Truisms part one.

Ya know, those little sayings like "A penny saved is a penny earned"?  Those truisms like grandpa used to spout out; little bits of truth and wisdom, hard learned over generations and distilled down into as few words as possible.

I have some of those that may not be so well known, but work nicely for my purposes.  Here is one.  If something all of a sudden begins to work poorly that has been working well for ages, ask yourself "What changed?".

Example - for the past two weeks I have been working my way through some knee pain in the right knee.  That is the one I tore up in martial arts training so I am not surprised if it complains every so often.  This was a bit different.  It was hard to pin down the why and what of it.  Did I push too hard on a ride?  I do recall twice where I was working too big a gear for a quick rise in the trail and I had brief, burning pain under the kneecap...oops, time to shift down here.  I thought maybe that was it but the pain that was lingering was not in that location.  It seemed as much muscular as anything with an odd bit for referred pain to it.  Since nothing came to mind as to a cause, and riding did not seem to hurt any more than not riding, I was trying to work my way through it with the uneasy feeling in the back of my mind, that, if I could not figure out a cause here, maybe I was just wearing out and this was the first signs of diminished abilities?  That scared me a bit as I had not increased my miles or efforts lately.

I stayed off the SS but standing on the geared bike felt OK; so did sitting and spinning, but afterwards...pain and discomfort.  Then, it hit me.  I had forgotten the old adage, "What changed"?

New shoes.  Yep.  About the time this began I had done a 4 hour ride on some new shoes I am reviewing.  Could it simply be a cleat/shoe alignment thing?  How simple!  Why did I not think of that right away?  Last night I slipped into my old shoes and that was that.  Immediate improvement even though I could not feel any significant change in foot position between the two.  What a dope I am.

Truism #1 - If what's always worked before does not work any more, ask yourself what changed.

More truisms to come.

3 speeds all you need?

SS guys have little sayings like "one gear is all you need", etc.  And, that is true depending on what compromises you are willing to make.  There is still a place for a wide gear spread just like there is a place for full suspension.  But I find the SS approach to be fun, hard, and rewarding.

So the other day on a 4-ish hour SS ride with Ed the Tall, I once again found myself thinking about how much I love the simplicity but often find myself wanting juuuust a bit more gearing.  I am a reasonably strong rider for my age, etc, but long, long climbs on the SS will get me.  Then, as this day's miles added up, the trail had a couple of places in it that were a push zone for me as they were slightly out of reach fitness and knee health wise to ride them.  As well, we had a pretty fast pavement cruise to close the loop and then I would have loved to have a taller gear.

So once again I find myself thinking about the IGH...Internally Geared Hub...but not with the intent of duplicating my fully geared bikes range, but rather extending the range of the SS bike's one gear.  If I had 1:1 and then two more gears, one taller, and one lower, then might that not be the perfect set-up?  If I was about two gears lower in 'first' gear, then had the 34/21 I have now in 'second' gear, and added to that the equivalent of 2 cogs higher in 'third' gear; that could be the killer app.  A three speed IGH, 135mm spacing, disc ready, an aluminum shell,  hidden shift cable routing, standard splined cog, 32 hole drilling, and a decent axle set-up that uses the size bolt that would be in any multi-tool....add a good couple of shifter options like a Gripshift style and maybe a thumbshift style....well, now you have something.

That does not exist.  Yet.  This is pretty close: The SRAM i Motion 3 hub.

If the weight is trimmed and it is pretty efficient in the most used gear, that being the direct gear number 2 (1:1), then this type of IGH would be something I would build up for sure.  I would take a slight weight hit, but if it was more than a pound...likely not.  If it was a half pound increase and had more of the features of a modern MTB hub instead of a utility or commuter hub....it would be a hit.  If I can do it cheap enough, I still may play with one of these iM3s soon just to see.

But they can begin selling the i MTB 3 anytime as far as I am concerned.  

The Paperboy in me, I guess.

Now, I like this. It hits a soft spot in me somewhere. Cruiser style bikes with the arched TT, loss of clearance and added weight do not make any practical sense. Meh!

The F-K-R from First Flight Bikes.  All I need is the newspaper carrier and a route.  Oh yeah, less gears.  No self respecting paper boy had more than one.

29ers too mainstream for ya? Try this.