I received the latest edition of Cycling UK‘s on-line magazine and one article has caused a bit of a dichotomy for me. It was all about providing safer cycle routes in winter time, especially for women. A large percentage of women stop cycling when the days shorten, purely because they feel unsafe in dark places. I am all in favour of encouraging as many people to cycle and am fully supportive of providing safe places for everyone, especially women, to participate in it. I know places I can cycle, with a good set of lights, only a short distance from my home and out of the way of traffic and crowds. I also realise that not everyone feels able to use these places. As a man, I don’t have the same fear that many women do, of being attacked while I am enjoying the peace and quiet. I don’t think that this situation is fair and knowing that is caused by men, I am fully supportive of measures which can go towards correcting it.

But still, I can’t help being in two minds about it!

Parks and open spaces not only provide us with green spaces within and on the outskirts of cities, they also can be a haven for wildlife. They provide somewhere birds and animals can live alongside humans. If we light these spaces up “like a disco on wheels” as a quote in the article said, is this really a good thing? My worry is that the fauna will suffer and may even disappear from some areas within our cities. Are we in danger of destroying dark spaces and should some areas remain out of bounds for some of the time?

The article can be read here.

After two months of experimentation, I have finally got a front derailleur fitted and working. I’m not too sure what I did to get it working this time around. I have removed and fitted the same mech a couple of times, probably adjusting things slightly differently each time but finally it has all come together and I’ve got working gears. My best guess for the solution is the routing of the inner cable. The mechanism is one which can be either top or bottom pull and I’ve got a feeling that the way I had fed it through the first time was not quite right.

Whatever, it’s time to stop tinkering.

While I’m waiting for the latest bits to arrive to complete the front derailleur, I’ve decided to try another upgrade to the bike. As the bike is off the road and up on the work-stand I may as well try things out.

I wanted to do the same thing I did with my MTB and fabricate a cover to protect the cables running under the bottom bracket . It works well on the other bike and keeps the area free from mud and grit and is easy to clean. This should also protect the cables on the Alice from mud and maybe even from grounding although this probably won’t be as likely with the road bike as it is with the mountain bike. I made it from the other extension that came with my mudguards and hopefully will be robust enough to last for a long time to come.

Back to the front derailleur where the problems are seemingly never ending. I had what I thought was a solution set up with all the components bought but when I put it all together it just wouldn’t work the way I needed. Because of the boss on the frame the tolerances for adjustment are so close it is extremely difficult to get it all right. I had it working but on tightening the mounts up there must have been some movement in the brackets and the chain was millimeters from shifting. As the adjusters were all at their limits I need to try other mechs so it’s back to the drawing board. There are so many different mechs it is nightmarish trying to find the one that fits. Almost every model has two or three variances depending on the mount or the routing of the cable. Some of the older models are also difficult to source and descriptions of used examples often don’t give detailed enough descriptions to know if they are right without trying them on the frame. This involves a great deal of fitting and removing but I’m sure one of these times will be the final one and it will fall into place. I’ve put so much effort into it I am determined to reach the end and have working front gears!

…. and back to the beginning!

I tried mounting the latest front derailleur mechanism I bought and guess what? It doesn’t fit! My frame has a raised boss for internal cable routing (probably for a seat dropper cable). This is exactly in the place where the 105 mech needs to be fitted. It is the same for both the 10 and 11 speed versions. I now have three mechs, each with slightly different cage shapes and heights. They all mount on the frame in slightly different positions and heights. The band I ordered is the largest diameter that shimano do so there’s not even an alternative way by maybe packing the frame to allow it to fit over the boss.

There are another couple of options for me to try. These will involve buying a couple more different mechs and just trying them out. One is a braze-on version of the FD R-7000 mech along with a band-on adapter bracket. This mount style achieves vertical adjustment by the derailleur moving up and down while the bracket remains in a fixed position. Hopefully the bracket will sit either above or below the boss. It may or may not fit but I’m going to have to spend the money to find out. I think it may be worth trying it as the updated mechanism is a lot more efficient when it comes to adjustment and operation. It will also remove the need for two brackets. Another is to try a high mount fitting. As the name suggests this would (hopefully) clamp on above the cable port but I won’t know which would be the best solution or if either will fit until I try each out. So I’ll order one of each and see how it goes. If I buy new items I can try them out and return them if they are not suitable.

If none of these work I will need to try again to get the original one working with the additional cable stop clamp. It may take a lot of tinkering and adjusting but if I want to keep the x2 front gear then I need to get it working. The final alternative, if the latest idea doesn’t work out, is to go back to a single chain-ring. I think I’m going to be offering a good few FDs on e-bay soon.

I went back to my bike this morning and before I took it off the stand I gave the cranks a quick turn. I tried going up and down through the gears and then shifting from the small to large chain-rings. The front derailleur just wouldn’t move to the large ring. It’s almost there but just won’t go fully on. I’m going to try fiddling around with the L and H screws to see if I can get it right. I may need to re-adjust the position of the mech but am dreading doing that as each time I have messed around with the position I have had to almost start from scratch.

I was still watching a Shimano 105 FD on e-bay and noticed the seller is offering a discount so I bit the bullet and ordered it. Once that arrives I’ll compare the two and work out which one will be better. If I can dispense with the additional clamp for the cable stop it should make adjustments a lot simpler. I’ve also bought a second hand shifter from Shimano’s 105 series. I’m hoping that because this is designed to fit with the front mech the shifting will be easier. It’s the one with twin levers and I’m hoping that it will have a shorter operational reach than the one I’ve already fitted and therefore be more efficient. Fingers crossed.

UPDATE : The 105, 10 speed front derailleur arrived but it doesn’t have a cable stop. I’m not going to fit this one but have decided to try an 11 speed version. That one definately has the integrated cable stop. It will match the shifter I have ordered so I’m hoping the cage will take a 10 speed chain as there’s not a huge difference in the width between the two.

Last year at this time, the weather turned warm and sunny after a long spell of wet and windy days. The summer had seemed over but a for few days it came back again and I was able to take advantage of this and head off to Arran for a glorious week’s camping.

According to the weather forecast, it looks as though we’re getting a similar short spell of weather, just a week later. I would have been over the moon if I could have planned a trip for even a few days away but pre-arranged commitments have precluded that. So I’m going to have to enjoy the warm weather in other ways, hopefully getting out on my bike for a few hours at a time. After the poor summer we’ve had it’s disappointing but that will need to do me.

I spent the weekend researching what I need to buy to convert from a single chain-ring to a double. It was an easy decision over the front derailleur and shifter as I wanted to stay with Shimano and all their 2 speed shifters are compatible with each other so it was a case of buying what was available and at the best price I could find. That just happened to be on e-bay. So they’re ordered and hopefully on the way.

The decision for the chainrings was a little more complicated. I want to stick with the oval chainring I have currently fitted but because my cranks are 64BCD it wasn’t easy to find a compatible larger chain-ring to give me the ratio I wanted. I had hoped that all I would need to do was to buy and fit a larger ring and bolts to the existing set-up but just couldn’t find anything that would work. I did find a set on the Absolute Black web-site which was just what I wanted. The brand is one which I already have on my bike and I am happy with the quality of their products. The set I looked at is intended for road and gravel bikes so they only do it for 110/4 BCD crank spider. I’ve got this size on my MTB but the Alice has 96BCD spider. This was always something I was uneasy about as there was no option to interchange components between the bikes if needed. Both bikes currently have MTB cranks fitted, it’s just that the ones on the One-one are an older design although they are in perfect condition and will last for as long as I need them. Shimano seem to have decided that MTB and gravel bikes should have 64BCD chain-rings and road/gravel 110BCD. Probably because most MTB and gravel riders prefer single chain-rings.

Maybe it was time to buy new cranks for the Alice and go down the road/gravel route. I eventually found a set of Shimano 105 cranks in my preferred length (175mm). So I’ve ordered those from e-bay and the chainrings from Absolute Black. There’s one final component I’ll need to replace and that’s the groupset. The 11-42 tooth one I run now will be too large for the bigger front chainring so I will need to swap that out for a 11-34 one. That’s probably about the limit for a x2 setup. The whole conversion will be a bit more expensive than I had initially hoped but I should be able to offset this by selling on the cranks and rings I’m going to take off.

I won’t start the conversion straight away but will wait until the weather gets more into winter. When I do I’ll report how it goes on here.

On my last tour, in Shetland, I found I was needing to get off the bike to push up hills more than I had previously. I put it down to a couple of things. I hadn’t been in the best of health in the months before my trip and had not been riding as much as I would have wanted to, to build up stamina. There was also the wind which seemed to be in my face for the two weeks I was there. I was pretty sure that fitness (and my age) would have been the main reason for my lack of effort on hills.

A post I read on facebook, about gearing for touring bikes got me thinking about another possible reason. Maybe my 32 teeth, single front chain-ring with 11-42 groupset is not a big enough range for my needs when touring. My mountain bike, which I mainly use around home on cycle paths and canal paths, has a 36t front and 11-32 on the rear. This is perfect for my style of riding and I have never felt that I needed any more gears. But for touring maybe I should consider extending the range of available gears. The post also suggested that the bigger gear range would also put less strain on the free-wheel mechanism when riding fully loaded. That is another consideration I should take into account when deciding how to go forward.

The chain-ring I use on my Alice is oval 32t. I have noticed a difference using the oval ring and would like to keep that. The frame will not take a bigger diameter ring but a larger outer ring should fit. Hopefully longer bolts will be all that I need for that part of the conversion. It will take a lot more investigating what the ideal ratio for the double chain ring will be and I will also need to look at the best way to fit a front derailleur as there are no brazed bosses. I should be able to find suitable shimano components, keeping all the hardware compatible.

Looks like my winter project is taking shape or at least moving on to the planning stage.

A couple of years ago, these bike storage lockers were set up outside the block of flats I live in. There’s a few of them around and it’s quite difficult to work out how well they are used. I do think that open bike racks that anyone, including vistors, could use would encourage more cycle use around the estate but I can see that these would be handy for people who don’t have the space to store bikes they own. Maybe where there are two compartments, like in the photo, one could be left with the locking lid off. Then the racks inside could be used on a casual basis and the rear of the cover would offer some protection from the weather.

Currently, I take my bikes in to my flat as I have a spare room and I store them there. But, despite that I am considering applying for a key and using one. This will save me from taking my bike up in the lift and then carrying it up a couple of flights of stairs.

The only thing that is putting me off, (apart from a slight concern about security as the lockers are shared with more than one tenant having a key to each), is that it may be too convenient. At present if I am out and my bike gets muddy, rather than take the dirt in, I will lock it up and straight away bring down stuff to clean it. If I could just put it away I would very likely not get round to cleaning it and then realise the next time I go out. I would also have to bring the bike in to do any maintainance.

So there’s a decision to be made. Should I support an excellent project which can only benefit cyclists or keep on doing what I do?