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Eventually had a weekend free so got out bikepacking - one night just south of Lancaster & another in the wonderfully named Ravenstonedale near Kirkby Stephen.
Managed a pretty light setup - tent, down jacket, pegs & towel in a Restrap race saddle bag, tent poles, sleeping bag, mat & a change of clothes in the bar bag & then the frame bag free for food. Feels good to have a fast & lightish setup, particularly at the top of Fleet Moss!
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Practical bike has shed its winter weight of mudguards & racks - making it no longer the practical bike really but flat(ish) bar grav. Also added some chunky Ergon grips which are dead comfy. Think when the rain & cold returns, I'll put my 700 dynamo wheelset on this to be even more useful.
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@kjlem @ltc Cheers! Do love this bike. The Mavic wheels could do with some servicing so back on the nice Hope/Pacenti wheels Woodrup originally built for this while back up in the Dales last weekend (eagle-eyed viewers will spot Fleet Moss in the background). The whom of the deeper carbon wheels is nice but ultimately I do prefer the look of the shallower rims on this.
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Annoying bike news - driver in front of me slammed on the brakes so went into the back of them & now have a lovely new bend in the forks of the Land Shark. Thankfully that's all I've got to show for it, literally not a scratch on myself as I managed to jump off & land on my feet which is not bad for a crash at 20mph.
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A brief inspection tells me that the paint is all intact & there's no obvious wrinkle. Headset is a bit knackered, but wheels is true. Reckon I've got away with it. Driver did pull over & apologise, only realised too late that the fork was bust.
Have an alternative fork lying around, but quite annoyed as it took a while to find a nice steel threaded fork with a long enough steerer, & was quite enjoying the setup with a front pannier for errands. Glad I didn't get around to painting the fork now.
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The headset went quite still after the fork had bent, which I assumed was just because the bearings got squished, but turns out it was because the steerer had bent in the steerer tube. I expected all the bend to come from the fork crown, odd!
Put the old carbon fork back on. Despite being relatively new, the lacquer has already come away at the aluminium fork crown, grr. Managed to put the old rack back on for some on-call miles with laptop in tow, doesn't feel quite as secure as the steel one, but not too bad for only a couple of kilos.
Edit: looking at that photo, no wonder the saddle felt quite nose-down on yesterday's light grav pootle.
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Sorry to hear about your crash. I found these NOS Singular forks on eBay, not sure if there’s enough steerer for you! Picking my pair up from UPS today.
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Back from our three week tour around France. Went all over in our little camper, visiting the Champagne, the Alsace, Lake Lugano, Aosta valley, Maurienne, Calanques & the Dordogne. Had an excellent time, rode in lots of new places, brought back lots of wine & broke my bike.
Set off nice & early to do the Col du Telegraph, Galibier, Alpe d'Huez & lastly the Croix de Fer. Just as my Wahoo alerted me of a 28 mile climb taking in the first two, my front derailleur broke & left me stuck in the little ring - fine, it was a lot of climbing, barely needed the ring. Managed the first two & got about halfway round just cruising down the valley towards Alpe d'Huez (couldn't exactly pedal) & decided to stop & eat my packed-lunch sandwich at the side of the road. While I was having lunch a lorry came by & the gust of wind following it knocked my bike over & bent the hanger & derailleur - somewhat annoying as I was getting in the groove! Was a ride-ender, but thankfully my partner could come & pick me up.
Feeling sorry for myself I spent the rest of the day trying to fix my bike & in replacing the rear brake pads the threaded bit of the calliper which holds in pad retaining broke. Second set of Hope RX4 I've had this happen with. Annoyed levels increased further.
Still, didn't let it ruin the trip, & we'd planned for doing other activities besides cycling so was fine. Had plans for the bike when I arrived home.
Photos:
- Above Varenna on Lake Como on the way to Passo Agueglio.
- View of the Matterhorn riding up to Cervinia.
- Bent hanger & derailleur sadness.
- Calanques looking towards Cassis.
- Drinking all the Aperol spritz in Italy while in Brusson.
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- Above Varenna on Lake Como on the way to Passo Agueglio.
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Original groupset for the Volare was all scavenged second-hand stuff, anything I could get my hands on due to building it at the start of the covid-19 pandemic. It worked well enough for a while, but the front shifter has always been a bit tricky (had the same issue with R8000 front shifters on my Ritchey & now my partner has the same problem on her road bike too).
Despite already having had a month of treating myself, I've indulged myself again & bought a new groupset - 12spd Ultegra Di2. Just waiting for a few more tools to set up the hydros & I think I'm good to go now! Never done hydro before but it's something I've been meaning to learn for a while.
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Terrible photo but hydro setup appears to have gone pretty smoothly! It was always something I left to bike shops, imagining all sorts of specialised tools & paraphernalia to install but actually only needed a bleed kit & something to cut the hoses neatly.
Unfortunately I'm on call this weekend, but unlikely to get a chance to ride it :/
Sized the chain now, but I kind of wish I'd realised I had some 52/36T front chainrings in. The cassette is larger than I'd usually go for, so would've liked to have put something bigger at the front.
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Film about our trip to Turkey last year is out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UTooSGFWTQ
Was pretty mega, some nice setup photos on the blog too. I won the puncture prize in the end, would recommend not taking lightweight, unpatchable tubes to places where they grow cotton!
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I'm off for a week in Tenerife on gravel in December, so need to sort out the Ritchey a bit. It's been a bit unloved since Turkey trip tbh, & it's got a few issues:
- BB is almost dead.
- Rear disc brake pad retainer pin thread is snapped.
- Both wheels have had complete tubeless failures.
- Chain got caught between the crank & chainring & has a twisted link, meaning it randomly derails in the harder gears.
- Brakes are feeling pretty spongey.
Similar to my Volare, a lot of the groupset was second hand when I first got it, & after another ~8,500 miles it's quite tired. Been watching a 12 speed GRX groupset on Merlin for a while & Black Friday dropped the price a little so pulled the trigger. Quite excited about brakes which will work & a nice big gear range (10-45x40T).
Additionally, I can chuck the old groupset (which does still mostly work) from the Ritchey onto my partner's gravel bike, which has been dead since I cracked the rear piston. That's how I've justified the purchase anyway.
- BB is almost dead.
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12spd GRX install went pretty well. Additional faff of getting some post mount brakes, so ended up with some SLX ones & had to source some bango adapters. Messed up the bleeding a few times by being impatient but eventually got it all settled with decent lever feel. Shifting feeling very crisp now, & tbh braking is as good as it was with the RX4s.
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Na, just our driveway. I bought a campervan (traitor, I know) earlier in the year which has blocked access to my usual bike photo spot!
Will be in Tenerife in a fortnight's time! We were looking at the route we had planned last night, & may have to make some on-the-fly adjustments as apparently there's a lot of forest fires on the north-eastern side of Teide (pictured).
Need to do a proper update on the Land Shark, as I've got a new fork for it after the previous one got bent going into the back of a car whose driver slammed on the brakes randomly. New fork is quite low-trail & it's setup with a front rack as my on-call bike for carrying a laptop with me on rides (I'm a software engineer & need to be near to my laptop if an alarm goes off for the odd week, boo). Not really fast road bike mode tbh! It could do with some new wheels as the nipples of the Hunts I've had for years have corroded so they're a bit sketchy to ride.
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I did consider that approach, but the post mounts on the frame are for 160mm rotors, & all the adaptors I found added 20mm - didn't want to run 180mm rotors. After a bit more riding, I think I can say that the braking isn't quite as good as the Hope RX4s, but still perfectly adequate.
Just got back from Tenerife last night - had an absolute blast! Route worked out really well, will have lots of photos to share once I've finished processing.
kjlem
ltc
Josh
ghostface
DeadSpale
Chak
Elra
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About
Gideon's bike life - Genesis, Graham Weigh, Cinelli, Land Shark & Ritchey
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@GideonPARANOID
Cheers, is loads of fun, though pretty uncomfortable for longer distances - not much a problem as it's mainly used around town.
According to Strava I've done 9,925 miles on the MASH now, hoping to get it over 10k this year but the mileage ticks up slowly when it's only five miles at a time!