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| Must have been an abomination to the well heeled folks at Shenton Way as I stopped on the return leg home. Dripping with sweat in my ragged and tattered "iconic" red drifit, some Bianchi guy zooming past kept looking back as I was squatting to take this pic. Oh wait it was the same dude I sling shot past when he got stuck behind some bus and truck as I hopped onto the pavement a couple of lights back. :-) |
Finally took the hubs apart and --HOLY MUDDER OF CRAP... utterly cheap wheels indeed. Wasn't expecting a CK/ DT hub experience or the buttery smoothness of my White Industries given the price point of the whole stock bike.
But the tolerance of these hubs in Morse Code speak is just absolute.. 3 dit 4 dit and a 2 dit-dah ... .... .. _
TOLERANCE. What f@#k!^g tolerance! The amazing thing was how the hell did I tolerated these POS for 2+ months & clocked over 1400km with it!
Pitted balls, roughed out race, almost non existent wimpy weak rubber seals that doesn't do squat if the bike ever goes axle deep into mud and water....
Did the best to service up the generic 8 ball bearing cone hub. Reckon the grease used probably cost more than the hubs itself.. Errm, technically speaking, friend came over and did most of the work servicing up the wheels while i doodled on other stuff on the bike :)
Dusted out my forlorn old DH front wheel that's been left there since the last overseas trip......
Yup.. its about 6-7mm bigger in diameter than the stock 27.5" with those cartoon looking 1.75" Gravel King. But the 2.4 Onza Ibex" was just a slight tad too wide for the fork..
Long story short... swap a rotor, swap the 20MM TA back to QR and found a brand new 2.25" Maxxis Advantage amongst my hoard. HOOYA! I remember an article mentioned that for 26x2.25"-- the Maxxis Advantage then was one of the biggest volume and tallest tires... Perfect! Just exactly what's needed here. This cleared the fork nicely with ~3mm to spare at the narrowest point while retaining the same height above the rim as the bigger 2.4" Ibex.
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Certainly not adding any "Advantage" (pun intended) when riding on the road with this gross mismatched pair of hoops as I tried out later that evening.
Journey to the Dark Side...
Many many moons ago, as a young mtb Padawan , some Trail Jedi once told me --"It's all about the front, my young fren. Speed is your friend".
Quarter of a century later, while still not anywhere close to being a Jedi Riding Master, I have taken these advice to heart and somewhat able to practice them over the years. Indeed the worst of all injuries/ damages that can occur when wheels are planted is a front washout. The rear can slip and slide all it wants but any fall from that is always much more manageable.
Last couple months of offroad with the Gravel King, I was fighting the front all the time. Naturally the rear couldn't follow through consistently and so the whole damn time it was like wrestling with the bike while its pointed down and forever wary of that front "washout" moment.
The only recourse was to go slow like some wussy newbie picking lines on high klaxon alert. Imagine a MMA duel but rolling up and down the hills. As the front lose traction over loose or wet, the rear is all too happy waiting to add to the party trying its darn best to f#%k me over... Yes the slower you go the easier it trips you sometimes. So speed really is your friend.
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"Do I really want to do this and sacrifice the speed on the roads? Most rides during weekdays are road based. Trails are mostly just once on the weekend affair. A front like this is gonna feel like hauling a bloody tractor...." the thought lingers as my inner Jedi debated some mental Sith Lord within the realms of my neurons.
Ok I'm getting schizophrenic again. Anyway...
...only thing left to do was to test it out. Taking the benchmark of my daily cardio training of 20-25 laps comprising of 1.3km/lap-- it averages out to be about 2km slower but definitely more tiring at the same time.
Reckon swapping the front wheels depending on ride of the day is probably the solution...
But first it's time to get rid of the shitty stock wheels and replace it with something decent...
New Wheels..
As I'm still having fun just mucking around on the cheap- -I decided to continue and push in the same direction for a while.
The whole idea of this was a "test" bike -- spend as minimally possible and simply ride the crap out of it until knowing exactly what is needed before going to a full custom build (which could be this year, next... Who knows, really!)
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| Width: Old rims 30/26. New, 25/21 |
Spoke tension right out of the box looks and sounded right when plucked (it's all I can do since I do not have a tension-meter at my disposal).
32 holes laced up strong and stiff. Only thing was to unplug the adapters and have a quick look at the innards.
...72 engagement points with thick good size pawls, not the thin wimpy leaf-spring kind.
Tolerance of the axle shaft with the bearings -- nice and tight. Standard industrial 2RS sealed bearings.. Shouldn't have anything to worry there and easily replaceable.
Only thing was the thinner width (25mm vs 30 on the stock). But after porting the tires over, there wasn't much visible difference looking at the overall width and height of the rubbers.
I got it with the QR adapter for this bike but these wheels can easily Plug n Play with standard TA adapters if need to. 12x142 rear and 15x100 front.. Only doesnt seem to have 12x100 front adapter which some gravel forks are still using.
On the road the smoothness of the hubs and the relatively stiffer lacing was definitely a boost to riding speed with easier spinning and spin-up from stationary. Took about 20 laps at my daily rabbit loops to break in the bearings... Speed wise I thought it was a bit faster but it will take a few more evenings to gauge a proper average.
On the trail is where a positive difference was felt yesterday. Albeit only using the rear of the wheel set only...
Having to ride to the trails.. I kept the pressure high @ ~53psi in the rear with the anorexic GravelKing SS and switched back to my chimera front with the 2.25 Advantage at 30psi.
Left 'em untouched when I hit the trails...
Even at these high pressure (usually I run 16-18 psi front for full knobbies with mtb) I launched into an all out assault from the start. Front gobbled up everything. Not being a stranger to rigid even before riding gravel bike, handling the front now is a little reminiscent of my old fat bike.
Of course it doesn't have quite the same amount of flotation and "tire-supension"... but close enough that I am able to pedal "balls to the walls" at every possible turn. The rear tracking was good even with such high pressure... only a couple of slip ups when I went over some loose rocks and couple of roots.
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Because the front was gripping relatively well.. the effort was less pronounced and I was able to ride most of the way with the last 2 biggest cogs still in reserve.. Trail range usage yesterday was basically 42 front with 11-30 rear.. Only using the 37 and 46 on 3-4 occasions mostly inside BT.
Almost made it up Stairway To Heaven too.. Front still clawed right at the last bit of the climb but the rear slipped.. Wouldnt have matter if the biggest cog is the same size as the wheel.. its the frigging lack of grip on the tire... yes I think we all know how that goes.. suddenly its as if you are riding a stationary bike. Crank a full revolution but it moves no where...
Overall, I don't know if its because of the confidence and grip from the front but the rear compared to the old wheel was a lot quicker to respond overall when turning and doesn't have that dead "thud" feel as it humps over stuffs be it root or rock. Still of course, there is some jarring but not followed by an immediate slowdown which happened with the wider stock wheel... and bearing in mind it's s till +50 psi which really is stupidly hard for trail riding.
Is it because the thinner width actually work better in this combo now? Hmmm?? Too many parameters and I can't quite figure it out for the moment. But rear wise, I definitely prefer whatever is on the bike now..
Total offroad in yesterday's 144km ride was
1x T15,
2x "Unmentionable Trail" and
1.5x laps at BT ...... for an approx 15-16 km
Hitting this distance in the trails after about 85km on the roads felt more like a straight up 25-30km trails only ride towards the end. Burning quads and smoking lungs not withstanding... Absolutely winded in the last 3km of BT before hitting the roads again. Had to stop for a couple minutes to drop my HR back before the journey home.
...Someone asked why didn't I do the same for the rear and jimmy a big ass tire in there.
Clearance! Or rather the lack of at the chain stays was the limiting factor. That's the next part of the bike to work on. Looking at all the wimpy 1.8-2.0" knobbed tires in the market, I'm mulling how to hack a 2.1" at the back... Smaller than 2.0"-- usually tires will spot those tiny pimple sized knobs.. Hardly functional in my opinion for more technical off roads. .
Ok some may disagree with me.. but in my context of off road riding, its always about trying to ride up and down anything without getting off to push. The hell with pushing bikes. No shame but still, I rather be riding.
Before getting into more for the rear-- I'll just drop the tire pressure on the next ride in the trails to see how much further can be edged out of the current setup while trying to reduce some weight in the meantime as well.
As is now, 2x full bottles, framebag and contents, toolbag and meters/lights makes this an obese 15kg chunky bastard .
Things in the pipeline...
Still not too convinced whether a properly functional bike in my case should be a 1x or 2x front
Swapping out to outboard BB cranks like my spares which are all 2x cranks would be much easier when it comes servicing time.
One can't really service the bearings like
outboards on a square taper unless its one of those kidney-priced PhilWoods BB or similar that are totally separate pieces. Most square taper BB are cartridged type these days. The issue of square taper is cleaning out the grit that is
collected in the nooks but overall those suckers do have long life span before their
bearings crap out for good though.
In any case I've been having a "bail-out" manual shift on all my 1x MTB setup for many years. Yes, it simply means having a granny with no front dee and manually shift with fingers if the occasion calls for it... which is rare around SG.
With the array of spare cranks in the arsenal now with 104/64 BCD.. all it needs for the Nicasio+ is to find the right combo of chain rings.
Satisfied with the current configuration of 42T front, 11-46 behind as a 9s drivetrain for offroad riding on the Nicasio+, hence for the main ring after a crank swap it will remain a 42. But the "bailout" in this case.. I'm mulling over a 24t, 26t or 28t
A 24t based on an even gradual step down rate of the GI numbers would provide the best range in the low gears but when back on the flats, apart from the smallest 11 and 13-- its basically useless.
Alternatively once at the trail--simply switch to a 28t and leave it on? But it would still be rather lacking on the range for higher gears... will have to come down to the 4 smallest cogs and that's a lot of cross chaining. Wear out rates will be high.
Let's see...
Since back to my favorite subject of Gear Inch Ratio, I have further refined from the last 2 write ups on the topic on this bike and plan for a potential 700c wheelset using a 1/2 corncob cassette of 12-25 mainly for the road rides...
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| The "magical cog" -- a 14t |
Thinking ahead on the consumables and compatability...
The best part of the whole stock bike is really the drive train in my opinion. Still pretty flawless shifting despite everything I had dished out these 3 months or so. But the gear ratio combo on the cassette is not something that can be easily found. While there are other 9s, 11-46 cassettes out there but the tooth jumps are quite different. I would definitely miss having the versatility at times switching between the 18 and 21 of this stock Microshift CS-H093 cassette because most 9s with 11-46 usually replace these 2 middle-ish cogs with a single 20t.
The other things are the shifter and deraileur combo
The Advent mid cage rear dee, RD-M6195M, is stated to be compatible only with their own shifters only... Really? Not that I'm in a hurry to change this out as I really like the dropbar shifter (saved for the oddity of the shift cable sticking out from the side, making it impossible to do a concealed cabling along the bar). But it would be good to know if some compatibility or hacks is possible to mate it with other 9s dropbar shifter with cable actuate brakes. All these in a market which already isn't very 9 speed friendly these days with the rise of all the gazillion-speed cassettes + hydoo brakes combo.
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