None of the above - Any cyclists?

Get a 3T exploro racemax and move my old component(Mostly SRAM mechanic RIVAL 2X10) to this frame,but will upgrade to SRAM 1x12 mullet setup in few months.
pics

 

ROBO SHIFTERING BIKE-CYCLE PRON:

New bike day!! MY24 Spec. Crux Expert on its maiden rip in the dirt. She's a beaut, Clark! And she's a stone cold ripper.

So far the Rival AXS is pretty f'ing sweet. I've been hesitant to jump into Di2 or AXS because of the implications for all the 11spd in the house, mostly w/ regard to the fact that we just got done migrating to disc with almost all the bikes now. but now I think moving both of my dirt-tired bikes over to XD and embracing the robots makes a decent amount of sense.

Only gripes? The goofy gravel bike flared handlebars are garbage for comfort and the stock Pathfinder Pro tires are worthless for anything actually cyclocrossy. The stock cassette is kind of a boat anchor, too.

 

Nice! What range is the cassette? I recently built up a Knolly Cache with 1x GRX. I went 11-42 with 40 on the chainring. It spins out a bit on road but has great coverage for local gravel, singletrack etc.

These modern gravel/allroad bikes are so capable.

 

It's a 10-44. I'm not totally sold on that much range for racing CX, but for noodling around on some MTB trails it actually works well. I'm used to racing on a 40 x 11-34 which is plenty low for CX (I mean, they call the steep shit a "run up" for a reason), so I'll probably grab a Force 10-36 and run that during the season. But you're right, for a do-it-all cassette the 10-44 is great; spins out at about 30-ish mph and can climb pretty much anything. I didn't think I'd like this bike as much as I do so far.

 

any E-bikers in this here thread?

I have a class III trek allant 7s.

also a catrike 700 recumbent trike.

Bill

 

Nice to see a bikey bike thread here!

Living in NL I'm spoiled for choice when it comes to routes both on and off-road.
I'm equally at home belting around on my road bike as I am fumbling, tripping and skidding around the gravel trails of the Hoge Veluwe. Favourite place EVER!
If you're ever in The Netherlands you must go. There are a million and three trails all over that place and it's easy to plan one out using Komoot. It's one of the very few places in this busy little country that you can avoid any human contact and achieve some sort of solitude by not seeing another soul for at least a few hours at a time! That's precious here.

Did a 50km 'rondje' (round) with my good ladyfriend Laura this weekend starting out just south of Hardewijk.


Always a nice view....in the Veluwe


Camera does weird green things. Or could have been when we were riding through a toxic cloud of somesort.


'Bob the bastard' B'TWIn shitbike


We pile grub into that Topeak bikebag and stop a few times on the way round catching up, admiring the scenery and spotting the wild piggies that roam the forests there. lol
If I could get to the Veluwe every day I probably would!

My roady is a Merlin Fuse 105, a re-badged full carbon Ridley with the venerable Shimano 105 groupset. Nothing fancy and gets the job done! Clocked up almost 11,500 km on it so far without so much as a squeak or snapped chain! 7.5Kg dry weight, comfortable, swift, simple. Why upgrade?


My MTB is a horrid, lumpy B'twin thing that I mainly use for shopping runs. It was a temporary replacement for a nicer bike that got half-inched (pinched) from a motorway service station when I had to take a leak on the way back from the Ardennes. In the 5 mins it took to check the lock around the bike and bike carrier was secured to the towing-ring of the car, go take a leak and then get back to the car some light-fingered fkr swiped it! I should have known better.
Pikeys (travellers) usually stake out carparks like those for the express reason of stealing caravans, jet-skis, catalytic converters, bikes. You name it, they'll take it.
I imagine them back at the campsite practising their 'craft' to get their times down just like F1 teams practice changing tyres on an F1 car in 3 seconds flat! Fkrs.

Anyway, I'm keen to explore building up a gravel bike from scratch. Best of both worlds maybe. The gravel trails here are empty, even during summer, so it's an opportunity that I feel is not being exploited enough to warrant a nice build. Anyone here built a gravel bike from scratch?
Don't think I'll go for a carbon frame/forks as I've had a few thrills and spills out on those trails previously. I'd rather not risk getting caught out snapping anything 50km from base so I'm thinking alloy frame/forks, 1by groupset (not sure on ratios yet), manual shifter, discbrakes, no heavier than 10-12Kg. Any tips for good components?

 

My experience is the days when building your own was worthwhile are gone. I have built every bike I've had since I was in my late teens. Even up to a few years ago, you could find all kinds of parts new and used for a good price. That seems to be gone, at least in the US. I wanted a gravel bike also; didn't have to be high-end, aluminium frame and 2 x 11 speed and we're good. Ended up buying a Trek Checkpoint; I couldn't have gotten close to the $2.5k price for the same spec of GRX-6xx and modern thru-axle, 45mm tire width, etc.

 

For 1X I've now had 4 bikes with SRAM Apex (regular cable over hydro and now AXS 12spd), Force, and NX Eagle. All of the more dirt-inclined stuff is shockingly bombproof. the best way to save weight with the lower end SRAM groupsets is to move up range with the cassette. For example, the stock NX Eagle cassette on my MTB is like 900 grams... going to an X01 cassette, or even just something off Aliexpress will literally shed nearly 400 grams. Beyond that, you'll likely save the most noticeable weight by being picky with the wheelset.

My gravel bike is a bit of an odd duck, but I built it up from a frameset (technically what Specialized calls a "module" since it includes seatpost, stem, handlebar, saddle, and bar tape). But I put together a Spec. Sequoia, hung some Roval aluminum wheels on it, and went with Campy Potenza and some blingy Paul's Klampers in anodized gold. It's served as my daily commuter for about 5 years now. I love it, even if it's a bit of a pig at 25lbs. Pic with it all bikepacked up.

 

Tidy, but I'm pretty sure you could get at least another two bidons mounted on that! lol

I stopped using my rear bidon holder as I got really sick once and I put it down to picking up some sort of germ, possibly from running over roadkill or something kicked up from the back tyre and onto the bottle.
That bottle mounted on your downtube looks like a prime target for crud and germs.
Bidons with caps only for me now. Inconvenient but better than getting dusty lips or laid up in bed for weeks with typhoid! lol

 

That pic was just a test run; the lower cage is to hold a stainless steel screwtop for camp stove fuel!

 

Got my first bike computer, a Garmin Edge Explore (original). Mostly b/c my old, crappy iPhone keeps dying when I use it to navigate around London, but I'm planning to get out for some long road rides, too.

I need to figure out all of the navigation options. CityMapper is my favorite bike mapping app for London, where finding a good, quiet route will really make your ride a lot nicer. Doesn't seem to integrate with Garmin though? Have used Garmin's built-in mapping a couple times, and it finds okay routes, but I trust CityMapper more.

Hmm. More shit to learn.

 

Try mapmyride.com or ridewithgps.com. Both of those should be pretty easy to export .gpx or .tcx or (easier still) can sync with your devices.

 

Have a butcher's at Komoot. It works for most bike computers if your Garmin has a sync option.


It's my favourite route planning app, especially for gravel rides in NL. 4 map choices and it's own maps are incredibly detailed. Has a raft of functionality as well as i/o options and plays nice with my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt.
Only thing my Bolt doesn't like is when I deviate from the breadcrumb trail I planned in Komoot and then synced to it. It tends to sh!t its pants and do the whole 'I'm confuzzled as fk so i iz gonna reset myself and you're gonna lose time cos of it init' routine.

 

I've used Komoot a few times for cycling and hiking and sync'd it with the Garmin last weekend. However, it took me on a merry chase on the route I (thought I'd) plotted. Will have to try again. It's not so great for on-the-fly routing, which is what a lot of my urban cycling is.

London is maybe a special case in that the quiet cycle routes and Cycle Superhighways are routed through side streets and passageways and parks and take crazy, twisting shapes. It's just the nature of the layout of the city, which is so completely not a grid. So I find that a mix of apps is needed for navigating, with CityMapper the best so far. Google Maps, weirdly, is pretty useless here. It takes you down all sorts of gnarly main roads.

 

I'm really happy with my Giant Talon E+. Before that I had one of those box-of-Chinese-parts-made-into-an-ebike bikes and the Talon has been a yooge upgrade for me.

 

Figured it's time to flex with the new ride. I got an unfortunately incredible deal on this. A friend bought it and received it at the end of last season after waiting the entire season to get it. He suffered an injury and can no longer ride, so I bought it from him at an outrageous price. It was only ridden a few times. I had the local shop replace the bar tape because the factory did a shit job, and added some Crank Brothers Stamp 7 magnesium pedals which are outstanding. I was eventually expecting to move to a full carbon Specialized as an upgrade from my Diverge Comp E5, but this was an opportunity I could not pass on. It rides like an absolute dream but I mostly do long rides through the city like a bum.

Lynskey GR300 Titanium frame, stem, and seat post with literally every available option. Next step is to get rid of this cancer water bottle and get something that doesn't distribute its BPA molecules into my water. Then another bag.

 

Since early Winter I have pretty much left new audio pursuits behind other than a couple cleaning and refurb projects on the bench for friends and some lingering personal backlog work I had started. My wife was gracious enough to allow me to take over the family room for the Winter and so the Park Stand went up as I started going through my early 90's Cannondale Delta V900, doing a deep clean, lube, adjustment, etc. I found this to be very therapeutic. I'm a pretty entry level bike mechanic and have to thank many on YouTube for the tutorials that I have learned a lot from. Probably my favorite channel is BikeFarmer who's attitude is to build and maintain basic bikes so that people just get riding again. No cycle snobbery. Just ride Dammit. There are a lot of similarities between the cycling industry and mid-fi/high end audio.

I continued to go through the family bikes throughout the Winter, replacing parts and adjusting as necessary. I have a few basic tools but picked up a cheap bike tool kit at the pawn shop. I've owned a few pieces from Park for 30 years but it's hard to rationalize buying deep on Park because they get so damn expensive for something I might use once. That's when it's just better to throw some business once in a while to the local bike shop and let them do it.

I rode heavy in my 20s up until my mid 30s. Some road biking but mostly mountain biking. As I am approaching 60 now, the last 15 years I found myself wrenching on bikes more han riding. I bet I did lest than 50 miles in the last 15 yrs total. I decided to get back into it this year. Last month I bought an entry level Salsa Journeyer flatbar gravel bike. My first bike with 650b tires and mechanical disc brakes. I've started to get involved with a new local bike co-op through a connection at the bike shop, which will start up some mechanics classes soon.

I did a 30 mile ride yesterday with my sons and their friend. It was a good time as they had never done more than about a dozen miles at a time but I think they get the allure of casual cycling now. I'm looking forward to continuing with more cycling and wrenching throughout the season this year.

 

Convenient you are in Iowa, @crazychile You can easily join this ride. https://ragbrai.com/

I was too chicken to do it but several of my local friends did it last year for the first (and last) time.

 

Yes RAGRAI is well known to any long residing Iowan. I considered doing it a few times when I was young, but even then riding in a herd of tens of thousands of cyclists though high heat and humidity wasn't my idea of fun. I think it would be more interesting to someone who had never seen Iowa though.