big john

https://troyleedesigns.com/pages/paint-process

burnthesheep

Whoa. More than the helmet. But, that's legit.

Plain helmet it shall be!

big john

$700 up to $1500. Add $300 if in a rush. He does beautiful work and has painted helmets of the stars in motorsports.
He also sells a line of helmets for bikes and moto. No TT helmet, though.

ridethecliche

dibs?

Enthalpic

RacerEx painted his own TT hats.

burnthesheep

I wish decals and vinyl weren’t problematic.

Otherwise....“Negative ghost rider, the pattern is full”

I’d need a couple dozen more watts to pull that helmet look off.

ridethecliche

Man... I just got this cross bike and havent even ridden it once and it's already a headache.

It came with a Shimano crank with a 46/36 setup which I figure is totally fine for road/gravel /cross. The arms were 175, big for me but fine because Im swapping my road cranks up 165 and figured I'd swap the rings to my 172.5 cranks and call it a day.

Well the cranks on the bike were old style Shimano with the 5 bolt rings. All my stuff is the newer 4 bolt stuff now. Ended up installing a 50/34 setup on it for now and then found and ordered a 46/36 ultegra crankset on ebay for 85 bucks. Should be sorted when that gets here.

I have a left sided specialized power crank pm that id been using on my roadie that I was hoping would go on my cross bike.... But the clearance once it's installed is like 1-2mm. I have a 4iiii ultegra one that would match the incoming crank but I was hoping to sell it. Guess I can may have to install that since it'll have 1-2mm more space between the crank and the chain stay. Oy.

Hopefully these power crank pms have good resale value. I quite like mine... Oh well.
​​​​​​
Starting to feel like i overpaid for the bike but I'm fair certain that it's because I haven't been able to get out on it yet.
​​​
I dunno.... 900 for an Al frame that's a little beat but has an 11 speed shimano hydro disc setup. And 2 sets of wheels, one for gravel and one for cross. Not bad imho.

hubcyclist

Doesn't seem bad to me. I paid $700 new for my CX bike with cant brakes a couple of years ago, and I still consider it a steal. Of course you need to come back to NE for some CX racing next fall!

I've been trying to find a MTB and someone on CL will sell me a 26er specialized hardrock for $100, no front wheel, but those should be cheap enough. I don't know if 26ers are worth being project bikes (seems like the world has moved on to 27.5 and even moreso to 29) I just want something I can goof around on and figure out if I really do actually like MTB. Of course it's a bad time of year to try, I'm kind of all in on my indoor base training lol

ridethecliche

Yeah, I think you're right. Two sets of wheels both look like pretty basic setups but they'll get the job done. I think id like to get some lightish aeroish road wheels for this if I ride it on the road often. Need to make sure the wheels will be compatible with other setups moving forward.
I actually gave up on getting the cables done myself after hours of struggling with the RD integrated cables. Dropped it off at the shop as a frame.

I guess I don't really see the point of installing my 50/34 crank on it for now since I'm waiting on the 46/36 I bought online. That should be pretty good for a dual/triple duty bike I think. Maybe I'll swap the 36 for the 34. I don't really want to deal with swapping rings all the time because moving from 46 to 50 will probably require moving the FD and adjusting the chain as well right? 46-11 gets you into the high 30s at 110ish rpm. Fine for short bursts.

Re mtb are you looking at older stuff? The 80s/90s trek mountain tracks are pretty nice for tooling around. If you're looking for something specific and nicer shoot me a message and I can ask some Boston mtb friends if they're selling anything or know anyone that is.

big john

R.I.P. Eddie B
https://rowery.org/2020/11/17/zmarl-...eqmWZnL5CUeCsg

ridethecliche

If you've moved to shorter cranks, what changes did you make to compensate?

Just put the 165s on (from 172.5) and moved things up about 7 and back about 2 and it still feels pretty off.

I have my position marked off for how things were with the 172.5s but I'm hoping i don't have to go back to that if the 165s can actually be knee protective. I had been feeling mostly okay with the 172.5s lately but thought the trial would be worth it.

Hermes

When you raise the saddle up to accommodate the shorter cranks, the saddle also moves back and the seat to handlebar to seat drop increases. So there is a lot of small changes being made to the fit. You may have to raise your handlebars and move the saddle forward.

ridethecliche

I guess I was just under the impression that the saddle would need to move backwards if the crank was essentially moving back at the 3 o'clock position.

topflightpro

Due to the angle of the seattube, the saddle is already moving back when you raise it.

That said, RTC, given all of your current knee problems and history of back and knee issues, I greatly encourage you to stop fiddling with things and go get a professional fit - on a fit bike - not your bike - to determine what size frame, stem, bar, crank you need. Then go buy exactly what you need given your unique physiological issues.

Yes, this may be more expensive in the short run, but it will ultimately save you in terms of pain, medical expenses and continually buying parts and frames to try out what feels better.

Missy Erickson in Allentown is an excellent fitter. https://www.ero-sports.com/2020/index.php

Hermes

I use ERO at the Carson Velodrome. Cyclists slide on the saddle a lot. We slide forward when in the drops which used to be called riding on the rivet. And we slide back when climbing. We change our ankle position by sometimes pointing our toes and others dropping the heal. The goal of a fit is to find a neutral position and secure the foot on the peddle and then set the saddle height. UCI has specifications as to saddle fore and aft position. Many cyclists like to move the saddle forward especially when riding the TT bike.

Going from 172.5 to 165 cranks is a big change and it does not surprise me that it would feel weird. In my case, the change on the track bike felt great. As I recall, we just moved the saddle higher. However, I went through a Retul fit in the studio and aero fit on the track with ERO.

ridethecliche

Thanks for that rec. I'll look into going there if I need to go that route. I'll keep at this for a bit but if /when I decide to buy a new road bike for myself, maybe this spring for my bday, I guess I can go there before to get fully set up and know what I should be looking at.

ridethecliche

In other news.... the giant tcx I bought the other week as a cross/gravel bike has a crack through the chainstay. Haven't even ridden the bike yet, but I was cleaning it up and taking care of a few things and noticed it with the crank off. I took it to a giant shop which basically said it looked totally fine, then cdr told me to take the rear wheel off and try flexing at the dropouts to see what happens. You can see the crack move about.

Fark.

I hope the seller comes through. He's the original owner so he's going to look into warranty. I told him he should buy the bike back so he can sell the new frame he gets for more money. Dont want to have 900 bucks tied up in a bike I can't use
This bites.

gsteinb

by what mechanism did you make the purchase?

ridethecliche

Face to face sale. I think I paid him by venmo.

He seems to want to help though and already contacted the shop he bought it from.

I offered to sell the bike etc back to him for what i paid. I'd be out some money since I bought cranks for it and had some work done at the shop. Shop hadn't mentioned the crack which is a bit off-putting, but I had sent it there for them to swap the RD cable inner.

So I offered to:
1) Sell him back the bike for what i paid
2) Work with him through the warranty process and wait along since it could be a while.

If he goes for option 2, it's possible the frame would be upgraded since all their new frames are carbon. Geometry seems to be the same though. Am I wrong in assuming that I shouldn't have to pay more if he goes for option 2? I just want to make sure my thinking is right. If I did end up with a new frame I'd probably send him some money anyway because it's something I didn't expect, but I also didn't expect to spend almost a grand on a 5 year old bike I can't ride lol.

gsteinb

Personally speaking I don't think you should be expected to pay more, nor do I think you should. You were sold something (knowingly or unknowingly) that was damaged. Yes you might get a better frame, but you're also unsure what might happen and you have to wait out someone else's error.

ridethecliche

Yeah to be honest the Chainring rub and crack were only more visible without taking the cranks off. The drive side actually has a section where the Chainring has cut a groove in there.

cmh

This kid is pretty darn fast. 36mph for 3km. Wow.

https://www.velonews.com/news/road/m...ursuit-record/

Doge

Let's hope he gets ride of all social media accounts.

cmh

On the contrary, social media exposure is one thing riders provide to sponsors. Riders just need to keep their social media presence smart and positive. Hope he has a good career in front of him.

ridethecliche

Shorter crank experiment is going okay...
There's a 100% chance that the 52/36 is not low enough for me right now with the 11-32 cassette, esp with the shorter cranks. Definitely need to swap my compact rings over from the other crankset so I can spin a bit more. With the compact I was spinning pretty well and had a bail out gear I really didn't need to use. With the mid compact today I was looking for a bigger cog to keep my cadence up on some climbs. Ended up having to stand up which I didn't last time.

Oof.