Life & Curve Balls

I’ve lived in just under 20% of the states – Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Arizona, Colorado, Louisiana, Texas and Utah.  A lot of moving around was from when I was a wee lad, but I’ll never forget the move to Arizona from Minnesota one fiery August.  Of course, my parents put the ball in my court…and I thought moving in the middle of my high school years sounded like fun.

Since I’ve been married, we’ve moved twice already.  Not the moves from one side of town to the other.  We’ve moved from Salt Lake City to Houston, and then back to Salt Lake City.

I’ve been made a very lucrative offer by a company in Denver.  And so…I quit my job.  We’ve got a stupid big house and there is some work that needs to be done.  For the last couple weeks, I’ve actually been “unemployed” (I gave 2 weeks, my company pushed me out in a couple of days – but paid me until the day I said I would work).  And I haven’t been on a bike.  I’ve been doing back breaking work around the house usually for at least 12 hours a day, but I like to work sun up (~6:30 am) to sundown (~8:30 pm).  It sucks.

Cycling is on hold for the time being.

Delivery!

Finally!  It’s been a long “4 weeks,” but our tandem from DaVinci finally arrived.  Just some snap shots for now.  More on the quadruple chainrings, ICS, White Industry hubs and Kandy Apple Red in another post.

Lubing a Chain

I’m about get a whole lot more chain links in my stable and I have been thinking about how to minimize the cost of replacing chains.  I’ve been doing some research on chain lube and have come to 2 different conclusions: 1) Most cyclists have absolutely no idea the reasoning behind lubing a chain and 2) Sheldon “Reformed Chain Smoker” Brown was correct when he said….

Experts disagree on this subject, sometimes bitterly. This is sometimes considered a “religious” matter in the bicycle community, and much vituperative invective has been uttered in this regard between different schismatic cults.

So, what is the proper way to lube a chain?  The answer is, “it depends.”  Many people claim it will vary based on where you ride, how you ride, the conditions you ride in etc.  And to some degree, there is some truth to that, but it isn’t 100% accurate.  Rather, it varies based on how much an individual cares, how much money they are willing to spend on chains (and possibly cassettes) and how much time they want to spend “lubing” their chain.

What causes chain “stretch?”
Chains stretch over time.  Contrary to the majority’s thoughts on why, it isn’t because of elongation of the side plates.  Rather, dirt makes its way into the inner parts of the chain and then grinds away at the pin and “the hole” (aka sleeve) in which the pin rests.  Many people think the black gunk is just dirt mixed with the oil, but it is also metal shavings from the abrasive dirt inside the chain doing what it does best, grinding away your chain.  Jobst Brandt writes on the late Sheldon’s webpage…

Commercial abrasive grinding paste is made of oil and silicon dioxide (sand) and silicon carbide (sand). You couldn’t do it better if you tried to destroy a chain, than to oil it when dirty.

A dirty chain is the culprit, and you must clean the inside to keep “stretch” to a minimum.  So simply wiping the outside of the chain and then putting more oil on it does no good.

Old chain’s “stretch” compared to a new chain

Remove your chain
There is only one way to clean your chain to the best of your ability, and that is to remove it from your bike.  I use Sram chains because they are a decent quality, affordable and they come with a link which makes removing the chain a breeze.  I am then able to soak the chain in mineral spirits that I keep in a glass jar.  I take the chain out, wipe it down a couple of times and then return it to the bath.  I do this a couple of times and then I hang it up to have the volatile ends evaporate.

Using gizmos which clean the chain on the bike are a PITA.  They make a mess, are wasteful with solvents that are used to clean the chain and cost more money than a couple of jars.  But, they are better than nothing.  I bought one, used it once and it now sits on my garage counter wasting space.

If you want to maximize the life of your chain, you must keep it clean – INSIDE and out.  How you clean your chain is up to you, some methods produce better results than others.  But, there is no arguing with the cleaner your chain is, the longer it will last.

How to lube your chain
The method you use to lube your chain is less important than how you ensure your chain is cleaned prior to lubing.  I keep a jar of chain saw and bar oil and I give the chain a bath.  Simply, the same process I use while cleaning the chain – pull the chain out of the bath, work it back and forth, put back in the bath, pull it out, lightly wipe it down and let it dry.  1 quart of chainsaw and bar oil is $4 at my local hardware store.

If I didn’t ride year round, living in dry Utah, I would go with the wax and graphite bath method.  If I wasn’t so cheap, I’d let the chain dry and then put it back on the bike and use a bike specific lube.

Which lube you use matters very little.  Some will argue for a dry lube.  Some will argue for a wet lube.  Some people think waxes make it harder for the chain to bend around the cogs (and therefore more power output is needed).  An interesting study done at John Hopkins has the following conclusion….

The Johns Hopkins engineers made another interesting discovery when they looked at the role of lubricants. The team purchased three popular products used to “grease” a bicycle chain: a wax-based lubricant, a synthetic oil and a “dry” lithium-based spray lubricant. In lab tests comparing the three products, there was no significant difference in energy efficiency. “Then we removed any lubricant from the chain and ran the test again,” Spicer recalls. “We were surprised to find that the efficiency was essentially the same as when it was lubricated.”

The researcher speculates that a bicycle lubricant does not play a critical role under clean lab conditions, using a brand new chain. But it may contribute to energy efficiency in the rugged outdoors. “The role of the lubricant, as far as we can tell, is to take up space so that dirt doesn’t get into the chain,” Spicer says. “The lubricant is essentially a clean substance that fills up the spaces so that dirt doesn’t get into the critical portions of the chain where the parts are very tightly meshed.

My theory is, it doesn’t matter what lube you use as long as your chain is clean and it is helping to keep dirt out.  And no, I don’t advocate to run your chain dry (although the way it comes from the factory is some of the best lube you’ll get!).

Why does this matter? 
I buy Sram chains and pay anywhere from $10-$15/chain.  I ride 5000-6000 miles/year.  If I did nothing, I would probably change out my chains every 1000 miles or so.  So I spend $50-$75 per year in chains.  In the grand scheme of things, that’s about a tank and a half of gasoline in my car, and I easily save that in a couple of weeks by predominately riding my bike.

But, I’m about to take delivery of a tandem, so now I’ll have 3 bikes that I ride regularly, and one will have as much chain on it as 3 bikes.  So now keeping my drive trains clean can save me a bundle.

Finally, sometimes we learn the hard way.  I took delivery of my commuter bicycle (from Bikes Direct – hold your applause please) in late September 2011.  I rode on the original chain for almost 4500 miles, all year round here in SLC, and finally just replaced it a few weeks ago.  While I am lucky I didn’t break the chain, I did wear down my cassette to the point I was experiencing chain skipping very frequently.  Eventually, I had to put down $30 to get a new rear cassette…lesson learned!

How do you clean and lube your chain?

Willard Bay 100k

Saturday was the first brevet of the season for the Salt Lake Randos.  Of course, I “wimped” out and only did the 100k.  It started out as a rainy morning, with surprisingly little wind.  The start was at 9am, which is late in my opinion.

Right out of the gate I had a bike malfunction – my chain fell off.  Not like wrapped around my bottom bracket, but was on the ground.  I didn’t get my Sram link closed all the way, so luckily all I had to do was put it back on and make sure the link was connected.  I was hoping to ride with the “big boys” on this one and that hope washed away as I took a few minutes to get everything put back together.

9 of us started, 6 were doing the 200k and 3 of us were doing the 100k.  I quickly caught the other 100k riders and one of the 200k riders.  I looked ahead and I was surprised to still see the main group ahead.  Digging in, I caught them after about 3 or 4 miles.  For some reason, they were going really slow.  I jumped ahead to chat with our fearless RBA Richard.

About 20 miles in, the wind started to pick up and not in the direction that we would have liked.  I dug in and brought the pace up a bit.  Since we live in the desert, no one had fenders but me (I was on my commuting rig, the Mountain Goat) and drafting included a faceful of tire spray.

We eventually stumbled into the control, and my turn around point.  I ran in to use the bathroom first, and grab a chocolate milk.  I visited and drank my milk for a few minutes.  Richard invited me to join them for the 200k, but I had already given my wife a time to expect me – and a honey do list was waiting for my return.  Richard then offered to call my wife for me, but I figured it wise to stick to the original plan.

I was then about to leave when someone mentioned they were turning around as well.  I waited a few more minutes and then we agreed to hit the road.  My trusty steed was summoned and the front tire had a flat – durdy goat head.  I’m not sure if I pinched the tube putting it back on, or if I just neglected to fix it beforehand, but the “new” tube needed to be repaired.  So, I took it all off again and had to patch it – it was the last patch in my kit (yikes!).  All in all, a horrible control time, over 40 minutes.

We finally hit the road for the return trip with everything buttoned up.  We had a slight tailwind for a little bit, and then the wind changed on us.  It was mostly a cross wind, which always feels to be working against you.  I enjoyed the company, and our pace probably suffered a bit, but the conversation was great.  Roughly less than 2 hours later, we reached Wally World and the end of the ride.

One thing I am happy about is my splits were about even.  Meaning, the time to complete the first half was roughly the same as the time to complete the second half.  On an out and back route, this is how you want your splits.  Typically, the longer the distance, the farther the splits get.  For instance, the first half of the ride may claim 1/3 of the time.  The second half will take 2/3.  So, as I build distance, I want to try and keep my splits even.

I wore my new heart rate monitor strap, but for some reason it wasn’t reading.  Which is a bummer, but I hope to monitor my heart rate in the future and allow it to help me train a bit better as well.

Strava Data Here.

L’avenir du cyclisme

My training partner.  My bike mechanic apprentice.  Future Stoker.  Future Randonneuse.  Thanks for your help tonight Baby Bird.  Let’s not let mom know about your dirty hands…

Supporting your LBS (and why I don’t)

Many people feel strongly that you should support a local bike shop (LBS).  And I don’t.  Typically the arguments of why you should support a LBS falls into 2 categories: 1) They provide a service no one else in town offers (that’s working on your bicycle) and 2) you’re keeping money in your local economy.  Below is my response to these arguments:

Your LBS provides a service you can’t get anywhere else
Here are some examples of the “service” I have gotten at my local bike shops lately:

• I’ve been looking for a tandem for about 1.5 yrs.  Unfortunately for me, SLC is not a very big tandem town.  Only one bicycle shop (actually they have a bunch of shops) deals tandems.  I walked in to get some basic information and I even hoped they would let us ride one for an hour or two.  Of course, they wouldn’t let us take an “extended” test ride or rent a tandem (which I was well prepared to pay for).  They acted bothered to bring a bike up from another shop that would actually fit us so we can ride it around the parking lot.  I asked for some catalogs and what not to compare models, sizes and prices – they didn’t have any.  The answer I got was, “Most people end up just buying a custom anyway.”  I’m sure they would have liked the $7250 I just dropped on a tandem, but instead their “service” was less than helpful, so I phoned a company that could actually help me.
• ME: Do you have any vulcanizing fluid? SHOP KID: No.  [I look around for a few minutes and find the box of vulcanizing fluid]
• The latest is when I walked in and asked if they had any campy brake cables.  They responded, “Road or mountain bike?”
• I used to ride an old road bike my father bought me when I was barely a teenager.  I was riding the original wheels and naturally, I broke a spoke.  I took the wheel into the shop to have the spoke replaced.  The bill I got was $50.  We all know a shop pays less than $1 for a spoke and nipple (b/c that is what they commonly charge me!).  So I had $49 in labor?!  And the wheel, almost 14 years old at the time, wasn’t even worth $50 (which I explained to them before I handed the wheel over).  When I protested that it was too much (and they told me it would be about $25 before they started), they went on about how they had to remove the rear cassette, true the rest of the wheel etc.  That is no more than 30 mins, and I know because I can do it myself.  They were unrelenting, and I never returned.

I find most shops to be arrogant – if you aren’t riding the latest carbon bike and kitted out, they look down their nose at you.  Or I guess they expect you to buy a new tube every time you get a flat….

I should also point out that I can, and do, perform all maintenance on my bikes.  It’s not rocket science and all it takes is a bit of time to study up on the subjects.  If for nothing else, you can have an intelligent conversation with your bike shop.

Supporting your local economy
When it comes to spending my money, I get the best bang for the buck.  What I mean is, when I stop realizing value to me, I stop spending money.  So, I’m not “cheap,” but rather I ensure the things I purchase serve their purpose for the amount of cash I plop down.  When it comes to buying bike components, and even bikes, I find the better deal to be online.  And even so, I buy most my components from across the pond.  Most are procured from Ribble Cycles or Wiggle.

Before you start hucking produce in my direction, perhaps you should evaluate how many bikes you own that were built in the US.  Not the Trek or Specialized “built” in the US, but actually made and constructed in the in the US.  I own 2 which were handbuilt by American artisans.

Finally, I find those who criticize one for buying a bike or bike components online, happily use the interwebz for many of their other purchases.  And they do this knowing there are many other business which are local that they could support.  When discussing face to face, I usually start out by saying, “Have you ever bought anything over the internet?”   I suppose, one day, I may meet a person who hasn’t…

At the end of the day supporting your LBS is a preference.  Some will find value in paying for a service.  Some feel there is value in spending the money directly in their local economy.  Others, like myself, value the work they put into their bikes and doing it themselves.  And most importantly, being a bit slower on the bike because all the cash they saved is weighing them down!

Shimergo Conversion – Campagnolo Veloce 10 spd Powershift Ergos

I recently overhauled the handlebars on my commuter with a “drop” type bar, “road” disc brakes and campagnolo ergo “brifters” (on my shimano drivetrain).  Below are the series of posts covering this.

1. What is Shimergo?
2. Luxy Handlebars
3. Avid BB7 Road Brakes
4. Campagnolo Veloce 10 spd Powershift Ergos
5. Final Thoughts – 1000 miles

The trickiest part of the Shimergo conversion is getting the cable pull from the shifters to match up with the derailleur.  The rear derailleur is actually quite well documented.  It is a good read, and you should definitely take a look at it.  The pertinent tables are below for Shimano conversions.

As you can see, the best match is using a campy 10 spd shifter with a Shimano 8 spd  cassette.  This is only 1/100th of a mm difference!  The other option is to do a Hubbub re-route with Campy 10 spd shifter and Shimano 9 spd cassette.  And a few more “fixes” exist.  You can buy a JTEK Shiftmate which can marry just about any combination.  DaVinci sells a modified Sram derailleur which marries Campy 10 spd and Shimano 9 spd cassettes.

Where the wheel falls off the wagon, and is not documented well, is how the front derailleur marries up with the left ergo.  3 or 4 years ago this wasn’t a worry because Campy had an awesome feature in their left shifter known as Ultrashift.  In essence, instead of indexing the front shifter, it offered “micro-ratchets.”  So, it may have taken 3 or four shifts to get your derailleur to move chainrings (which can be done in one swoop if you prefer), but you had the ability to “trim” your front derailleur on the fly.  This allowed one to use virtually any FD and any number of chain rings.  And it was too good to be true…

Campy has since “upgraded” from Ultrashift to what is known as Powershift.  The French phrase which describes Powershift is, It Sucks.  It’s not that bad, but what Powershift does is it indexes the shifts going down.  So, if I want to shift from a big chain ring up front to a smaller chain ring, I hit my button and it makes the transition all the way to the next chain ring.  Going up, however, it does “micro-ratcheting.”  So, 3 clicks going up = 1 click going down.  And unlike the old Ultrashift, you need to watch out for how many chain rings you want up front, as some Powershift Ergos are made for 2 and some are made for 3 chain rings.

With the unfortunate demise of Ultrashift for us lower class citizens (11 spd Record and above has true Ultrashift), the good news is Powershift Ergos still work with just about any front derailleur.  They actually match up well with Shimano’s Mountain biking line.  But since FD’s are much less standardized than RD’s, it much more difficult to document pull ratios.  For example, Shimano’s road line has different pull ratios than their MTB line.  But, with the “micro-ratcheting” going up and the ability to use the limiting screws on the derailleur, one should be able to use just about any FD, especially if it is just 2 chain rings.

I have an Altus FD, and it seems the cable pull and the ratio of the derailleur are almost spot on.  And I wouldn’t hesitate to use it again!

At the end of the day, my Campy Veloce Ergos shift my shimano derailleurs beautifully. Shifting is crisp, quiet and flawless.  Assuming a couple more weeks of hard riding on this setup remains flawless, I plan to upgrade my rando bike from friction bar end to these “brifters.”