RoadRat3 build ... is it bird? Is it a plane?....

[slackboy]

Thats a lovely bike, I often think about picking one up myself as its a perfect town/commuting/shopping bike. and its orange as all proper cotics should be

 

[2manyoranges]

Well I set it up as a cheating singlespeed - 9speed front ring 36T onto 17T rear on an XT 9spd cassette - just to see whether the ratios were right … and it was good. But of course it was risky - I had a chain with the usual slack-tight syndrome and so yes, after a pothole the chain climbed onto the next gear and jammed up, luckily not bending anything. Out with the Allen keys and reset the chain….Sigh.

So I had a big dig around in the workshop for some stuff to either give me single speed or decent gears ….proper rear cog? … had some nice 16 cogs for the jump bikes.…and some front rings….hmm…only a 36 zee 10 speed. But I do have a 36 narrow wide Hope and a lovely DuraAce 10 speed cassette - ti scrumptiousness. Ok….undergeared SS or lots of high quality gears? I have a long cage SLX 10speed and no 10 speed shifters. I could bodge with the 9spd shifter but let’s see what PINKBIKE has….AH HA!!! A zee short cage rear mech 10 spd and Zee shifter.

So….yesterday, after the new under BB guide came from Sam at COTIC, on went a DOWNHILL short cage mech and a 10speed ROAD cassette with a Downhill shifter. For me, this is a hilarious combination in the spirit of the bike - is it a bird is it a plane - and whilst only a few will find it even mildly amusing, I just like combinations like that. A commuter with a mech which has plummeted down Alps, yet runs very very sweetly.…

 

[Woz]

Noticed too that the Zee and Hone stuff can be good value - the target user group as moved on and it's not that well known.