After much finangling for a few hours yesterday, including the use of a drill and some creative adaptations to the mounting points on the Strada, I finally got the fenders on. I think I learned my lesson from my last 2 fender mounting disaster attempts on my old bike, and just didn't cut the stays short in case I ever wanna upsize from x32c tires. I just had to trim the top 2 stays on the front a little bit to prevent them from knocking into the cables that run on the downtube. Also a pic of the Hy/Rds that were supposed to be BB7s
Originally Posted by
chas58
gorgeous bike, and looks perfect for what you are doing. Looks like you already changed the tires?
Yep, the x40c stock Nanos were the first thing to go. To be fair, I tried them out a little on a test ride after getting the basics set up. You can definitely feel and even hear the high amount of rolling resistance those monsters have. So I put some x32c Vittoria Zaffiros on there instead. Actually, it was quite a biotch to mount those; very tight to get on and I only had spare tubes of size 20-25c available, and the two that I attempted to use got pinched...
But when I used the huge tubes that came with the Nanos, they apparently worked no problem. Now I bought 28-32c tubes from the LBS and keep those in my bags in case of flats
Originally Posted by
RubeRad
Nice lookin bike! Love the orange, it's about the same as
my moto hardtail.
As for disc brakes, I also had some trouble. I found that the recommended method of loosen bolts, squeeze brake, tighten bolts, was not sufficient. I had to enlist a third hand and also nudge the caliper in the desired direction, and tighten very slowly & carefully, trying not to let the force of the bolts disturb anything.
Pretty sure mine is the same color as yours too! Yeah, my main method was that squeeze & tighten, with a little bit of wiggling thrown in, and now it seems to be mostly good.
Originally Posted by
Darth Lefty
It's a 110 crankset so the 34 low is already as low as it goes. Other cranksets make a plausible option but you have to go a little off-spec.
Probably the easiest: FSA is offering "adventure" cranks in 46/30, you can find the Tempo square taper version on eBay for <$100.
Mountain double cranksets have a chainline that's offset 2.5mm outward of a road bike so there's a wee bit more cross chaining once it's adjusted, but they are offered in smaller ring sizes, as low as 36-22.
You can get a MTB triple (42-32-22) or hybrid triple (48-38-28) crank and remove the outer ring. The result is near the correct chain line but it's not attractive because the outer ring is where they do all the styling.
You can get a road triple, but you'd need a different shifter and maybe a longer RD.
Cassette options.
There's a rare orphan SRAM cassette that goes 11x11-36. Your RD
might make it. Not guaranteed.
You can get an XT cassette in 11x11-40. But you need a widget to space your RD far enough out to shift it.
https://www.wolftoothcomponents.com/products/roadlink
All these options may involve a change in chain length.
And that's what you get when Dan can't sleep
Wow, thanks for the info overload on that. Seems like it would be more of a pain to try to swap out the crank and/or cassette, since I forgot you also need to adjust the chain length too. Figure I'll just need to get my fat sack into shape; at least that's free!
Originally Posted by
NormanF
Adventure/gravel road bikes make excellent commuters. They can take fenders with 35c tires and their stable geometry allows one to haul heavy loads on a rear rack even on the roughest of roads.
They're reasonably priced and are much better suited to the commuting role than traditional road bikes were.
I agree. The Giant Defy I was using, while certainly lighter than the Strada and decent-ish at commuting, really wasn't made for that role. Using fenders with the caliper brakes really limited my tire sizes to not more than 25c, and I had to swap out the derailleur just to get good gearing.