KonAaron Snake 

One more winter with 26 x 2.0 wheels. If I spend a lot of time slipping and sliding this year, it's off to the land of Pugsley next winter. For those late to this show, I picked up a Litespeed Obed frame for a song and was talked into building it up.

The build progess'eth:

I scored pretty good yesterday -

Suntour Command shifters
Origin 8 copies of dirt drop bars
8sp XT rear d.
I forget the front d I picked up - I think it was Suntour XC
XT v-brakes
Tektro v-brake levers

Capecodder

You know the deal.... PICS!

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Most of the command shifters I've seen, including the pair I use on my Team Miyata are for suntour 7 speed. There's a switch on em that claims to switch them into friction but in reality its just sorta like less pronounced indexing.

In order to get mine to be pure friction I had to take the right shifter apart and remove the little ball bearings that make it index and then cut a thin plastic washer out of a 2 liter soda bottle to fill up the space that used to be taken up by the little indexing bearings. That last part of making the plastic washer/spacer was the key...

KonAaron Snake 

Nothing to show yet - I haven't started putting anything together. It'll come. I wanted to get some thoughts on the direction though.

I'm trying to keep this low budget...I want to come in under $400 on the build and seem to be well on track thus far.

KonAaron Snake 

CRUD! That's what i was worried about. I had planned to run them friction, but was dipping my toe out to see if it would work as I was intending.

So am I at barcons now? There has to be another option out there. Maybe road thumbies.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Dude, removing the indexing is simple and the reward is awesome Command Shifters. Its really just as easy as unscrewing the thumb screw and the only difficult part is popping the little circlip off in order to disassemble the unit. Ok, the other difficult part is getting the circlip back on but its all pretty easy IMO.

If you want to, just mail me your shifters and I'll remove the indexing for you.

fender1

Studded tires on this beast? If not, you will slip & slide regardless.........

KonAaron Snake 

I'm hoping to do two wheelsets. One studded and one thick knobby.

Zaphod - YOU THE MAN! When are you coming down to ride the triplet?

fender1

Just put the studded tires on in December, take them off in April. Any day that is not snowing, the studs help to qualify that day as an "additional training" day........

rhm

Another option with the Suntour Command, if I recall correctly, is to use the "left" one on the right. It doesn't index.

But instead of offering useful suggestions, I really should be needling Aaron about buying Suntour stuff. Don't know what's wrong with me this morning.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Dunno man, I really want to but its so difficult now that I'm up in VT, maybe Thanksgiving weekend if I can swing it,

PM me or email me about the command shifters, I can make quick work of those if you want

KonAaron Snake 

I think it's the right part for the job...and it's a MTB. We all know how Campy's forray into MTBs went. Beyond quality, doing a Campy MTB gruppo would be difficult and expensive. I want a winter bike, not a show piece. I don't like barcons (especially in slippery conditions), so it was thumbies or Suntour Commands...unless there's something I'm overlooking. STI is pricier than I want to go on this build. I want to do the whole thing under $400, which i think rules out STI. I also don't think indexing offers any real advantage for what I want it for. Heck - I strongly considered going single speed.

For the record, I have NO problem with Suntour stuff or Suntour as a brand. I had a Superbe group on a bike that I liked - and while it wasn't as attractive or as polished as Campagnolo, it did work well. The hoods were notably cheesey and the cranks definitely seemed a touch below in quality. I didn't like the feel of the shifters or the levers as much, but that's personal. The brakes seemed a bit weaker, but that might have also been more pad wear or I might not have set them up as well. The hubs were definitely not as smooth as Campy Records...after new bearings and an overhaul. For the most part it was a Japanese copy of Campagnolo meant to look like Campagnolo at a lower price, with a rear derailleur that worked better for applications I didn't need it for with that bike. None of it worked any better than Campagnolo when used as tight cluster racing equipment.

Suntour is great for what it is. I think it's VERY over priced when compared to Campagnolo on the used market. It's not Suntour I dislike, it's how some of the Suntour fans act. They remind me of students at Duke - who wear t-shirts that read "Harvard, the Duke of the north". If they want to prefer Suntour/Duke, that's fine...but no one at Harvard worries about Duke, or considers themself to be in competition with Duke. Almost every 5-6sp freewheel bike I buy ends up with a Suntour freewheel. They made AWESOME freewheels.

The stuff I truly loathe is SA Photogravity bait.

-holiday76

i might be able to give you a deal on some studded tires with very little use. It seems I won't be needing them for a few years. I picked them up at the end of last season and only used them a few times. I forget the model but if there is interest i'll get all that.

KonAaron Snake 

Dude - please do. Sold!

So you're moving?

Plus side - less flip competition.
Down side - I'll miss ya'.

-holiday76

Yup, California bound in late January. I'll probably be back in a few years though.

If I dont get back to you by say Monday on the tires send me a reminder. Got a lot going on.

BluesDaddy

I wonder if 2.0 tires are ever right for snow. They seem to fall in the middle between cutting through the snow and floating over it. This winter I'll be riding 27 X 1-3/8" knobbies. I'm hoping those tires will slice through the glop.

RFC

Another thought on shifters. If you don't like bar ends, how about an old set of Deore thumb shifters (the ones that are a separate unit from the brakes. You can place them where you want on the bars and run them on friction. And you should be able to pick them up relatively cheap.

photogravity

And I definitely bit!! As far as this project goes, it is such a natural for using an IGH, I simply can't understand why you'd NOT use one. <sigh>

With that said, since you have such disdain for SA, a Sachs/SRAM P5 or S7 would be great choices for something like this. I recently won an auction for S7 and i-Light hubs for a mere $80 shipped.

Finally, without pictures, it didn't happen. Get with it man!!

noglider 

Or treat yourself to a Rohloff hub. Just kidding. I respect your $400 limit.

I may have missed a fuller description in another thread. What frame, rims, and tires will you be using?

Bluesdaddy makes a good point. Sometimes you want to slice through the snow (right?) and sometimes you want to stay on top of it. Slicing requires narrow tires and high pressure. Walking on snow, Jesus style, requires wide tires and low pressure.

Dan, thanks for the tip on de-index-ifying shifters. I bought a pair of thumbies just for that purpose and botched them. Lost some tiny parts to them, so I'll never make them work again.

Aaron, I think thumbies are cool. Consider them.

And I know you're immovable on this idea, but I also like bar-end shifters. My new Cross Check has them with Shimano 9-speed indexing on the right. They work amazingly well. The left shifter works in a retrofriction way, which is also very spiffy.

Sixty Fiver

I love my SA equipped winter bike... 3 is all I need and have ridden through many winters this way with nary a problem.

gaucho777 

We're not even half way through Fall! Must you use the dreaded "W" word already? (Sorry, I didn't get in as much riding as I had hoped this year, and I'm in impending winter denial mode. )

KonAaron Snake 

I haven't picked the wheels yet, so I don't know what I'll end up with. All jokes aside, SA 3sp WOULD be a good choice for this application. My problem with it boils down to changing tires; I just don't want to sacrifice QR. I think single speed is a viable option as well.

Thumbies are definitely a choice, but the Commands seem so cool for this. Barcons are hard enough normally for me! On a winter drop bike? I'd have to be desperate...and if I went that route, I'd use stache bars.

auchencrow

Go with Nokians.
The studs stay set, unlike practically every other tire where they're merely bling.

(These are THE hard-core snow/ice tires.)

-holiday76

if you run these tires you will never have to fix flats.

https://www.conti-online.com/generato...keclaw_en.html



they measure 26x2.1"

email for price if you're still interested.

bbattle

What kind of winters do you suffer through in Berkeley?