Yoshy bikes

Lines aren't perfect still, but I'm reluctant to put too much work into the front when the fork will be changed and the rear is just a showcase of the perils of horizontal dropouts and mudguards.

I had to do a bit of dremeling to get the rear to a place on the chainstays and seatstays where it was happy with the 2" tyre.

I don't think this project will ever end. I'm thinking that, for the first time since 2015 when I bought it, it might be time to swap the bars out, most likely to some woodchippers.

To get the new position to sit nicely I'll need to pretty drastically increase the stack and maybe reduce the reach a little I think. A 17deg stem (of the same length) adds around 10mm stack and would look okay. A 35deg stem would give me about 30mm additional stack but look potentially disgusting. Then there's the extreme VO happy stem.

lol

With dirt drops I personally don’t think a 35 degrees stem look too bad. It’s a part of the whole package, so wouldn’t worry about it.

Stem cell bags and fancy bells were basically built to cover ugly stems, it's all good.

The woodchipper drop is 114mm, I can get that to 30mm lower than my current hoods with the 35deg stem, which seems reasonable enough.

Given that a new fork is in the works at some point, another spacer here or there and it could all come together nicely.

As ever this is being trickle-funded so it's all idle pondering until the part of my bank account marked 'bike bits' refills after the wheelset+tyres+guards hit

Well I drew out all the lengths and angles, and then threw the paper away, got pissed off at myself, then found this tool which would have saved me a load of time and sohcahtoa anyway

I'm having an issue with my future fork replacement. The powder-coaters where I got the frame done (RAL 1033 in matte) had a bad fire and is out of business for the foreseeable future. The other local powder coaters don't and won't stock the colour.

There was a tiny part of me that was tempted to leave the piolet fork blue and see how it looked alongside the yellow, but now I've found a straggler fork for about £100 cheaper than I'd be paying for piolet, which is a sizeable chunk of cash.

Panic for no reason, there are 5,000 powder-coaters in Manchester, 2nd one I tried will do the colour in matte

It's progressing, slowly. I'm still not satisfied though: front end is gangly, mudguard lines are all over the place. 100km of mixed surfaces around the peaks planned for tomorrow, I can see myself coming back wanting a double up front.

I can see myself coming back wanting a double up front.

You could get two cranksets & DT front shifter like me. 10 minute job to swap over.

I spent last night taking off the basket and re-configuring the lights, so this could be ready for the ride this weekend - it reminded me how little I like the swapping of bits for particular use-cases.

I think an old mtb triple with the outer removed/bashguard will be the right move. <=30t little ring will open up a happy world of cadence possibilities.

That sounds like a great idea!
I have a 40/28 mtb crankset on my pelago with a 11-36 at the back.
Even with 35mm slicks I can get up a with that bottom gear and staying seated.
And with friction shifting it's pretty easy to set up the FD too.

When this previously had a double, friction front was dreamy! There are some crazy small little rings for mtb, 22t!

I've just taken the carradice mount back off the saddle, so I can move it back to the original position. It's infuriating that, in order to use that mounting system, there needs to be a significant amount of saddle rail available

I know, right?
I rode a 145k gravel race with 42T and a 11-36 and definitely missed my tiny 28T more than once.

Get the sqr system instead of the bagman?

The sqr system isn't for me, not keen on how it looks at all.
I had to adjust my dolan position to fit the mount too and that worked out okay. I think it needs patience and fettling, which I haven't yet given it. Changing the saddle and saddle position at once was too much.

It isn't pretty, but I can't fault the functionality. Quite stable even with a pack full of sleeping bag and pad.
It would be nice though, if you could fit it without removing the seatpost.

It is hard to beat the looks of a classic saddlebag though imo.. but might just have been drinking too much of the Rought Stuff cool-aid.

How was your big ride? Bit wet in the peaks at the moment!

It was amazing thanks, but a tough tough day. ~100km ended up taking the entire day. Easily some of the most technical riding I've done, and my mate who did the routing managed a great loop with a pretty huge amount of uninterrupted off-road. There was a bit of pushing/hiking, a fair few dismounts and I stacked it straight into the heather once due to pedal stroke but none of it detracted from the riding at all. Mint day out.

The ride validated my tyre choice (just as I was convincing myself I needed something less mtb and more gravelly) and my ponderings on gearing and handlebars. Happily I won an ebay auction for a Ritchey triple while out on the ride, which I'll be looking to kit out for a silly-low gear.

Handlebar ponderings:

Longest and lowest is how it's set up now. The other 2 positions are 35 degree stems in either 90mm or 70mm flavour.

Triple arrived

& shifters (thanks @jontea )

Going to try to fit them onto your bar ends or just have them on the DT?

DT I think, to enable bar-swaps I'll never do. If it's too fiddly, I'll go back to bar-ends.

Glad they arrived safely.

#maketriplesgreatagain

#maketriplesdoublesagain