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.

A brand spanking new Shimano Deore XT Crankset weaselled it’s way onto Whitey a few weeks back. Nothing especially new with that.

But I got home from work find three chainrings on it. Blasphemy!

That’s pretty much how Whitey will stay for the Highland Fling this weekend. Kinda not really especially looking forward to it. Which is to say that I’m nervous and wish it was over with already.

As for the Casseroll, damn I’m loving that bike. Knocked over a few kms on Sunday on it and you get out of it exactly what you put into it. Fun++

These were replaced:

With these:

Hubs are these:

Rims are these:

And they’re laced together with super light DT Swiss Revolution spokes and held in with super sexy red DT Swiss Alloy Nipples.

On the quick ride I took it for to bed them in, the wheels were nothing short of spectacular. The whole bike just felt so nimble.

Sadly, the same couldn’t be said for the cranks. They were extremely grindy and horrible sounding, so I’ll have to do something about that before the Fling. Which incidentally is in a week and a halfs time. Shit.

The first lap we did was the normal one. That is to say, it has heartbreak hill in it. Despite having easier gearing than last time (32:18) I didn’t ride the whole way up in one hit. Instead when my rear wheel lost traction and spun out halfway up I decided that was a great excuse to have a break. A minute or two of breathing deeply, and I was back on the bike, successfully pedalling to the top.

On the second lap we did the outer Bantry Bay loop. Lead by the brilliant tour guide Ben, all the significant features (large drop off, creek gap jumps) were pointed out well before time so I could take the B or C line :D Tis very good out there on the outer lap. No heartbreak hill, plus more technical drop offs, tight single track, and all the other goodies you go to Manly Dam for.

All in all it was an excellent, but testing 25kms. My fitness is still not quite there, but hey, that’ll come.

Going to keep rebuilding it as it was for Dirtworks. But wheelset, crankset, brakes, seatpost & saddle are all on the table for upgrades during Winter.