On my last ride (to be written up and reported on the South Downs Randonnee Challenge page soon), the chain was slipping on the drive train somewhere. Last time I had the wheel off, I noticed that the lower jockey wheel on the rear derailleur was loose, so I put it down to that. So as today was payday, I thought I'd treat myself to a new derailleur. As much as I wanted a shiny new XTR derailleur, they are a bit extortionate, so I went for an '07 XT one instead.. already I'm liking the rubber bump stop to stop it hitting the chain stay.
I'm going to have a go at installing this myself.. I've a good idea of the theory behind this anyway, but I've been trawling the web for some tips anyway, and also have the "Fundamentals" DVD, which shows a bike being built up, to fall back on if it goes Pete Tong.
As another training ride for the South Downs Way Randonnee, some of the guys and myself did a ride from Arundel to Brighton. Full details will be in the South Downs Way Randonnee Challenge section soon.
As most of my bike rides will consist of training for the South Downs Way Randonnee Challenge, I've now created a
new section dedicated to the ride. This will contain reports of our training rides, along with as many stats related to our progress as possible. Enjoy!
Disappointingly, during the second ride after getting my bike back from Evans Brighton, my rear brake has been rendered next to useless.. you can pull the lever back so far that it hits the gear shifter and changes gear.. not good. This may be due to a leak in the system somewhere, the work that they did on the rear caliper, or something else, but my take on it is that if the brake was faulty before the service, which I refuse to believe it was (it was working perfectly) they should have found the problem and fixed it. I've taken it in today to see what they have to say about it. I've already decided to stop getting any of my bikes serviced there as a result of the dire last experience, but hopefully this experience will be slightly less painful than the last - will keep the site updated with progress on this.
For the four years I've been riding, I've always chosen not to use SPuDs or any other clipless
pedals - although I didn't really have any specific reason to base my decision on, I just didn't like the idea of being
tethered to my bike if I lost it going down a hill at 30 MPH.
You'll see from my Kona Dawg page that I
actually went as far as asking the bike shop I purchased the Dawg from to change the pedals to flatties.
Sure, I understand the principles behind them being a whole lot more efficient etc, which I absolutely
agree with, in theory, but I was prepared to forego a little efficiency for the sake of being able to separate myself from the
bike when needed.
However, the difference I noticed in Alex's riding on two rides within two weeks of each
other, one without SPuDs and the second with, combined with the reality of the "100 miles in 12 or fewer hours"
South Downs Randonnee challenge, made me change my mind.
Alex was absolutely flying up the hills on the second ride relative to his speed on the first ride,
and I just had to have a piece of that.
So, the question was, which pedal and shoe combination to go for? I was certainly reluctant to go
for the XTR pedals that Alex had gone for, as they are about £80 - what if i didn't get on with them and decided I would
forego the efficiency after all? What a waste that would be, not to mention the cost of the shoes themselves.
So, I decided to have a look at Evans to see what they could do. I ended up getting some Specialized
"will fill in model name when I find out what it is!" Shoes at £49.99, and some Shimano M540 pedals to go with
them. I was told that these shouldn't be too different from the XTRs in terms of the bearing quality and ease of
clipping in / out, but are a little heavier, hence most of the extra price of the XTRs.
I haven't actually been on a proper ride on them yet, but they are fitted (done very carefully -
as per a previous post, I wrote off a chainset overtightening some new pedals on my Fire Mountain), and I went out
for a quick half hour ride one evening earlier this week. Early impressions are pretty cool - without having adjusted
them from new, they seem easy to clip out of; haven't quite got the hang of clipping in efficiently yet, but
half an hours riding in the dark isn't giving myself much of a chance! I did lots of practising of stopping and
clipping out, which went pretty well, and it seems that as long as you think ahead - for instance, changing down
to a lower gear before slowing down, to help with pulling away again, everything should be OK.
Also, having read "Serious Mountain Biking" by Ann Trombley, on holiday, I picked up a few tips
related to one-legged SPuD pedalling, which I also had a go at. This helps pedalling technique as well as building
up leg muscles.
Wow, whilst writing this post I am starting to realise just how much cash I'm spending on riding
at the moment - I've also purchased a Kona branded hydration pack, which was £50 - this has a fairly
large storage capacity, 3l bladder and lots of useful features. After one use, I'm totally sold on the benefits of
these things - my only previous experience being one I got free from an MBR subscription - that almost put me off
for life it was so terrible! But after one use using this one, I wouldn't ride without it - I'm pretty confident I
could ride for much longer periods of time without stopping, because you can drink on the move. This will only help
with the South Downs Way Randonnee ride.
Looking forward to another training ride on Saturday, when I'll be able to use the SPuDs to full
effect hopefully, as well as gain a bit more experience on them. Reviews for the SPuDs, MTB shoes, Kona Hydration
Pack, Suntour chainset and everything else I recently purchased, coming soon!
Happy riding!
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