I'm contemplating gears.
 

I hate to even admit this but I'm contemplating putting gears on my pinarello. I LOVE riding the bike, it's so low and so fast and so sexy. I get on and I just want to make it go as fast as it can, it's like an addiction. I'm even thinking that at some point I'd like to enter a few duatholons or a TT or two on it. I want to go fast the bike wants to go fast..... but those stupid dropouts. I can fit 52/16 or any 4 tooth up or down combination on there and it works great, the problem is that this doesn't leave me as many options for gearing as I'd like, espically if I'm going to race it. So that would mean that I would have to put track ends on the bike, I'm not opposed to this idea, but the cost of track ends, repaint, a new wheel/hub (one that's actually 130) and an assortment of cogs starts to look expensive. Especially agianst the cost of a mid/low level rear wheel/casette/rear derailer. I'd certainly run it 1/9, who needs more gears than that, really now. But I'm torn, I gave up this whole geared thing because they drove me crazy and I didn't like to screw with them. I found peace and harmony and happiness in my fixes/SS world. If I find out that gears really do suck I'm not out that much money and I guess I can still run the bike as a fixie as it sits when I want to. Ah crap.

I'd say something crass, but I own a bike with gears (shocking, it's AL too..),
and, really, read my signature quote from Haymme.

There's nothing wrong with gears. I've got two bikes with only one gear, and the other two have triples. They all get me where I want to go at some point or another.

Can you post a picture for me, just one.. please.....

do it. just do it, you know you'll love it even more when it's done. i love my pinarello road bike. it's old, it's lugged steel, and it's got last year's all black 105 on it. that bike is so god damn fast and nimble and responsive and just an all out joy to ride. my only complaint about it is that it doesn't have a 650c front wheel.

i have to say that i lust after your pinarello, and i've built it up in my head about a dozen times, so if you'd like any suggestions, i'd be more than happy to offer them up!

PS, i started out riding ONLY SS and fixed gear bikes, and i gotta say, once i had the option to ride a nice, slick road bike with gears, i don't think i could ever get rid of it again. i don't really mess with them too much, and STIs work really, REALLY well on bullhorns..feels like i'm piloting a friggen space ship!

oh, and i still really, REALLY enjoy riding fixed, it's just sometimes i wanna go fast without having to work so hard to slow down again.

i too own a geared road bike, and gain high levels of satisfaction from riding at a variety of speeds while maintaining the same cadence.

i never ride it in the city, thats what my fixie is for.

Like archtop jazz guitars, I've admired fix's and single speeds for a long time. Problem is I know full well that I'd rather look at one rather than play/ride one much in the real world. So when I was jonesin' for a simple, light weight bike to compliment my bullit proof but HEAVY commuter, I decided to go in the opposite direction of your 1/9 idea. I had a single speed rear built up arount a Novatec SS casset hub and hooked it up to a 48/38/28 MTB triple up front with a White Industries Melvin chain tensioner in between - and oh yea, a little itty bitty front derailleur. With a 16 tooth cog in the rear the 28 will climb a fairly knarly hill; the 38 will spin up slighter inclines and false flats; and the 48 will motor along level road pretty well. That 48/16 isn't tall enough to really juice a descent, but what track set up short of an hour record bikes is? Sometimes you have to sit back and watch the world coast by.

Did I mention the same bike was set up as a 1/9 when I bought it from REI? In that guise it had nearly the same top speed limitation and a much more severe chain line deviation in the lowest and highest gears. I think you could put together some taller gear ratios using a road double or triple. You can't do a bigger spread using the Melvin though; it will only handle a total spread of 20 teeth, but does so reliably. Any bigger difference in your chainrings and you'd have to use a rear derailleur to take up the slack and that's where I'd draw the line... just ain't right. Anyway, just food for thought. Have fun.

DanO

Here's a few shots, sorry for the quality, I just took them and it's starting to get dark. The aero bars look goofy becuase they're an old set of profiles that I couldn't adjust the width on, so yesterday I cut and turned the extensions and moved the whole contraption about 2 inches closer, I have to even up the ends. Still no brakes, but an old cable run through the internal tube routing and electrical taped in place so I can easily run new cable when I actually get brakes on it. Also has a mountain bike front wheel on it, works darn good and it's very close to the size of a real 650 with no cost, since I had it and the tire in the garage.
I've got about $200 total into the bike as it's ridden. I love this bike.

i have my roadie set up with 48/38 chainrings, with 9 cogs in the rear...pretty standard setup. i personally like the 48/38. i've been able to flatten the hills, and the 48/13 combo hardly sees any use. i've noticed that 48 for the largest ring is actually kinda good for maintaining pretty high speeds. large enough to cruise at speed on, but small enough to spin a good cadence to keep the legs from crashing, and even sometimes sprint with. i'm really happy with my setup, because it's all i really need.

i thought about the 1/9 thing, and every once in a while i give it serious consideration, but i don't think i'd be happy with it, mostly for chainline issues, but i also like having room on both ends of the spectrum.

i was actually thinking about setting up a 3 or 4 cog cluster and playing the the RD limit screws to make it work right...like, using a 9-speed hub, put spacers on it so the cogs would be somewhere in the middle...i was trying to work out which cogs i'd want on my last ride and came up with 14-16-19-23....but that's for berkeley, where there are hills. if i was gonna set it up for a place like boston, i'd do 14-15-16-17...combined with the 48/38, of course.

I have a geared MTB Gary Fisher '96 Hoo-koo-e-koo which I like but have neglected since I went fixed. I sometimes want gears on a road bike but right now I am still so damn fascinated with one gear that I can't imagine riding anything else with much seriousness.

Love what you ride, ride what you love. Besides who really needs to be a luddite about this crap? Gears do provide some nice alternatives... For instance, if I lived in San Fran or Seattle, I'd want gears for all those hills.

could you post a pic of these? i cant quite imagine how theyd work.

ZING! the only problem i had was the cable routing for the brakes. we tried to push the cables through the little aero holes on the handlebars, but it put too much of a kink in them, so we just left them coming straight out of the hoods...not very "aero," or "clean looking" but then again, neither is the regular STI setup with the shifting cables flappin' out there in the breeze. i don't like road drops because i can never seem to get enough leverage on the brakes from the hoods, and that's where i keep my hands most of the time, so i figured, why the hell not? so far, i've put a bunch of miles on it, including some hill climbs and descents and sprints and distance rides with no comfort problems.

oh yeah...and my bartape job sucks on that bike...it looked nice, but then i switched to standard road drops and used the same tape...and then i switched back again, using the same tape. and by that point i just stopped caring, as long as it was comfy.

I hate to say it, but that's a pretty sweet setup... or as the Marin County kids would say, "Yo, that's hella dope, yo."

familyman, I would start looking for another frame to make up a dedicated fixed. Otherwise you will always wonder.....what would the Pinarello be like going 40mph?

I would also check out a few chiropracters too. Damn that handlebar is low!!!

I already have a dedicated fix, my Kogswell. That bike is right where I want it too, there's not even anything I want to change on it. I think that's the other thing, I already have a nice road fixie that I love to ride, making the pinarello into yet another road fix seems redundant. Well not really, I don't think I could ever have too many fixies.
The handlbar is low but the bike is remarkably comfortable, after an hour pushing around that big gear my neck starts to get a bit still but my back is happy as a clam. I'm actually more refreshed when I get off that bike they when I get off any other bike I own. Just climb on, settle into the aero bars and make it go as fast as you can, so sweet.

I dig that bike. It's making me think 3rensho again.

If I was going to build a bike that was neither geared nor fixed (which i will be soon I hope), I'd do it like this (some bits may not be possible, but I'll deal with those when I get to them). Two rear wheels, one 9 speed, one SS/fixed (obviously you'd need horizontal dropouts). Run the gear cable outer all the way from the shifter to the derailer, so it can (hopefully) be removed in one go, without ruining the indexing. Use a barend shifter, with the cable just going straight out, not under the tape like normal.

With a bit of luck, you should be able to switch between geared and fixed in about 30 minutes, maybe less, just by removing the rear wheel, chain, derailer and shifter, and fitting the fixed rear wheel and a shorter chain (master links would come in handy here). A front derailer or chain guide might have to be used, but it could just stay where it was.

I have a 27 speed al c-dale mtb, with sup forks. I hate the forks.

I faced the same problem when I had to setup a shimano road levers (not sti) on a tsunami cowhorn bar (from chuck's). When I tried to route the cable through the aero hole it was just not possible because the kink was too acute. So I picked up a noodle (used on MTB v brakes), bent it a little (it is already 90 degrees, but a few more degrees was necessary for mine), cut it to length and inserted it into the aero hole. The cable housing ends at one end of the noodle (just like in a MTB v brake) inside the bar. The other end of noodle is in contact with the brake lever (where the cable would end otherwise). It takes some patience to get it right, but not that difficult. It looks super clean and well worth the effort. Braking is smooth since the noodle has a plastic tube inside that provides friction free movement for cable.

that. is a pretty sweet idea! maybe next time i'm taping up the bars, or changing cables i'll try that. although, i don't really mind the way it looks, since the shift cables are already hanging out...