Functional bikes. Not Porn not Anti

@hamrack I'll PM you!

Here's how the bike is looking at the minute (sorry for terrible phone photo) . Changed to these bars and tyres today. The saddle is borrowed from another bike, will be getting anything I can find for cheap. The seat post is stuck as fuck but seems to be at roughly the right height so just going to see if I can get away with it before I make any real effort to remove it. Just needs mudguards really.

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Koolstop Salmon compound in whatever style you need - Eagle, Supra, etc

What's the difference between the styles? I've never used cantis before so have no idea what I'm doing.

Eagle is post style, for old cantis. Supra is nutted style, like V-brakes, for new cantis. You want the eagles.

Sweet, thanks for clearing that up!

Anyone got any good coffee carrying solution on their daily ride? There's a nice view on my commute where I'd like to drink my brew rather than tiptoeing round trying not to wake the babies up. I'm thinking thermal mug in a stem cell at the moment?

I really like those doppo framesets

What exactly is the point of such a massive cassette when you have the double? You're already running friction on the FD, why not triple and get back reasonable steps between gears?

Looks a temporary solution to me.

why not triple

Lot of people don't like triples.

I like them but I think the optimal all road/adventure setup (for me) probably is a super compact chainset with a wide cassette.

Lot of people don't like triples.

:( What did they do to deserve that? sniff

Triples will be great again

SRAM can't make a good front mech so they came up with 1x

:( What did they do to deserve that? sniff

I don't know. Everyone is rushing to get rid of the front derailleur it seems. In some cases this (1x) makes sense to me. But I'm stubborn and I think triples are a part of touring. Especially with 9 speed, you don't want jumps that are too big between gears. And I like 9 speed because it feels robust and is cheap to replace (snapped a rear derailleur a year ago while touring, which I replaced the next day).

I've used both my lowest gear (30x32) and my highest (50x11) regularly during my last tour. On the flats I'm mostly in the middle ring (39t) and in the middle of the cassette. I guess you could get rid of the outer ring, hence why I think super compact chainsets are interesting.

50/39/30 x 11-32.

I run 12-30 on 26-42-52 on my touring/occasional-audax bike and I agree - they're great. There is nothing I can't get over, I have rarely run out at the top end, and I can always find a comfy cadence while making a good pace.

Oh well.

I put on a 40-28 mtb crank on my tourer. Denmark is pretty flat, but I like to have a bailout gear and rarely go faster than biggest gear allows anyway.

I wonder what the weight difference would be betweeen say a 3x9 and a 1x11. Realise its touring so not uber critical.

the cheaper (still not 'cheap') 1x cassettes are about 360g to 420g.

Thats the lines I was thinking along. I have a 11-40 Sunrace and its definitely not light.

I guess 1x11 will probably win weight wise as you can ditch the FD, shifter and chainrings, but the weight penalty of a triple over a double are tiny. You can also use a shorter cage with 1x, although probably need a clutch/chain retention.

Worth noting the extra wear and drag when using a 1x as you're making the chain work hard.

My problem with triples is the installation and adjusting of the front derailleur. It's a total pain in the arse if it's not dead straight. Had problems for about a year with mine before I finally got it in the right place. Even then it still rubbed a bit in the top gear, and if I moved the high limit screw the chain would pop off. (Braze on might be better.) Doubles are obviously easier to adjust because there's only two positions and you have two limit screws.

Either way I changed my triple groupset because I couldn't get a low enough gear (30 front and 28 rear was the biggest I could do). I suppose technically that was due to the derailleur not the triple. I could maybe have found a compatible MTB rear derailleur and swapped the cassette but the jumps between gears are even more pronounced with 8-speed and because of the front derailleur you can't cross chain as much with a triple. I now have 10-speed SRAM with double chainrings and an MTB derailleur and have far more options for gear range. Currently have 50/34 and 11-36 - mental for road riding but after doing some days with well over a km of climbing, 20% gradients and 20kg of camping gear this summer I really don't think you can have too low a gear.

(Will probably swap to a 11-32 for normal riding and just use the 11-36 for touring. Unfortunately the Shimano 11-32 cassette I bought doesn't fit on my wheel whilst a SRAM one does? Very strange.)

I'm interested in recommendations too. Just tried 26" P65 SKS and found that they sat way too far from the tyres. They're too wide anyway so need to find a different solution.