Don’t you ever complain about the noise in your dSLR til you’ve used an Nokia e71 in low light. Anyway, I was on the bike by 5:30am, which meant I’d be riding the first hour or so in the dark. The Ayups were brilliant as always.

That was the view from Tom Uglys Bridge looking towards Captain Cook Bridge. Yeah, I can’t make out much detail either.

Winding my way up the hill toward Kirrawee, it was starting to get more light. Sorta.

I stopped a few kilometres short of Waterfall to take this photo, cause well, the landscape was awesome. See that over exposed bit? There were brilliant rays of sunshine in there and the contrast in the clouds was intense. Needless to say, the plastic lens on the e71 didn’t quite do it justice. Stopping to take that photo did let some quick roadies overtake me though, so I spent the rest of the time to Waterfall attempting to catch them. Then I used some more italics.

Oh hai Waterfall.

The next stop was the Whale Lookout in the National Park at Kurnell. This was made a little more difficult as the Sutherland 2 Surf had commandeered the entire Kingsway. No matter, I made it back on track with minimal detours and headed to the Whale Lookout, channelling my inner time trialist.

Just as a side note, road bikes shouldn’t get that dirty, but the road was wet from Sutherland to Waterfall and back so plenty of dirt was flicked up by my wheels. I then set sail for home… via the awesome cafe in Kurnell. I’d have taken photos of the bacon and egg roll I ate, but there was no time as it was inhaled in a matter of seconds. Oops.

The most excitement I had on the way home was seeing my speedo clock over 100kms and still having the presence of mind to take a photo. Ahh memories. I time trialled back to Shark Park, then took the City Cycle Route to get me back to the Airport. A quick jaunt through Sydney Park and I was back home.

That photo was taken… somewhere… so it can go here! But now for the bit you’ve been waiting to see… me after riding the Salsa for one hundred and thirteen kilometres.

Tired++. I’m going to sleep now. Night.

Greeny got new wheels! They’re Velocity Blunts laced to Whitey’s old DT Swiss 240s Hubs with DT Swiss Supercomps.

They’re about 200 grams lighter than the stock wheelset, despite having a much heavier cassette bolted up. Cassette you say? You only need those when you’re running gears…

Well, Greeny’s got gears! The parts are the mildly used drive train from my efforts going geared with Whitey a little while back. XT Cranks, PG980 Cassette, x.9 Derailleur, x.0 Shifter and a PC991 Chain.

I’ve taken Greeny out for one quick lap of Loftus since going geared and I reckon getting used to 1×9 will be easy. There’s something to be said for not needing to mash it up every pinch climb you come across.

The 48T chain ring will likely get swapped out for something a little smaller as I’m finding myself mostly in the high gears on the cassette. I’m thinking 42T or 44T, but we’ll see.

I was apprehensive about the functionality of the Dura Ace down tube shifters, but they’ve been nothing but awesome. Relatively light gear changes, but a very solid click. Also worth a special mention is the custom made chain guide to stop the chain derailing itself from the chain ring.

And of course, the bright yellow daisy bell.

Excuse the Photoshop disaster. It’s up there to illustrate a point, not to win a prize.

It’s something I’ve considered for a while now, but yesterday’s ride certainly brought it back to the front of my brain. It is in short, it’s a hair brained idea to run a 1×9/1×10 geared setup on my Salsa Casseroll. I mean, I can make the whole single speed thing work, but sometimes it’d be nice to cruise around and not kill oneself climbing hills.

The switch should be fairly simple^.  It’s just a matter of grabbing the following parts…

• Rear Wheel
• 9/10 Speed Rear Derailleur
• 9/10 Speed Cassette
• 9/10 Speed Downtube Braze On Shifters
• 9/10 Speed Chain
• Bottom Bracket Gear Cable Slider Thing

… and bolting them together in a fashion that resembles a geared bike.  It shouldn’t cost that much either*.

Anyway, this is just me thinking out aloud for the time being.  Damn yesterday’s Waterfall ride for getting it into my head again.

^ I cringed as I typed this. Writing it down is like the kiss of death and will surely make it a nightmare.
* Another cringe. I wouldn’t be surprised if it costs me the price of a new bike for writing that statement.

Took him for a quick spin out at Appin yesterday and despite the different style of riding needed with gears, I’m quite a happy chappy. Single speeding for the last year made me want to grab a big gear and grind up Appin’s countless pinch climbs, but eventually I’ll relearn that cadence is king (and with that remember that cardio is queen).

SRAM x.9 Front Derailleur

SRAM x.9 Rear Derailleur

PG980 Cassette & PC991 Chain

SRAM x.0 Trigger Shifters

And the obligatory drive train side photo.

** And by, some point in the future, I actually mean, in a few weeks.

Like, heaps and heaps.

Video via Gems Sty