New Wheels on the Specialized Fleet

Too wet & windy to ride so just finished swapping the FFWD wheels around on the Specialized fleet!

One set acquired last year have just seen daylight for the first time. Roll on summer!

I've Gone Wireless

I didn't write about this last year, but I've had an absolute mare of a time with my 2013 Tarmac gears, pretty much since I got the bike. Although running one of Shimano's top of the range sets, they have always been difficult to tune, suffer from frequent chatter, stiff gear change and chain drop. Last year I tried replacing all the cables; no small deal as they are integral and my local bike shop were less than pleased with how long this took. I even had to return it to them to do it all again! Still the problems persisted.

One option considered was to scrap the whole thing and get a new bike. A bit rash may be? Well, I thought so too, so I've taken the plunge and invested in a wireless electronic groupset running SRAM eTap. Although still pretty revolutionary, I preferred this over Shimano's Di2, as the latter would have had bulky cables and battery packs to thread through those dreaded down and cross tubes, and wireless seemed so much more forward thinking.

I went for the SRAM Red eTAP with the WiFli rear mech to handle cassettes up to 32 teeth. This enabled me to reinstall the Tarmac's original semi-compact chainset (52x36) which I replaced with a compact back in 2015 to handle the Devon hills; the reason being that I would be able to have more teeth on the rear due to both moving from 11-28 to 11-32 and from 10 to 11 speed. Trust me, this is the perfect setup for this area. This will allow me to spin on a climb and still pedal on even the steepest descents.

I set up in the corner of my friendly bike shop; more for moral support and having access to all the right tools. I felt the real bike mechanic! I had booked 2 days off work to complete the installation; I'm a project manager by profession, so knowing my mechanical capabilities, having plenty of contingency was key! As it was, the removal of old and the fitting of new bar tape, leavers, cassette, chainring and derailures, including tuning, took around 5 hours, so I was done and dusted before closing time.

I still have a little bit of fine tuning to do, but the change is dramatic. No more sore wrists pushing on cables and no clunking, rattling, missed gears to contend with. Yes, I'm going to have to keep an eye on battery levels so as to avoid returning from rides on a fixie and walking up hills, and I'm a little lighter in the pocket; but I now have the equivalent of a £6k bike for a fraction of the cost and one that works, looks great and should at least last me another year!

Tarmac Gets A French Compact Upgrade

I've been on holiday in Norfolk this week, not cycling but walking on this occasion. Norfolk is a great location for for doing both, its expansive never ending horizons provide for long days even in winter. This is because it is generally flat, devoid of the hills and hillocks I've become so familiar with on my cycling tours of Devon. In Norfolk, I could probably pedal forever. Here in Devon, my treasured Specialized Tarmac has been beaten on some hills, its semi pro 52/36 crank just simply runs out of steam on some of the more severe climbs. You may remember that in the summer, I chose to take my older Roubaix with its 50/34 compact chainring to climb Mont Ventoux. So, while I've not done any cycling this week, I have taken the opportunity to Devonise the Tarmac. Yes, I've upgraded the chainrings to the hill climbing 50/34 compact configuration.

This is a change I've been pondering for some months. I originally added the Tarmac to my stable to give me greater speed on the straights. My feeling being that the Roubaix was soaking up power through its gel suspension system and that the Tarmac's rigidity and better gear ratio would give me the increased speed I was seeking. In the stats below, the Tarmac (semi-pro) is shown above the Roubaix (compact). The left figure shows the gear ratio for the big ring / small socket - flat riding and right the small ring / big socket - climbing configuration ..

In moving to the compact chainring, I assessed - using a handy iPhone app - that over 10 miles, I'd be just 43 seconds slower and have to spin my legs an additional 65 rotations .. this assumed the impossible that I'd find a 10 mile level piece of road and was physically able to maintain 90 rotations a minute and a speed of 33 miles per hour! This settled it, until I move to Norfolk, being able to actually make it to the top of hills was going to be more important than any 'marginal gains' over the non existent flats! 

The next job, was tracking down the parts and fitting them. I had some really good advice from Chain Reaction, Wiggle and a new find, Tweeks Cycles. Both Wiggle and Tweeks recommended a French manufacturer's chainrings, TA Zephyr. Chain Reaction and Tweeks provided the most useful advice, so I sourced the rings from Tweeks and the tools from Chain Reaction, it seemed only fair .. particularly as Wiggle get most of my other business.

Fitting them was surprisingly easy. The 5 screws came free after initially breaking them free and then it was just a simple case of swapping one for the other. I think the new black TA Zephyrs look much smarter than the standard FSA fittings, and perhaps even a little lighter - may be I will find 'marginal gains' after all!

I was not sure if I would need to shorten the chain. The forums did not seem to agree on this. My plan was to compare chain lengths with my Roubaix, now of the same configuration, but could not believe it when they were an identical 54 links! I found, however, that the chain clunked a little when leaving it unchanged, so removed a link and found it to run much smoother. This was most odd, considering the bikes are the same size. The other change was to the height of the front derailer. This was, however, another inexact science. I think the final position chosen is OK as in the test ride gear changing was smooth enough, naturally time will tell!

I'm now hoping for a dry weekend sometime soon to take it on a hillclimb test .. may be even another trip to Mont Ventoux in the summer?!

AVP Thursday Climbs & Punishment Social Ride!

Thursday saw me make a return to the AVP fold with a social 25ish mile saunter through the Devon lanes under a brilliant blue sky. Having just returned from my Mont Ventoux adventure, I was expecting to eat up the hills without trouble and I certainly had my fill tonight.

Riding in the AVP peloton

After 2 years of cycling the local roads, there are very few which I've not covered with the AVP; only my poor memory continues to make for an interesting cycle! Thursday's ride, however, saw Tigger leading us down paths we'd not travelled before on a highly enjoyable if not lumpy ride. With over 2k ft of climb, many of the hills in excess of a 10% gradient, I was glad to be riding my Ventoux busting Roubaix, its gearing so very well suited to these hilly and bumpy lanes.

AVP'ers and our pink member under the viaduct arches

I was not out riding my new Tarmac, not due to the hills, but because I think its bottom bracket bearings have gone! After less than only 600 miles, I am not best pleased to be following in the footsteps of my previous two bikes, in having to return to the Bike Shed for a warranty repair. I'll keep you posted on what they find, indeed I may be wrong and it may be something less major. If a strip down and new bearings are required, I'm tempted to get the FSA components swapped out for a compact Shimano chainset. Specialized have recently been using FSA (Full Speed Ahead) components in place of Shimano on some of their high end bikes, I have no idea why, may be cost. Back in March this year, Mark Cavendish caused a crash in Terrino following his chain slipping off the big cog, something my Tarmac was doing for many of my early rides. May be he too lost confidence in FSA as he was then spotted in May riding with a Shimano chainset!

AVP Moonscape Evening Ride

After a week off the bike, following my Dad's 80th birthday celebration, I met up last night with around a dozen Pedallers for a sunny 24 mile evening ride out around our Devon lanes.

It started routinely with Tigger and Jolly hatching out a route which had us heading out of Seaton into the setting sun towards Beer. With my Roubaix being prepared for an upcoming France adventure, I risked a ride out on my full carbon Tarmac, built for smooth asphalt and speed. All was going well until, along the TT favoured strip across Farway Common, we dropped down a steep drop to the little village of Woodbridge. The hill itself was a joy to descend, although I may have screamed like a girl at one point after meeting an elderly lady behind the wheel of a luckily small car, ascending at a narrow section at the bottom of the hill. Having little or no time to warn her that I was not alone, I was glad to see at the next regrouping point, everyone else seemed to get passed OK.

Pedallers regrouping in Woodbridge .. spot the Tarmac leaning against the wall

From here, the asphalt was replaced with a moonscape of shingle, boulders and craters. Nothing close to a road surface befitting the use of carbon rims and slick tyres was to be seen until we surfaced again at Seaton Junction! From here we slipstreamed our way back to Seaton, some departing along the way, others ending at the Kings Arms for well deserved refreshments.

It was a good ride, particularly the surfaced sections where the Tarmac performed beautifully.