As I discussed final week, I’m placing a gravel bike collectively, and right here’s an replace on what I shall heretofore seek advice from as Challenge Gravel (or PRJCT GRVL):
Prepared for the replace? Right here goes:
I haven’t finished something but.
Properly, okay, I did take a look at the handbook for the shifter pictured above, and I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it:
Or ought to I say I couldn’t make proboscises or labial palps of it?
All drivetrain elements are kind of insect-like as of late, however these appear much more so:
When you instructed me that was a magnified picture of a mud mite I’d haven’t any hassle believing you.
Talking of being behind on stuff, again in July I wrote about Rivendell’s new low-rise rapid-normal derailleur:
Properly, the primary batch has arrived and was out there as of Friday!
However I assume I’m letting you realize too late, as a result of it appears they’re already gone:
Sorry.
Happily, extra are coming in December.
So why would you desire a low-normal derailleur? (Moreover the truth that it doesn’t seem like an insect.) Properly, right here’s what Rivendell say of their e-newsletter:
Friction shifting is the place OM actually begins to shine. With a ratcheting friction shifter like ours, the ratchet helps counter stability the spring and push the derailer into the upper gears, and whenever you wish to ease up the spring shoots the derailer again up the cassette, getting you into an decrease gear extra simply. It’s a satisfying ratcheting push (or pull, should you’re utilizing bar finish shifters) shifting excessive, and a light-touch pull shifting low. Shifting into simpler gears on hills feels smoother, too, which have to be due to the spring. The Silver OM-1 feels to me precisely like my Shimano RR derailers, and that’s excessive reward: these ones are good.
This has been my expertise, and downshifting specifically with a low-normal derailleur and a fiction shifter (particularly Rivendell’s, that are the one ones I’ve tried with a low-normal derailleur) is certainly exceptionally clean. The opposite profit–perhaps even the largest one–is that should you’re utilizing bar-end shifters your lever will probably be pointing straight down whenever you’re in your lowest gear, which suggests your knee received’t bump it whenever you’re climbing. Right here’s a gratuitous picture of my Roadini that doesn’t actually illustrate this in any respect, however it’s carrying a prototype OM-1 derailleur, and I did should shift into my low gears to get there, so there’s that:
I actually, actually like that bike.
In fact the choice is to choose up an outdated Shimano RapidRise derailleur, however now that they’re coming again into style (really they’re not coming again into style, since they by no means caught on the primary time), a “NOS” unit will most likely value you at the very least as a lot because the Silver:
Technical evaluation exhibits that NOS Speedy Rise derailleur securities could also be overbought on the idea of the Relative Power Index (RSI) and the stochastic oscillator—gauge momentum, in addition to momentum divergence, the Common Directional Index (ADX), and different phrases I discovered on the Web, and you must most likely count on a slight correction when Rivendell will increase the General Low-Regular Derailleur Provide (OLNDS) in December.
In the meantime, weekend driving signifies that fall foliage, whereas nonetheless frothy, could also be on the cusp of a downturn:
Anticipate this to proceed by way of the autumn and winter seasons, with traders steadily returning to the market within the spring.
