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Old 07-28-11 | 10:30 AM
  #225  
borobike
Dept. store bike bandit
 
Joined: May 2011
Posts: 329
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Glad to help! I haven't had the opportunity to see the women's version up close, but I'd be willing to bet that it almost certainly uses the same components on a smaller frame.

Also, I noticed above you were wondering about the best way to go about getting a higher top speed. Ordinarily, I'd recommend replacing the freewheel because it's cheaper, easier, and doesn't necessarily have to change the way your bike performs in it's lowest gear if you keep the tooth count the same. But the Denali uses a freewheel from Sunway which, while a decent performer, seems to require a tool to remove that is not commonly available. My bike shop couldn't remove it and yours might not be able to either without damaging the wheel.

That being the case, I'd recommend swapping out the front cranks. Your current crank has a large ring with a 48 tooth count, you'll want something with more. Most mountain bike cranksets seem to have the 48 tooth count (this is what the Denali has, a mountain crank) while the road cranks may have anywhere from 50-53 usually. You'll want at least a double to give you a bailout gear for hills (I find some hills impossible to go up in the large chainring, mine is 52 teeth) and you may have to change out your front derailleur for a road derailleur if you find, like I did, that the stock derailleur is too wide and strikes the crank arms on each revolution. Any Shimano road derailleur will work well, as long as it's clamp on and not braze on. I went with Sora and it's absolutely flawless.

A note on the above though: If you do change out your crank arms and derailleur, there's a fair chance that your stock shifter won't work with it. I can't say for sure because I'd already changed out the shifters by the time I changed the crankset and derailleur.
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