situation. I have a cheapo converter to convert the rear to disc but I don't know how well it will work or if it will work so if I get a fork that is disc only and the rear conversion doesn't work then I am stuck with disc front and rim brake rear. I do a lot of wacky things but I'm not doing that. Low and behold I come across a combination rim and disc brake fork! SOLD! It's aluminum so not quite as light as carbon but the legs are round and metal so there is more potential to mount things to them. Cost for the fork was about $120 so yeah no more $0 build but if I build this into a solid performer with disc, 2" clearance, brifters, good gear range for $200 or less I think you could call it a success. On top of that I am going to see if I can make some of that money back selling the take off stuff on ebay. It's cheapo stuff but hey people still need that!