At some point in the future I'm going to want to build new wheels for the geared racer (it came with 36 3 cross which I'm not fond of for a fast bike), is it still possible to build new wheels with 7 speed cassettes?

Yes. The frame is steel with 126mm rear spacing. You can simply force a 9/10 speed 130mm wheel in there. You can still get new 7 speed cassettes to work with 9/10 speed hubs with a proper spacer.

edit: YOU PROMISED PORN!

Di2 belongs on a Schwinn varsity.

Tonight, promise! Even told the lady I won't be over until I get the photos done

Way down the line I'm gonna look at a lower spoke count wheelset for this thing, maybe 20/24 since this bike won't be seeing the same daily abuse my fixed does. Good to know it's no problem to still get 7 speed wheels

Many of the older low-count spoke wheels made by Shimano are availabe on the cheap since the first upgrade most people make is the wheelset. CanadianCyclist.com has a good classifieds section for that sort of thing, I picked up a set for $100 with rubber last year.

edit: if the hubs are also Shimano 600, you might want to keep those wheels as they are, they are amazing hubs IMHO. I've got a set on my beater and they are very very smooth and fast, I love them.

the consensus is that it's amazing (takes anything you throw at it and they seem to have thought of almost everything), but the price is holding it back from a lot of consumers adopting it

So I get home and guess what?

I realize I took photos of the wrong side of my bike! I'm not going back to the beaches and this bike isn't gonna be exposed to salt again, so here's as good as it gets. New seat to come and I didn't put the fire engine red ATACs on because they're too ugly to photograph. They'll be on come springtime though



Aside from kicking myself over the non drive side photo, the bike rides like a dream.

nice photo, wrong side or not

That is a nice bike. What type of components?

Shimano 600, 53/42 on the front, 7 cogs in the back and indexed downtube shifters. It's my first good geared bike so I'm really excited for spring when I'll get a chance to ride it.

Thanks a bunch guys, and thanks for the advice walking me through the process of finding the bike.

Jet- I guess I'll hold off on wheels for a bit then. The aerodynamic penalty of all those spokes probably isn't as significant as the penalty for not riding in lycra anyway

To properly ride that bike not only do you need lycra you also need proper sunglasses:

Does that really just have one set of water bottle bosses?

Nope, two sets. I just forgot to put the screws back in on the downtube before taking photos. Water bottle cages while practical are ugly as heck so I popped it off for the picture before running outside.

Low-spoke count wheels look awesome but if you snap a spoke, the wheel goes out of true immediately and you have to walk home. I know from personal experience but I was only about 20 minutes from my place.

Great looking bike!

my friend broke a spoke on a crappy set of shimano wheels (24 spoke rear) after less than 500k on them, we were about 40k away from being back and neither of us had a spoke tool, fortunately another cyclist (he was probably 60-70 and wearing a molteni cap, which is awesome) rolled up to help us and he had one, i was able to remove the spoke and true the wheel enough that it was ride-able (with the brake caliper all the way open)

after that i got a new multi-tool with spoke keys on it, would have been a looong walk for him

In my old wool jersey/luddite mind low spokeage is for racing. Either crit course or limp off the side and be picked up kinda racing.

i think they're fine for everyday as long as it's a well built wheel

a lot of people tend to try and go as low weight as possible without taking their weight into account, i don't ride 20/24 because i know i'm too heavy for that wheelset to last, but i'm comfortable riding 24/28, i put close to 5000km on my 24/28 wheelset this year and is as true as when i got it built

on the other hand i refuse to ride alloy nipples or revolution spokes, which i think take more away from the reliability of a wheel than removing a few spokes

I can back you up on the revolution spokes. I had a Daytona rear hub built up with those spokes and it was the spongiest wheel I've used to date.

I agree, although this isn't to say I'd criticize anyone elses wheel choices. On my fg my next wheelset will likely be another 32 3 cross set as for daily use these rock. The geared bike is likely going to be my alleycat bike though so I'm envisioning it as something of a racer.

We'll see though, aside from a new saddle any other changes are speculative and not in the near future really. Just kinda bouncing ideas around at this point, the bike is pretty awesome as it is.

Oh not a criticism, just merely a glimpse into how my age addled mind sorta kinda works. If it's good enough for Henault then it's good enough for me.

I snapped two (hoshi) spokes on my 14h front shamal and it was still rideable without having to even open the QR (actually there isn't - chorus skeleton) on the brake. Rebuilt the entire wheel with Campy spokes and nipples, ****ing amazing now.

Sheldon was right, those hoshi spokes did suck.

I did some computer work for a friend of my dad's today, and he gave me a cool older model Cyclops trainer that works with my bolt on axles. I've set it up and it works great, but I have two questions, probably related to my inexperience with trainers.

First, I feel like my whole bike is slanted to the right - turning my wheel to the left fixes this, but it still feels kind of unstable. Playing with the position of the grippers doesn't seem to fix this at all.

Second, if I pedal quite hard, it feels like my bike is shifting back and forth, with all the load on the axle. Am I just being overcautious? Should I just tighten down the grippers even more?

No, they are on some sort of elastic spring inside the cover-flap... though if the bag was nearly empty it might happen, i have never had it open by accident.

My trainer doesn't really sway or shift back and forth. I have the the connections to my rear wheel on tight. The other thing to note about is that you want to make sure there is a really tight connection with your QR. I have Bontrager on there normally which are flat, but I put on round ones for the trainer. They fit in to the trainer better so it's more secure.

I think I have 20/24's on my road bike. Probably 20,000km on them and only need a minor true on the back wheel. But I'm light and don't ride over curbs or anything. So I'm pretty easy on them.