Big Gears, Cranks & Wheels

Big Gears, Cranks & Wheels is the title. It could have been The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. First the good-

Good Part #1

I had a pretty sweet workout tonight. Pushed some big gears to work on leg strength for 1:30. Felt good to push the legs. So that was good, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Good Part #2

Tom called tonight and the Campeon is nearly finished. He said the worst part was getting some of the parts off my Trek, but he actually building of the Campeon was fine. BUT....

"BUT" of course leads to the Bad

The new Shimano R700 compact crank is being a bit of a pain in the ass. The chain rubs the 50T when the in the 34 in the front and the first 4 gears in the rear. Makes a loud, clanging rubbing noise that would render those gear useless and essential give me 14 speed rather than an 18 speed. Chain is in spec, front derailleur is fine, etc., etc., Wheel are in motion to figure it out. If not, the old one will go back on and the R700 will be going back to Bikeman.com or will be hitting the market. Shit!

The Ugly

After Tom got the Campeon all built up he was going over everything like a good anal retentive mechanic does, and spotted more than a couple cracks in my Bontrager Race wheels. Man this sucks. The good part is they were spotted now and didn't blow apart on me going down a hill a 45 mph! Still sucks though.

Just like a car out off warranty it seems like a ton of shit went down hard (fork and now wheels) on the 2200 just as it's about to have it's 4th birthday next week. I can't complain, I rode that bike hard and put an estimated 7,000+ miles on it in that time. So it's not like it didn't get used. And that is what having a bike is all about. Riding the hell out of it. If it just sits in your basement, you just have yourself a rolling nick-nack.

Oh well time to do some crank research and look for some wheels. Did I say "shit!"? I did? OK, good.

Later.