Category: cycling

Here’s my new bike, the one which I’ve been hinting at for a while now, a Titus Racer X 29er. This is a discontinued model that I was able to get at a fairly reasonable price because it’s replacement is considerably higher end (and also titanium alloy or carbon fiber only). I’ve had the bike for roughly a month and have been taking my time getting it set up as I want, with an appropriate saddle, pedals, brakes, and other such bits.

Now that it’s essentially complete I wanted to take it out for a test ride. With the recent lack of snow, reasonably warm weather without much risk of mud (due to cold ground), and heavy precipitation forecasted for the next few days, today was the day. The result was a basic 21.1 mile ride over the course of 1:37:28, for an average of 12.9 MPH. Everything on the bike performed wonderfully and as expected, although I did realize that I need to move the saddle forward a bit and adjust the suspension a bit. The seatpost may also have slipped down a few millimeters, but that’s probably because I didn’t have the seatpost clamp particularly tight.

Thus far I’m really happy with the bike. I’m still waiting on the arrival of Carnegie’s Bar from Ragley, but that should be here any day now. It was ordered from Chain Reaction Cycles in the UK (Ragley does not yet have US distribution for their stuff), and postage from the UK always seems to take a while. I look forward to trying this bar because it looks like it’ll be comfortable, but if not I’ll probably be able to sell it for close to its cost.

If you’d like to see the full geeky list of parts currently on the bike, take the link below and look inside.

A rep from Kenda was set up at Ray’s MTB on Saturday displaying all manner of tires, tubes, and such. Conveniently all tires were also available for sale, at US$20/each, which is quite a bit below retail. I’ve been wanting to try out the Small Block Eight (SB8), a small knob smooth-rolling tire good for hard pack surfaces, so I picked up a pair of them in 29″ x 2.1″, the only 29er size made.

The Nevegals (which came stock on the bike, front and rear) don’t roll particularly smoothly but supposedly offer great control. Following some online recommendations I fitted the SB8 on the rear of the bike, leaving the nice, big knobs up front for better control. We’ll see how this shakes out once I actually start riding the bike, but at least I’ve now got a few options to play with. If nothing else I’m sure I can sell the Nevegals and SB8s for a reasonable price to fund some other tires.

After hearing about CrankBrothers Shoe Shields from my friend Erik I decided to give them a try. There is a fair bit of wear on my shoes (photo) from the Eggbeater pedals that I use and these thin metal plates should head this off and keep the shoes functional for even longer. Priced at $10.99/pair (at the local ACF) it wasn’t worth trying to make my own, as I don’t have a ready source of stainless steel nor an easy way to make similar cuts.

When the replacement pedals (Eggbeater SLs – photo) for my failed Eggbeater MXRs arrived today I decided that while fitting them to the bike I’d also replace the cleats and fit the Shoe Shields. While new pedals and cleats will normally feel a bit nicer, the addition of the Shoe Shields and their smoothing out the bottom of the shoe to better-than-new condition made clipping and unclipping during a test ride feel wonderful. While I imagine they’ll stand up to wear, it’ll be interesting to see just how long they last.

If you’d like to see more photos of them, including the packaging, install directions, thickness, and detail of the materials used, check out my CrankBrothers Shoe Shields album.

With today’s arrival of a Thomson X4 stem the handle bar on my new bike is now secured properly with a really wonderful looking stem. Well-machined parts are really beautiful. The stem also feels to be the right length and the black stem cap looks really good. And it’s made in the US! (Here’s a photo of the stem itself, just sitting on the workbench.)

The order that I’d placed with King Cage for some friends and I also arrived today (photo). In this order is a Iris cage, which is of a slightly different design than the standard water bottle cage. I’d purchased it for use with the previously mentioned Klean Kanteen, but it appears that the side loops don’t reach up to the shoulder of the bottle, so it’s only held in with friction (photo). I hope this isn’t a problem, but if it is I can always fall back on using a normal-ish bottle, which the Iris does hold quite securely around the indentation (photo). Or, worst case, I’ve got a spare regular King Cage-brand cage.

Now to wait for the pedals (should have shipped Monday) and the bike should be complete. I’ve also ordered a rather unique handlebar (Ragley Carnegie’s Bar) to try, but I’m not sure if I’ll fit that prior to the first single track ride this spring or not.

 

 

While working on my new bike I realized that a slightly shorter stem would be good, so I ordered an FSA OS-190 from Price Point. When the box of parts arrived it had been opened (photo), but as the thread locking compound on the screws was unmarred and there were no marks on the stem it appeared to be brand new. Unfortunately, after installing it I found a small crack in the stem cap, right near one of the bolts. Here is a photo of the stem on my new bike, with an arrow pointing to the cracked area.

Having torqued the stem bolts (cap and steerer) to FSA’s published 78 inch-pounds (FSA’s Stem and Post Torque Specs – PDF) I don’t believe this was caused by me during installation. This is also a particularly inopportune place to have a crack, as it could easily lead to stem/bar failure, which would likely result in a pretty bad crash. Even though it was relatively cheap and looks good on the bike when I request to return the item to Price Point I’m tempted to get a different stem, as I don’t want to risk there having been a bad batch.

Currently I’m thinking of a Thomson Elite X4, but now I have to decide on 0° or 10° rise. The aforementioned FSA is 6°, so 10° shouldn’t be too different…

UPDATE: Thinking about it, I wonder if follwing the FSA directions, which I followed, to “[l]ightly grease the bolt threads and under bolt heads” caused the problem. It’s my understanding that greased fasteners, particularly under the heads, are easy to inadvertently over torque, even with a wrench. This is because the fastener slips along much more than normal, and doesn’t provide the resistance that the torque wrench measures.