Today New York finally got a break from the bad weather, so I took my new hybridized Ti bike out for a 30-mile spin.
What I liked:
There were quite a few large hills in northern Long Island, so I was able to put the wide-range cassette to good use. The setup on the Le Champ Ti's SRAM Rival drivetrain is 50/34 chainrings, and a 11-32 cassette that I put in along with a medium-cage Rival rear derailleur. In comparison, my old Sirrus has a narrower range with 50/36 chainrings and 12-27 cassette, and I would I struggle to maintain cadence going up hills, and had to resort to mashing the pedals on the lowest gear. This new bike allowed me to claw up some hills at lower gearing while maintaining cadence without having to mash!
The Ti frame does transmit more bumps and vibrations than my all-carbon Sirrus LTD though, and the titanium frame is louder-- Chain rattle when switching gears and the snap of the derailleurs all make the frame "ring".
What I don't like:
I hate the SRAM dual-lever trigger shifters (no, I didn't get the Double-tap single-lever shifters). For the life of me I can't understand why they want you to use your thumb to move both the upshift and downshift levers, and the second shift lever is tucked all the way forward where it's hard to reach with my thumb. I think I prefer Shimano's Rapid Fire setup much better-- The Shimano index-finger trigger is MUCH easier to reach. I'm tempted to blow another $300 to convert the shifters and derailleurs to Shimano (SL-R770 shifters, R770 front derailleur, and Ultegra 6700 rear derailleur), but that means dropping the rear cassette back to 11-28 (I lose the 32T bailout gear).
I also didn't like the Ritchey seatpost and saddle combo. The amount of set-back on that seatpost is RIDICULOUS. Even with the Ritchey Pro saddle mounted as far forward as it will go, it still puts my butt well over the rear axle, and my knees are nowhere near over the pedals. I couldn't get any power pedaling from that saddle position, and it screws up my weight distribution as well, seems like 90% of my weight is over the back wheel (normal weight distribution is supposed to be something like 70% back 30% front). I'll definitely have to spend another $35 to get the zero-setback seatpost from Nashbar to fix this problem.
In conclusion..
Aside from the two things I didn't like (the SRAM shifters and the Ritchey seatpost) which can be fixed, I'm pretty pleased with this titanium conversion. Total cost so far is $1900 ($1600 for the bike, $300 for the flat-bar components), with another $35 for the zero-setback seatpost that's coming. Potentially another $300 to convert to Shimano if I choose to do so in the future.
The big test will be the Montauk Century on May 15. I'll be riding this bike with the new zero-setback seatpost, but I'm going to leave the SRAM shifters and derailleurs on the bike for now and see if I can get used to it. I'll decide whether or not to switch to Shimano after the Montauk Century.
So if anyone is looking for a Titanium flat-bar ride, I highly recommend trying a conversion like this. It was a great learning experience for me and a great confidence builder-- I never thought I'd work up the nerve to do that much wrenching on my own.
