Buttah

Smooth like buttah.

That's what a new drive train feels like. Tossed a much needed new chain, cassette and some salvaged pulleys on the Croll last night before riding home. Holy crap what a difference.

The drive train on there (chain, cassette) were new in 2009 when I put them on the Giant TCX at the start of cross season. Raced that season and commuted on that drive train until yesterday.

Worn? Duh. Stretched? Holy shit yeah.

But it was a shimano chain I took off, and you know what? It still hadn't broken. Imagine that. Durafuckingballer that stuff is.

Shifted still, but man it was all notchy and janky and noisy and felt weird.

New stuff? Sooooo smooth. With the Ritchey Drop outs in the back of the Croll the hanger is as rock solid as any you will find. Super strong too. Just not great with the trailer attachment on the other side.

The Jockey wheels were super pointy. Almost to the point of being little circles. The ones that I had salvaged off an exploded tiagra der (someone's bike fell over in the garage, lightly, and then the next ride it was shifted into the spokes ripping the der in two). So they didn't have the sealed bearings that the Ultegra ones that were worn but they worked, probably less friction than the old ones.

Chain was an LX/105 9sp one. Tend to have good luck with those on the 9sp bikes. Replaced it with the same, but I will admit to using a SRAM 9sp quick link. Yeah. I put a quick disconnect in on a shimano chain. And no, I haven't noticed a shifting issue.

Cassette now, here is where I'm dubious as to my choice. I went with an HG50 12-25. Figuring it is just going to see commuter duty and if it wears out sooner, well then I'll just replace the chain sooner. it isn't going on an alloy freehub so i dudn't need to worry about a carrier or anything. And it was cheap. And so am I. I also have a couple other (three?) drive trains to be replaced sooner than later so there was that. The rest will probably go with an XT/Ultegra (9sp) chain and 105 cogsets.

My donated Sigma computer/HRM is being a bit flaky. Speed is dropping out, sometimes HR drops out too. Sort of frustrating. New batteries all the way around too. I'm the second user of the system so maybe it is just tired and dead. Maybe I should take a chance and go with a new Bontrager system or just order a mess of batteries for the polar 720. I like that feed back of the HRM and speed, I'll admit it. I like the data. Mostly because it really does seem to help go both easy enough and hard enough. Oh well.

I'm off the bike today. Either going to be really fresh for the TT tomorrow night or stale. Hoping the former. The week is going well and so totally worth being off the bike.

That and the Rusty Trusty Race wagon is buzzing right along, shake rattle and rolling but still putting along. The lack of AC hasn't been so bad.

Ate all my lunch before 11:30. Going to go grab a Nice Slice To get me through the afternoon sessions.

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