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Old 02-28-05 | 05:32 PM
  #21  
Ken Cox
King of the Hipsters
 
Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 2,128
Likes: 2
From: Bend, Oregon

Bikes: Realm Cycles Custom

I got home from work this morning, put the Pista in the workstand, loosened the axle nuts and got the wheel perfectly square in all axes.
That felt good.

I still had a little noise.

So I rode to my physical therapist appointment and demonstrated the Pista for him in his parking lot.
It amazes me how such an agile bike behaves itself so well at slow speeds.
I have never felt this confident on a bike.
Anyway, he wants one now.
Can't live without it.

Then on to my lbs, where he put the Pista in a workstand and looked and listened.
He said it doesn't get any better than this, and in 500 miles I won't hear a thing.
I already don't hear anything.

I asked him about bottom brackets, and specifically a Phil Wood bb, and whether that would give me the silly millimeter or two I wanted to make it perfect.
He said he'd sell me one and install it for me, but he considered it an unnecessary extravagance (he said it nicer than that) and it would move both my pedals to the right.
I think he used the phrase "Q factor."

OK.
As I rode home, though, I thought about what absntr had written earlier.
Wouldn't a wider bottom bracket move both pedals away from each other?
In other words, instead of drifting the entire bottom bracket to the right, with a Phil Wood, couldn't I move the right pedal to the right and the left pedal to the left with a much less expensive, but wider, bottom bracket?

I have probably revealed my naked dangling ignorance here, for all to see, but I've done the naked dangling ignorance thing before and survived.

Anyway, do I have a correct basic understanding of the bottom bracket width?
Can I move both pedals further apart, and, in the process, move my chain ring to the right, with a wider bottom bracket?

For geekylucas:

I love my Pista.
In fact, I have an unwholesome relationship with it.
Despite the silly millimeter issue, I have never enjoyed anything (except you know what) as much as this bike.
It literally flies, and I feel like an F-16 pilot on this little steel pony.
Hm.
A little steel pony that flies: Pegasus.
Pegacito!
Cheap?
Maybe.
Thanks, Bianchi, for making it cheap.
It works, looks cool, and I can afford it.
A good design will overcome a lot of cheap.

So, I got home, put the Pista in the workstand, spun up the wheel and eyeballed the chain line from the rear.
No doubt about it: it wouldn't hurt for the chain ring to move over to the right just a teeny widdle bit.
For that matter, it wouldn't hurt for it stay right where Bianchi put it.
Fascinating.

If I could improve the chain line for a few bucks, I'd like to do it.
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