Early one morning a few weeks ago, @
nlerner texts me that there's a Ritchey Breakaway CX in my frame size for sale, but it's listed on Craigslist in Santa Cruz, California. Neal knows I'm jealous of his S&S coupler modded Black Mountain Cycles bike. I'm very hopeful that we'll all be able to start travelling and touring on our bicycles in the not so distant future, so I negotiated with the seller to ship it to me (it comes in it's own special rollaround case!)
Here's the thing. It's got a threadless headset. Brifters. Outboard bearings. Not terribly C&V. Have mercy on me. It does have a steel frame and fork, however.
Shipping case next to my old travel bike
Breakaway broken down
First ride was a 30 miler. With daylight saving I had time to make it home before dark. There was some climbing, some gravel, and a good descent. Climbing showed me I needed the handebars up higher, gravel told me that it was a good gravel bike, and the descent through some fast turns showed that I needed to get used to a faster handling bike - most of my fleet is low trail. Oh, and the saddle is an a$$ hatchet.
Another 30 mile ride with @
Andy_K this morning after replacing the stem and saddle. The ride was very much a success, except the chain kept skipping in middle gears. Turns out it has an 8 speed cassette with 9 speed indexed shifting.
Universal Cycles Portland store moved out from Portland to Beaverton, which is much closer to my house, so I stopped by and picked up an 11-32 9 speed cassette. The chain appears to be a narrow model, we'll see if it plays nicely with the new cassette.
It has room for very wide tires. Right now I'm running 700c x 35's, but there's clearly room for more. I think I can put fenders on with 35's and still have good clearance. There's a tour idea in the not so far future that I want to do that would require getting on a plane, and I like my big handlebar bags. so I'll torch up a rack that can be broken down flat to fit in the carrying case. I'm not sure if the fork is a keeper, it's a beefy unicrown low offset model, once I put the rack and a weighted handlebar bag I'm not sure it'll handle as well as I'd like, but that's to be seen. I'm also not crazy about the stopping power of the Cane Creek cantilevers, but those are easily replaced.
So, I've got a bike with brifters. Don't hate me.