Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Bicycle Insanity

I have elevated my goofy bike to a new level of insanity. The bike is a Cobrabikes Royale front wheel drive carbon fiber recumbent with 20" wheels.

Look, there's a barcon shifter mounted to a Paul's Thumbie on the left for the "rear" derailleur.
And a barcon shifter mounted to a Thumbie on the right for the front derailleur.
And a twist grip on the right???



Yep, here's the explanation. A SRAM DualDrive hub with three internal gears.



And a 10 speed Dura-ace cassette on the DualDrive.



With my nice new SRAM X.0 derailleur.



Which gives me a 90 Speed Bike!!!

The DualDrive wheel adds 2 llbs over the weight of the previous wheel, according to Debra's baking scale. That's only a half ounce per new gear!

Seriously, what I get from this is a wider gear range, and much easier shifting on the front derailleur. I used to have 26/44/63 chainrings up front, which barely shifted. That gave me 17 to 105 gear inches.

According to Sheldon, here is what I have now:




13 to 122 gear inches! I rode it home from work today, and went up Gun Road as a test. It was so cushy. I spun up the 20% grade, in the next to lowest gear. It was slow, but not in the least painful.

And I bet I have the only 90 speed bike in town.

Oh yeah, here's today's jerk cab driver illegally parked in the trolley lane.

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