Paconi "kid carrier" touring build, now 1x10 commuter, now 1x10 gravel bike.

First ride in almost two weeks. Despite working from home I feel like I have less time to do stuff, especially ride.

I think all I want to do to this is put a bigger cassette on and get a Hungry stem pouch to hold my phone so I can access it easily while riding.

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Despite working from home I feel like I have less time to do stuff, especially ride.

same :(

My Hungry Muncher stem pouch arrived today. Perfect for holding my phone, glasses in a case (I’m blessed with no-so-perfect vision, so I have to swap between prescription glasses and prescription sunglasses) and even my light Giro New Road jacket if I wanted. Feels good not having to search around in my basket bag for my phone for photos and directions.

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Got impatient and bought some things from actual real businesses yesterday, instead of online. Probably paid about $50 too much... oh well. The chain was from a friends shop, so it’s not a huge thing, but it was more than expected. Anyway, upgrading to a 10 speed 11-42 cassette from a 9 speed 11-36 cassette (which I was using with a 10 speed chain, derailleur and shifter). I’m also using a cheap Wolf Tooth RoadLink copy (known on eBay as a “tail hook lengthener”) to give me the capacity to run a bigger cassette with my Sram derailleur.

The cotton tape is to wrap my chain stay. No black Newbaums tape in stock, so I’m going to try this and some spray adhesive. Hopefully I’ll be install everything today.

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Well everything went on smoothly. Didn’t even have to adjust the derailleur. Excuse the state of the house, it’s been pissing down with rain all day. My son was happy to help out.

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This is one of my favourite bikes on the forum. So good! And it's come a long way from the humble kid carrier.

I'm interested in the different uses you get out of this vs the space horse... Is the space horse more of a fast(er) bike?

Thanks!

The Spacehorse is my everyday commuter (well, pre-COVID), that I can climb a hill on if I want. Full guards, more road friendly tyres and flat bars. This bike slowly transitioned into something that I can ride for longer distances (the flat bars on my Spacehorse lack hand positions after a while), and on more rough(er) roads and trails. I kept the basket on there because I also plan to do some overnighters to my parents, etc and just take a change of clothes.

Nice, they're both lovely but this bike just gets it. The space horse has got to be the best looking all city frame though, by a long shot.

Great thread (and the All-City). I might have missed it, but how come there's bare metal around the rear canti mounts? Have you had them adjusted/replaced at some point?

I think I wrote elsewhere what happened, and it’s not a very exciting story, but...

Just after I had it powdercoated and I was building it up for the first time I ended up snapping a bolt off in the canti post. I over tourqued it trying to tightened it. I stupidly forgot to chase the threads. I spoke to a frame builder friend about fixing or replacing the post and he replaced it for me. As I just had it powdercoated, I didn’t bother painting. It’s just clear coat spray painted.

Went on an 80k ride yesterday, about 50/50 gravel and road. Most of the road riding was on bike paths which was cool. Long story short, where I live we have a bike path (known as the Patrick Jonker Veloway) that follows a freeway (aka The Southern Expressway). That bike path is okay, kinda boring and a bit of a pain to get to the start of. When I’ve driven the Expressway, I’ve seen a gravel path on the opposite side of the Veloway. I’ve often wondered if it is rideable. Did some google mapping and a Strava route and it turns out the path exists and it can be ridden almost the same length of the Veloway. All up I think I did about 40-45k’s of gravel. A bit of steep climbing, some both-brakes-on-sitting-over-the-back-wheel descents, a bit of mud and some single track. So happy I explored this path. I’ll be able to use it to get to my parents house for an overnighter. The other cool thing is it’s mainly back streets and bike paths from my house to get to the start of the gravel track.

On that note, I thought I would be okay Witt my gearing yesterday, but even a 34t chainring and a 11-42t cassette caught me out on a few of the climbs and I had to walk. Some of the climbs I could feel the front wheel lifting when I was seated, even with weight in my basket. I’m also pretty unfit. I also had a full change of clothes in my basket because I thought i was riding to my mother-in-law’s house afterwards, so that didn’t help.

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More photos.

Also, my canti’s worked fine. Even with the crappy stock Tektro pads on the back.

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Great exploring. I love spotting a track from somewhere else and then going and working out how to ride it, especially when it feels like no-one else will (although obviously they do)

Exactly. Turns out this route is called the “Dirty Expressway”.

Found an old post on Gravel Cyclist. Turns out some of the climbs are 19% and 21%! No wonder I struggled.

Primo gravel. Some of those do look pretty steep. I think you'd have to be a pretty powerful rider to get up most of those without wrenching the bars / getting wheel lift.

Fudge me!
I don't think there's anywhere I'd like to ride, that I couldn't get by with 34-42 on.. Proporly steep that.

Bike and pictures looks good as usual.

Ha! Those climbs are over in about 5 minutes. To be honest, I’d rather push my bike up a hill for 5 minutes, than grind up a steady hill for 15. And it was maybe 5? 6 times I had to push in total. Once was at the beginning, which I probably could’ve done if I knew it was coming and went towards it faster.

This is the same spot. It goes down, under the freeway and back up. Both sides would be about the same. I walked up both on the way there and back. Some of the climbs and descents were a bit sketchy on the way back because there was three guys on dirt bikes that had torn up the track in parts and made it quite soft.

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It was 4° when I left this morning. I almost regretted going for a ride.

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A couple more.

I tried this same ride back in February, but with harder gearing. Was nice to go back out and do it again, and actually complete the loop I wanted to do back then. Still had to walk a couple of spots (like the second photo).

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You can never regret chambers. So good! Been a while since I've done it actually.

I’ve only done it twice now. Keen to do it more now though, especially seeing that it can link up to a lot of other rides.

Did you ride up the big dipper?

I tried to. I went down, started going up, lost my line and then couldn’t get back on it without falling over. I ended up walking.

I got a 50% success rate on that one. Best line for me so far is to start on the inside, then half way up switch to the outer left side where it's smooth, then all the way up. 180bpm kindo moment though, every time.