Bike Stuff

 This bike started out with a story. Back in 2010 I was looking for a used tandem for family adventures. After a bit of searching, I found a nice-looking candidate at a good price on Craigslist and made an appointment to see it up in Marin. I took the kids with me and they got to see one of the strangest deals ever. We arrived and took it for a quick test spin to check fit and function. We decided this would be a great bike and began the required gentle haggle because one must at least ask.  As we were doing it, we discovered that another buyer had an appointment scheduled also and he arrived. We both wanted the bike. You could see the seller getting excited about the bidding war to come.  But no. Buyer #2 did want it, but was unwilling to raise the bid nor was I. Apparently, we both felt it was the right price and not one to bid up. So Buyer #2 and I agreed to flip a coin for it 🤷. The seller was clearly not thrilled but what can he say? We were both offering to pay the...

2002 Ventana El Saltamones as delivered So, what do you see when you look at this picture? Well, some dude up on Mt. Tam recently thought it looked nice but "totally obsolete" and I should get a new bike. (Of course, he was riding a 10k eMTB and his young daughter only a slightly cheaper one.)  Vintage rides get no respect in the MTB world. 😏 So what is it? It's a custom-built Ventana El Saltamontes that I gave myself as a reward gift years ago when I was living in the City and there were lots of MTB rides easy to access from the house. And yes, mountain biking has gotten more aggressive in the intervening years. This was a 'trail bike' bordering on an 'all mountain' bike as distinct from the 'downhill' or 'freeride' bikes at the more aggro end back then. But still full suspension with a generous (for the time) 100mm of travel front and back. The frame itself was built by Sherwood Gibson of Ventana out in Rancho Cordova. In theory, it was ...

A restomod (restoration and modernization) mashup of a 1990 Ti frame, 2007 Campagnolo carbon/Ti group set, 2015 wheelset, and a few modern parts reassembled in 2023. Like many bike nerds, I've long wanted a titanium-framed bike. It has a reputation for a 'magical' ride feel, is light and just looks super cool. Purchased new, they are really, really  expensive. But, they are also known as 'forever frames' for a reason. Ti has a very high fatigue life and doesn't rust. If the frame was made correctly in the first place, it can last a lifetime. So I started looking for an older Ti frameset to rebuild. After searching for a while, I found a Litespeed (one of the early brands famous for Ti) frame in my size for a good price on eBay. Thanks to a cooperative seller and Litespeed still keeping serial number records, I was able to determine that it was a 1991 (actually built in 1990) model called "Classic Road". The frame had survived 32 years structurally s...

I had a 2019 Salsa Cutthroat with a SRAM Force 1×11 setup that I wanted to get a bit lower gearing for steep hills around here. Not worried about increasing the top end. Didn’t want to replace the rear wheel which has the HG style freehub used for the last 20+ years on 8, 9, and 10 and some 11-speed setups. So, what’s the big deal? Just put a big cassette on. They make plenty of them these days. Well… Kinda. Cassette availability: SRAM’s HG-compatible cassettes stop at 42t. I have that and want at least 50T Hubs: Most large cassettes require an XD driver on the freehub. Some hubs can be changed easily, some maybe, some not. Mine was in the ‘can’t find one’ category Derailleur: The SRAM Force 1 (and most other road derailleurs) isn’t rated for cassette cogs that big. The longer cage varieties like this one can get to 42 but some only to the upper 30s. Also, the derailleur’s total tooth takeup (difference between largest and smallest) gets strained beyond ~37t. 50-11 = 39T to take up...