Month: April 2013

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Poor man cyclocross building problem #1

Road lever and mtb rear mech cock-up during drivetrain assembly in my cyclocross bike. Small mistake, just posting to prevent anybody having same situation. I think I heard about differences between standard Shimano and dyna-sys before and even reminded myself couple of times, and then… of course I forgot.

At first of all, if you’re planning strange marriages between different components be sure that will work. Ask your LBS or google some information. I have Shimano road levers 6600 (10 speed) and rear mech Shimano Deore RD-M593 Shadow 10 speed rear mech. You see that “shadow” bit in the name? 😉 Yeah, that’s the thing… It means the system is DynaSys and it have completely different cable pull. F*ck!. I slept with the problem and next day I’ve tried different solution as an exercise. Measured cable pull in both systems. In standard Road cable for rear mech travelling about 22-23mm in Shadow systems the distance is about 35-36mm. I didn’t check that but tested cable pull 9 speed system in my commuter and looked more less the same around 23mm. As the cassette for both 9 and 10 speed systems has same width I decided to make experiment and borrowed rear mech RD-M530 for tests. And here we are! My strang setup. Front STI levers are Shimano 105 (5600), Crank is FSA Omega 46/34T with BDC110 and (road) chainline 43mm, cassette Shimano Tiagra CS-4600 12-30 (10 speed), rear derailleur  RD-M591 (purchased new as RD-530 was just for test only – on the pictures). Tested on the road. No problems whatsoever.

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soon more about the bike and other experiments…

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Gran Canaria impressions …

As spring in Europe is officially cancelled I went with family to Gran Canaria. Trip looked from the start as standard “lay-on-the-beach” borring time  , and that’s kind of vacation people mostly looking for. BTW. Standard British way is: wake up in the morning (about 10am), go to the pool and take sun bed (by placing towel on it). Then get back to hotel room, eat, drink, and then spend whole day next to pool on sun bed, stuffing yourself with chips, coke, candys etc, trying to survive massive hangover from previous night. Occasionally go and have a shower, or dip into pool. About 9pm is time to move down town, for a slap-up meal (trying avoid vegetables if possible, apart from potatoes of course).  After dozen pints of lager about 1am, get back to hotel room. Sounds like fun, innit?
😉
Not really for me…

My college days are gone, and as a middle age doughnut I won’t survive such stomach and brain abuse. So I decided to spend half a holiday cycling around the island.

I went to free motion company as they where on top of the list displayed by google. Choosen cheapest option Canondale CAAD10. Pretty basic alloy model, but solid as equipped with Shimano 105 groupset/wheels and Conti tyres. The company seems well organized and professional. Very friendly stuff, no problems whatsoever.

The island is quite small but there’s plenty different routes. You can go along coast line, which is up and down with refreshing breeze or you can choose mountain with spectacular valleys (barranco) different climbs and smooth tarmac.

I was focused on mountains mostly as coastline I have at home in Dorset ;-). Below is an example route to Ayacata and some pictures.

route to Ayacata

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Couple of hints if you want to rent a bicycle there. What you’ll need? Helmet (mandatory there), standard summer setup of clothes, plus arm warmers and gilet.  Shoes (pedals if you have some exotic system, but if you have Shimano shoes/cleats shouldn’t be a problem). Lights!!! Front (basic blinking white led) and rear. This is mandatory as well, if you want go trough tunnels which is almost unavoidable in most cases (of course you can rent light but it’ll cost money). Also: spare inner tube (as you’ll have only one) or patches, allen keys/multitool, bottles (or you can buy sport drinks already in bottles, but they usually 0.5l and you need at least 2×0.75l). At last, if you want/need your favourite saddle (don’t forget allen key 8mm!). Looks like quite a list, but really everything you can squeeze into helmet and some hardware into pockets. Washing clothes is not a problem, as the sun is oppressive there and everything is dry in no time. Talking about sun, remember about sun care otherwise you’ll look stupid like me, with peeling skin on nose, sun tan on chicks and pale around the eyes 😉

Summarizing. I didn’t expect such a nice time on the bike there. Must say it took quite a while to get used to the heat, but higher in mountains wasn’t too hot, and all you need to remember is sun care. As cycle holiday place strongly recommended, or like me part of family holiday.

Keep them rolling. Adam