The bag is a Carradice Nelson Longflap, mounted on a Bagman QR Expedition rack. In that pic, it’s about 12 years old and is now 22 years old. Still going strong. The transverse saddle bag is my preferred carry method for everything other than self-supported loaded touring.
The longflap aspect of the bag lets you do some ridiculous stuff.
I used a Di2 group because that’s what I wanted. Blasphemy, I know.
Nah, no blasphemy in sight. I think Di2 is pretty amazing. Electronic shifting eliminates so many issues inherent to high gear count, cable-actuated shifting. It’s not for me and the way I ride, but the reasons for its popularity are plain as day.
Edit to add: built up a 1st gen disc Pass Hunter, which I very stupidly sold because I didn’t ride it for a year. Live and learn.
Yes, 125,000 miles. I was car-free for about 20 years, and I’m recently back to not owning a car. My partner has a car, but we are a very car-lite household. I was averaging More than 13,000 miles per year, in part because my commute was 25 miles each way and in part because I do randonneuring (long distance, unsupported cycling with time limits) and lots of bike touring. As a result, I have an intimate understanding of rates at which bike bits wear out and how to maximize value and longevity.
I debated editing my comment for some additional resources, but decided that a separate comment might be better.
If you’re just starting out wrenching on your own bikes, the late, great Sheldon Brown is a fount of knowledge and wisdom that we can all aspire to be: https://sheldonbrown.com/
Velo Orange is a great source for the intersection of retrogrouch and modern hotness to keep your old bike running: https://velo-orange.com/
Rivendell is the original retrogrouch bike company: https://www.rivbike.com/
Yellow Jersey for all your NOS needs (antediluvian website warning): https://www.yellowjersey.org/
Modern freewheels from one of my favorite LBS, which just happens to have a strong internet presence: https://www.universalcycles.com/shopping/index.php?category=1665
You’re going to have trouble finding chainrings for 5-speed. If you’re willing to deal with a reduced shifting experience, you can go with chainrings designed for single-speed. The ring is has teeth that are unprofiled, and there is no contour or shifting ramps. This is what I do with the middle ring on my 3x9 setups. Since I’m almost always in the middle ring, the beefier middle ring needs replacement far less. And secret pro-tip: monitor your chain wear, and replace your chain well before it reaches 100%. The rest of your drivetrain will last much, much longer.
If you have 130mm or 135mm spacing, check out Microshift Sword Black. Yes, it’s 9-speed, but you can get a proper gear range with that. Also, Shimano CUES Linkglide might have a combo that can work for your bike.
I always start with the price that I would want to pay if I were looking at/searching for that item at that quality. And that’s the damned price, no haggling. I will lower the price unbidden of the person is super chill and easy to work with. Sometimes I just give it to them when they show up.
Because here’s one of common use cases of selling stuff: you’re not using it anymore, so you’re selling it to recoup some of the investment, right? Otherwise, it is taking up space, consuming your resources, and providing you negative return on value. It’s a millstone for you at this point and any dollar amount is recouping your finite life capacity, to which no dollar value can be assigned.
Yeah, I know there are plenty of other cases… maybe you’re trying to afford an upgrade or afford something else; that’s a whole different issue. Also scalpers and resellers. Fuck those parasites in their ears. My fair-pricing idea can be chum in the water for resellers. Know your customer and don’t do business with these assholes. Once you’ve dealt with your first reseller, you quickly get a read on these bottom feeders.
There are 2x5 components out there. But nobody is really making anything 2x5 because bicycle frames are no longer built with the spacing for the old 2x5 freewheel and hub. Frames of that era were built with 126mm over-locknut dimension (OLD) rear spacing. Then frames went to 130mm, 135mm, 142mm, and up. This is in part to accommodate those enormous cassettes and in part to provide relaxed angles in the rear triangle (more stiffness and strength with less material).
So, parts for those old bikes are the domain of niche designers such as Velo Orange, and NOS experts like Yellow Jersey.
2x5 or even 2x7 sets out there
There are no 5-speed cassettes. That technology started with 7-speed. And you need to have at least 130mm OLD for that technology. There are 5-speed freewheels.There are also plenty of contemporary 7-speed cassettes, shifters and derailleurs, although you will mostly be consigned to friction shifting.
- I’m thinking it should be possible to set it up in a way where one chainring is better suited for climbing, and the other for higher speeds
This is the entire design intent behind 2x and 3x drivetrains since the about the mid-70s. I’m hand-waving past some other designs in there, such as half-step. That’s a topic for another day.
Another question: would it even be feasible to custom-build my own drivetrain with a 5-gear cassette, to use with 2 rings on the front, and if so, how complicated would it be?
5-speed cassette: no. See above. 2x5/6/7 freewheel? Absolutely. Verify your OLD on that frame. If it’s 126mm, you have to go freewheel. If you’re 130mm, things get a bit more gray area, because your hub selection goes down. But you can have cassette or freewheel. At 135mm, you got lots more selection, but also can’t do any of the 5-speed stuff.
You’re wandering into some of the more esoteric and borderline archaeological aspects of wrenching on bikes.😆 There’s some base knowledge holes we’ll need to fill for your project to continue. There’s a lot here, and I’m trying to avoid writing a novella on my phone. So … what parts of that don’t you grok? We can work from there.
Here’s a thought… Legalize, define, codify, and regulate the massage parlors and jack shacks. Stomp out the trafficking with outreach. This all just sends it further underground.
This is a bummer. Revel was an independent, domestic builder across multiple cycling disciplines. There is a lot to dislike in the modern cycling industry, but among my weekly ride group, Revel was one of the few “one day” bikes we all had in common.
This won’t be the last of the independents to fall. We were getting a delicious spread of independent domestic builders after the pandemic boom, but I fear we are going to see another wave of consolidation and M&A. This never goes well for consumers.
all 7 or 8 gears
This is an adjustment/tune problem often compounded by user error. Full stop.
HJF, fuck the industry. I get it, people want to make money and people want the new hawtness. But people really need to stop falling for this shit.
Eat of buffet of dicks, Bicycling Magazine, you astroturfing shitrag. You know what will far outlive 99.9% of cyclists lives? A properly built 32h cartridge bearing disc wheelset. If it were built properly, with double-butted spokes, spoke washers, brass nipples, and stress-relieved spokes, the hubshell and/or rim will fail before a spoke fails*. You know what other carbon fiber wheels had a “lifetime replacement warranty?” Mad Fiber. Yeah, go ahead and look up that mess.
*If you ever broke a spoke, it’s because your wheel was built improperly. And no, I’m not talking about intrusion to the point of catastrophic failure. I’ll spare you the stories, but even a lot of common intrusions shouldn’t even make your wheel flinch.
So the article also goes “into” derailleurs. Who has ever worn out a derailleur, front or rear? I sold a bike with 125,000 miles with the same Deore XT derailleur, Shimano C101 (super low end) front derailleur. The C101 was still going strong, including a decade of intentional neglect just to see when it would quit. I gave up and decided it should be nurtured into its twilight years. Still going strong AFAIK/ last I talked to the new owner. That kit is over 20 years old now, as are the wheels I built.
To paraphrase Chris Rock: “THAT’S what you’re supposed to do! What you do you want? A fucking cookie?!” Dear bike industry: don’t stand by your stuff in perpetuity? We won’t buy it.
I get it. A 9-speed triple drivetrain just ain’t the sexy hawtness. And some people don’t want to learn how to use TWO shifters. But it’s bulletproof, always interchangeble, (mostly/potentially) non-proprietary, and will outlive three of us put together. Bar-end shifters? Sure! Brifters? Yep. Thumbies? That too, friend! Want hydraulics? A plethora of options! Oh, is something not quite right? Switch to friction mode, diagnose it later. Oh, and the parts are cheap if you crashed and need to replace something.
My rant aside, I think Shimano is really onto something with the CUES system, especially the Linkglide system. Sure, it’s proprietary, has all the Shimano lock-in it can manage, and that chaps my ass like most things about the modern bike industry. But CUES has a scheduled support lifespan, so one can make an informed decision about group selection. And Linkglide actually delivers on the shifting experience we should have had with Hyperglide. Shimano seem to have recognized what a mess they made and seem to be remedying that with CUES. I have lots of vitriol for Shimano (and SRAM, and Campy), but I can recognize a great product when it comes along. Especially when it’s priced for average wage grunts like us.
And let me return to calling out Bicycling. Notice they said nothing about CUES or any of a wide array of quality parts companies often within the buy-once-cry-once territory. Oh, right, because those aren’t big-ticket, whizz-bang hawtness. Seriously, if it’s in Bicycling, it should always be met prima facie with skepticism, if not outright derision.
Edit: typos, formatting
Yes, but those 11 years will be far less enjoyable.
Who else heard “gargle my balls” upon seeing that pic of Louis Rossman?
For those not familiar, check out his YT channel, his work with futo.org (https://wiki.futo.org/index.php/Introduction_to_a_Self_Managed_Life:_a_13_hour_%26_28_minute_presentation_by_FUTO_software), and his Consumer Action Taskforce wiki (https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Main_Page). Here is a person with an electronics repair business trying his hardest to make sure nobody ever needs his services.
OpenDroneMap. It’s a suite that provides photogrammetry, stitching, volumetric analysis, geographic correlation, and 3D model conversion from aerial and non-aerial photos. And that’s only the features that I use myself. It defaults to CPU-only rendering, so you don’t need a big bad GPU to GSD.
Even ignoring the lack of subscription cost, ODM performs at least as well as other applications I tried such as Pix4D. Professionally, I use it for year-over-year kelp bed monitoring, photosynthetic mass analysis, and home construction analysis, specifically volumetric infill needs. Personally, I use it to generate 3D models of my boat interior, which I convert to STL files for arranging infrastructure in limited spaces.
Yeah, but I can’t eat a tableful of healthy snacks. 😆
Ooor… maybe we are supposed to have a diurnal rhythm slump at midday/afternoon. Short-circuiting that with a sugar—>insulin hit or a caffeine wallop creates all manner of consequences with which we struggle in the western world.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for tasty snacks, and a lot of them. Seriously, watching me eat is a spectacle. I can put away 5000+ calories in one sitting. But just putting something in your pie hole because you’re bored or tired, that creates more problems than it solves. Go for a walk or take a nap.
This article feels a little disingenuous and seems written by someone who has only heard their friend complain about David Brooks. In his book “The Second Mountain,” Brooks goes into his mea culpa moments. He has on more than a few occasions admitted his errors. I would share citations, but it was a library loan and it’s on hold.
Those of us who protest against power, aren’t we looking for exactly the kind of change of hearts and minds such that Brooks is showing?
Many of the flaws that the hubless design suffers from might very well be mitigated through further development
Sure, additional refinement could make hubless wheels a reasonable reality. I’ll reiterate one of my original points: all engineering advancements that would make a better hubless wheel would also improve the already great hubbed wheel. Even if we could ignore the complexities of going hubless, the radially supported wheel will be stronger, lighter, simpler, less expensive, more aerodynamic, more repairable.
I might be getting a bit esoteric here, but the same conversations come up in software engineering. “Advances in computing will make Ruby more performant.” Sure, but those advances will be multiplicative in already-performant languages such as C, C++, and Go, whereas they will be fractional in Ruby.
some degree of success in some motorcycle
Just because it functions doesn’t translate to engineering success. This is form over function and sits only in the domain of niche/boutique motorcycle builders. If there were any advantages other than aesthetics, you’d see hubless wheels in competition motorcycles, e.g. MotoGP.
A hubless wheel will always be inferior to an equivalent hubbed wheel, especially in a use case such as motorcycles. In order to make the wheel strong enough for the task, the rim must be heavier than it would be for a wheel with spokes. This unnecessarily increases rotational mass in the worst possible place: at the outermost points of the wheel. This also means more unsprung mass. More energy is required for accelerating and braking the wheel. And because the hubless wheel will always be heavier, the suspension will be less responsive than if the wheel had a hub. The linkage from suspension to the wheel must also be more robust and more complex.
And this is ignoring the additional complexities of transferring power to and from the wheel, and angular/radial/lateral forces and shocks. How does one efficiently brake a hubless wheel while limiting brake fade?
These are only a few points to consider every single time you see someone trying to sell a hubless wheel.
The Bosch range calculator will let you get an estimate with taking into account pretty much every factor: wind, hills, load, motor type, battery type, etc. But yeah, with every single company out there, the large print giveth; the fine print taketh away.