Originally Posted by pm124
Hey, IH, I thought you were a Bike Friday guy. You don't have that kind of setup?
I do have a NWT; I love and recommend the bike to others with certain caveats.
The best option, in my opinion, with a derailer drivetrain is some standard crank with the capreo hub/cassette in the rear. One can still maintain good STI shifting with the front derailer and have a decent upper end (~106 GI with the Sheldon Brown calculator). However, the capreo cassette is pretty wide in the rear. So finding the "perfect" gear with so little granularity can be difficult. Generally, I don't find this to be a problem.
However, as I approach the upper limit of my ability and try to ride with the better roadies in pacelines and such, the lack of granularity usually means that I am either slightly spinning more or mashing more than I am comfortable. Not a big deal for a short and fast ride. But as the mileage approaches 50-60, it begins to wear thin and I get dropped.
I am still working on the engine; but I figure that as the engine improves I will just find another group of riders that a bit faster than me over the long haul.
Just to be complete, after I finish the Mini mods ... I am building the wheels this and next week ... some drivetrain changes to the Nova are beginning to cross my mind. At the moment, I have the stock triple on the front (52-42-30) with a Harris Cyclery 13-30 cassette on the rear. But I am thinking that a trekking crank (48-36-26) with a narrow cassette (say 12-23/25) would fill a niche in the bike fleet. I would still have a low enough gear to protect my fragile knee; but a fine enough set of gears to keep up with the paleton on these club rides. The best part is that if I need to really climb with the bike or pull a baby trailer, I can swap the 13-30 cassette back on with a standard road rear derailer on the rear.
Any thoughts from the gang?