FWIW, there are a few guys here who are racing old road or touring frames as cross bikes and routinely faster than me, so i don't think there's anything wrong with using the Trek for a season :-)
-- Bill Connell St. Paul, MN On Thu, Sep 3, 2009 at 4:55 PM, Lesli<lesli.lar...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Thanks for all the notes! I'm inspired the by the idea that maybe > brakes (Weinmann calipers) don't matter that much at this point in the > game (as a super slow speed beginning just learning how to get on and > off the bike at a canter). Since I'm mainly trying this out for fun, > I'm not really worried about ground speed. I brought my old trek 420 > to class lass night but was pretty spooked by the gravel track on my > 25c contis! So, I'm opting to try some cheap-y nashbar cross tires on > the Trek before I fully commit to converting the Riv over to cross > duties (especially since it seems easier to locate 700c over 650b > cross tires). The Riv does have nice Pauls centerpulls but I'll > have to do a lot of renovations (remove honjos, convert from downtube > to bar-ends, remove rack, etc) to get it up to speed for this > project. > > LL > > On Sep 3, 12:19 pm, Bill Connell <bconn...@gmail.com> wrote: >> On Wed, Sep 2, 2009 at 6:33 PM, Lesli<lesli.lar...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> > I'm thinking about converting my Riv road (w/centerpulls) for Fall >> > amateur-hour cyclocross (going to my first clinic tonight). I was >> > planning to use my old vintage fenderless Trek 420 but I'm not sure if >> > the weinmann calipers will hold up in muddy conditions (I THINK I >> > could retrofit the bike with slightly wider cross tires). >> >> > Any suggestions for 650b type cross tires or other possible points of >> > conversion. Wondering if it would be better to set up bike as a >> > single speed or maybe switch over to single chainring in front, seven >> > speed block in back with a more burly derailleur). >> >> > What do other folks who run mountainbike-ish road bikes use in the way >> > of tires and drivetrain set-ups?? >> >> I raced my first season returning to cyclocross on my Redwood, so i'd >> guess that your Road should work pretty well too. My only caveats >> would be whether you can get any kind of knobby tire in there (i don't >> know the Road's clearance), and your chances of success will be much >> greater if it's not super muddy. On my Redwood i could get a 35c >> 'cross tire in with no problem. No fenders, of course. There are >> people who race with centerpulls on old frames around here and they do >> fine, but i think in general our 'cross season isn't nearly as muddy >> as around Oregon. >> >> I highly recommend a single chainring setup if you're racing with >> gears. I switched to singlespeed last year, but before that i used a >> 1x8, and it was plenty of gear range. I really only used about 3 of >> the gears in any given race. Like Jim noted, expect accelerated wear >> on parts, particularly rims and brake pads and drivetrain, depending >> on conditions. >> >> -- >> Bill Connell >> St. Paul, MN > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
