Simba's bike den

Having spent way too much time on here, I was hyped about finally jumping on the steel and full mudguards wagon, so I cannibalized the levers and the chainset from my cx to go onto the Jamis ready to put the cx into retirement.

Turns out a road double didn’t clear the chainstays as it was intended for a triple, “small fix” I thought and rummaged through my parts to find a very pleasing deore square taper chainset and a narrow wide to go with it. Installed the shiny new wheels and faffed with the mudguards until I though they looked OK.
Then moved the levers over, only to have issues with the disc rotors not clearing the pads.

At this point I had been without a bike for more than a week and we were coming up on a week of vacation where I would have plenty of opportunity to ride in a new and nice area, so I decided to abort mission and built the cx back up again.

This is as far as I got with the Jamis.
Being frustrated and annoyed for a week because the build had stalled, made me realize a few things:

A) I don’t need mudguards. I don’t cycle with a club at any fixed times, participate in races or commute. If it’s raining I just go at another time.

B) I don’t need dynamo lights. Like before, I know how to plan my rides and will just make sure my lights are charged before a ride. I see the advantage if you are a commuter or do long distance stuff at night, which I don’t.

C) Who the fuck puts a 11s groupset on a winter bike? Next year I will get a cheap alu road bike like the caad optimo for winter training. It will be specced with 8s Claris, that is so cheap I will laugh out loud when I remove the rusted drivetrain and replace it all, for the same price as one 11s cassette.

D) never mess with the bike you actually ride. Build up a n+1, so you have overlap, but never gaps. I knew this, but ignored it. Lesson learned.