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Thanks. I'll begin with these, then.

Can you (or anyone else) recommend a reasonably priced trueing stand?
Most of the cheaper stands - Feedback sports; Spin doctor; Minoura FT-1; Park TS-8 - have mixed reviews.

If you want to save some cash you can just use your frame as a truing stand. You can get your wheels running plenty true using a brake pad as guide.

Stolen from Sheldon Brown's site:

"This approach is not quite as convenient as using professional tools, but the results can be just as good. The following techniques work with improvised tools.

A rim brake can provide a reference for lateral truing if rotated so one shoe is very close to the rim. You may use rubbing of the brake shoe on the rim as a reference, or you may observe the gap between the brake shoe and the rim. The distance from the brake shoe to its reflection in the rim sidewall is twice that to the rim, doubling the precision of this reference. Look at the brake shoe end-on to see the spacing most clearly,
When truing a rear wheel on the bicycle, clip a small metal or plastic ruler to the seatstays with a rubber band to provide a reference for vertical truing and centering. Twist the rubber band where it passes behind the seatstays, to keep it clear of the rim. The scraping of the ruler against the rim flanges is your reference for vertical truing. As you true the wheel, tilt the ruler slightly to touch first one flange, then the other, to get an average height. When using a front fork as your truing stand, you can use a spoke instead of a ruler, held crossways ahead of the fork blades. The rubber band will clear the rim at the rear of the fork blades.
Centering may be checked by flipping the wheel over (so the cassette is on the left, etc.). When the position of the rim between the brake shoes and frame parts remains the same after the wheel is reversed, the rim is centered. You may also check dishing by placing two piles of blocks, books etc. on a tabletop to support the rim at two places opposite one another. The distance from the tabletop to the hub locknut on the underside should be the same, no matter which side of the wheel is down."
 
Yep, an old set of forks and a pair of crappy caliper brakes is very old school way of doing it!
 
Found the part number online so ordered one from UK. Now will have totally customer transmission. I bet there are a lot of people who could do with different front chain rings - be honest when you are out riding how many of the 20 or 22 do you use...... I bet maybe 6 or 7...

...of the lowest ones. :rolleyes:
 
Does anyone have a Shimano 9 speed cassette 11 tooth ring they can sell or give me? I am changing the front from 53 to 45 and by changing my rear small from 12 to 11, I have the potential of almost the same top speed. I know I could buy a 11 - 25 but I need the 27 teeth (current 12-27) for the hills. I only need the 11 tooth cog so packaging minimal. THANKS

Are you only changing the big chain ring or both? Will this work with your existing FD?

Gearing has been the #1 reason why I haven't added a 700C bike yet. I may not be a fast climber, but at least on my Bike Friday with its 20" wheels I never have to walk up a hill or blow up my legs with low cadence, high torque. There doesn't seem to be a good way of replicating its low gears on anything with big wheels, at least if I want to stick with brifters (I could use different chain rings with non-STI shifters or I could use flat bars with grip shifters and MTB components or I could go Rohloff but those are not acceptable to me).

A triple (50/39/30) in combination with a 34T rear cluster would still only get me within 10% of my existing lowest gear. A 50/34 compact with 34T rear would be 24% taller than what I have now.

Can I combine a 34T or 36T cassette with a triple at the front and what RD would I need to cope with the chain slack?
 
I am only changing the outside ring because do not use the small cogs on the cassette. This will give me closer ratio between the big and little rings and better momentum when changing at 19 teeth rear. (before 53 - 19, come to hill change to 39-19 and step was 10kph, with 45-19 and then change to 39-19 the step will be 4kph so not waiting to either legs to catch up or for bike to slow down for 100rpm cadence). The overall speed of the bike will be the same but using more of the smaller rear cogs. 39 teeth for me is fine for climbing with 27teeth rear
 
Question to admin - When I look at Members online - there are robots -WTF are robots?
 
I found a clinic called Physio Tokyo where it seems I can find qualified and English speaking therapists.
Tokyo Physio ね。They are very professional and effective. Australians. Can't use Japanese health insurance there so either pay your own way or see if some other insurance you have can help with the cost.
 
Question to admin - When I look at Members online - there are robots -WTF are robots?

The most important representative of that species (in web terms) would be Googlebot, which autonomously reads web pages to index them so they can later be found via searches. Less benign ones are spam bots, which harvest email addresses or try to post ads on forums and in blogs and comment sections.
 
@Joe - SRAM 'WiFli' does 32T (advertised) and actually works quite well up to 36T. You could combine with an 11-32 Cassette - or 11-34 Shimano Cassette and get enough gearing for any practical hill using 700C or even 650C wheelset. Remember - there ARE choices beyond 700C! The frameset I made for my wife is somewhat universal in that you could mount 26" , 650 or 700C wheelsets easily, using a combination or selection of discbrake , V-Brake or Cantis. On that bike I use a CX50 crankset (36-46) with 11-34 Cassette and Ultegra GS derailler. Just the slightest amount of 'slop' at the 36-11 combo, which is rarely used in any case. I'm going to change the GS for the WiFli as my next small upgrade on it.
 
Gearing has been the #1 reason why I haven't added a 700C bike yet. I may not be a fast climber, but at least on my Bike Friday with its 20" wheels I never have to walk up a hill or blow up my legs with low cadence, high torque. There doesn't seem to be a good way of replicating its low gears on anything with big wheels, at least if I want to stick with brifters (I could use different chain rings with non-STI shifters or I could use flat bars with grip shifters and MTB components or I could go Rohloff but those are not acceptable to me).
A triple (50/39/30) in combination with a 34T rear cluster would still only get me within 10% of my existing lowest gear. A 50/34 compact with 34T rear would be 24% taller than what I have now.
Can I combine a 34T or 36T cassette with a triple at the front and what RD would I need to cope with the chain slack?

You can do a lot of combinations with Sram.
My Fargo is designed for off road touring. I am using 29" wheels (700c) with 2.2" rubber on that.
I use Sram Apex STI shifters and an X9 Mid Rear Derailleur with an X9 12-36 cassette.
I run a double crank - 27/39 and a X7 front Derailleur.
I will admit this gearing is horribly low for anything road, but when loaded down climbing single track, it works beautifully.

A long cage derailleur should easily take up the slack of a triple if needed.

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*Note 10 speed Sram is cross compatible between Road and Mountain, so you can mix and match pretty much at will. This is especially nice for picking out Cassettes... 10speed Shimano cassettes are also compatible with the 10 Speed sram derailleurs.
 
Hi Tim, I looked at 650C wheels as a possibility. It would also help a bit with wheel overlap with a smallish frame and big feet (on the BF it's not a problem).

Sheldon's gear inch calculator gives me 24.5 gear inches for the lowest gear in a compact setup (50+34) with 11-34 cassette and 650x25C road/tri tires. That's very close to my second lowest gear at 24.9 (30/24) while my lowest is 21.3 (30/28)... On climbs of 10% and more I am still glad about that lowest gear and would be reluctant to give it up.

My benchmark for steep climbs is Wada Toge. I've done the west side (Kanagawa) in my second lowest, but never the east side (Hachioji). Getting a lighter frame and all weather disk brakes would be great, but having to struggle up Wada East in effectively the second lowest gear is still a big price to pay, mentally.

Maybe next week I'll take my wife's bike out to Onekansen or Takao to try some hills on it :)
 
I run a double crank - 27/39 and a X7 front Derailleur.

What shifter do you use with that, @bloaker?

EDIT: The website lists SRAM Apex. Looks interesting. Maybe that crank /cassette / shifter / brake combination with a road frame and 25 or 28 mm tires...
 
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I am using Sram Apex Shifters.
The crank is a FSA Comet, but I also on occasion run an XT crank with a slightly higher ratio.
 
Can anyone tell me if the UCI weight limit of 6.8kg includes pedals and bottle cages?
 
I did a bike tour Japan next August. I wonder to climb Mt. Fuji bicycle, to 2.300m altitude. I can inform the best way to move me from Tokyo to Fujiyoshida wearing a bicycle packed. Bus or train? Is they directly? From what station?
Frederic, Barcelona, Spain
 
I did a bike tour Japan next August. I wonder to climb Mt. Fuji bicycle, to 2.300m altitude. I can inform the best way to move me from Tokyo to Fujiyoshida wearing a bicycle packed. Bus or train? Is they directly? From what station?
Frederic, Barcelona, Spain

Train is fine with a packed bike. Shinjuku to Otsuki, then Otsuki to Fujisan (Fujisan is in Fujiyoshida). Link
 
To take the bike on the train you will need to wrap it into a bicycle bag (rinkobukuro, about 5000-6000 yen), but this is still better than trying to get it on a bus. The rinkobukuro will come in useful during any Japan touring, as you can combine cycling with train segments.

You can also ride out from Tokyo to Fuji if you're used to long distance rides. I did Tokyo-Mt Fuji 5th stage-Odawara last July.
 
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