WHAT CHANGES THE RIDE?
I was lucky enough to be able to ride alot of different bikes in my life. So I had a lot of reference when thinking about, what really changes the ride quality. What really makes a difference in the bikes handling, or how much fun it is to ride the bicycle. Surprise, it's not the weight. It doesn't matter how light a bike is, when going up a hill, at least not as much as you would think. If you have ever had the chance of riding up a steep climb with a modern mountain bike that has got a 30 or 32 tooth chainring up front and a 50 T bailout gear in the back, you know that it's not the weight of the bike that decides about being able to pedal all the way to the top, or stepping down with the foot when being only half way. Besides of your own physical abilities/ your power and of course the tire choice, it's most likely the gearing that decides about success or failure. I wanna tell you more about tire choice later, for now let's only focus on gearing.
So with that in mind, one thing was for sure: I don't wanna have typical roadbike gearing. 53 tooth in the front, for what exactly? Being able to pedal even if you're free falling? I don't get it. Seriously, I could never ever use the full range of the gearing on any road bike I ever had as long as I wouldn't ride in a peloton and having the physical advantages of draft. This is the only possible circumstance where I think road bike gearing is needed and making sense. And to make sense, this is exactly what it is constructed for, pros riding in a peloton. Not your weekend warrior that's riding mostly alone fighting against the wind. So that's that.
Now that I knew what I wouldn't wanted, more problematic still searching for what I want, and what alternatives even were out there available? With friction shifting, I was sure that I don't wanted a 1-by system and then having to fine adjust between 11 or 12 gears in the back. I wanted a maximum of 8 gears to keep things simple. That made the choice in the front easy... 2 by. classy, but the smallest tooth I could find on any new production crank was 50/34. Again, classic road bike gearing. So I kept searching and the best alternative seemed to me would be an old crankset off of a 90s mountainbike. The smaller bcd would allow to use smaller gearing and best thing is they are cheap! Right about exactly what I was searching for.
I found this beautiful sugino crankset on ebay and bought it for 30 Euros. The chainrings were in an ok condition but I decided to replace them anyway. Easier said then done! What I had to find out then was, that it was nearly impossible to find replacement chainrings with the smaller bcd (bolt diameter). Most of the tooth that I was searching for were already gone. After days of searching I could finally score a 44 t and a 30 t. That was, what I had calculated would fit perfect with the 34-11 cassette I had in the back. The 44 with the beautiful titanium finish did fit perfectly on to the cranks, but the 30 unfortunately didn't fit at all. Bicycle-standards... I can tell you a thing or two about it. With no acess to a turning machine this was a ton of filing till it would fit and so I did file till it did fit. Gearing situation completed!
I was talking about tires and their effect on ride quality and performance earlier. If you know me, you know by now that I'm an absolut tire-nerd. Doesn't matter what forms of transportation, cars, motorcycles, strollers, whatever... tires are a make it or brake it thing to me. I did even cut my tires for the chopper to further customize what I was rolling on. So with that said, the look of the tires and what it does to the overall look and vibe of the bike is not to be overlooked here! But, aesthetics isn't what I want to dive too deep in here, at least for now. More important is the fact, that the tires are two of the five very important contact points on a bicycle. Contact what? you might ask!
Contact-points are, together with the gearing of the bike, the most important parts to consider on a bicycle if your looking for altering the experience of riding this particular bicycle. To make things clear, the following drawing should illustrate, what and where these contact points are.
In no particular order:
hands/bars
ass/saddle
feet/pedals
front tire/ground
rear tire/ground
Every ever so slightly change of these points will have a very big impact on how the bike feels and rides. Every single point is very important and needs to be looked out precisely. For now, I only wanna look at the tires, not because this would be the most important part (every single point is equally important) but because of the fact, that the tires mean two points of contact, what, believe it or not, gets overlooked a lot! Or how many factory bicycles do you know of, that have different tires in the front and the back? Yes, that's right. From a physiological standpoint it does only make sense to have missmatching tires in front and back on your two wheeled vehicle.
If your now expecting theoretical knowledge about tire width in comparison with rolling resistence, your in the wrong place, you will read about those things some where else. What I wanna show you is what I did find out, by experimenting and trying different tires and especially why it's crucial for me, to have different tires front and back.
First of all, the requirements for the tires/ contact points for front and rear wheel are completely different. Even the weight distribution with you on your bicycle makes for different needs. But to brake it don't and make it easy understandable, the front tire should be able to steer and brake versus the rear tire is manly in it's place to put the power from every pedal stroke to the ground and only a little bit of braking. Refering onto the theoretical knowledge about tires, the tire would roll best, with having the least thread pattern, in other words, being the most of a slick possible. But how much thread is really needed?
I did a lot of experiments with the standard 'gravel' threads that there are available. It was not until I talked to the guy from our local bike shop that I changed my mind. He's only riding rene herse slicks on all of his rides and he was saying something like: If you need more thread, you're probably on the wrong bicycle mainly. I couldn't believe it and so I had to try. I did get some Panaracer semi slicks and rode these all winter long. I found out, that the main thing that changed the grip was, surprise, the tire pressure. If the tires would be inflated to the right pressure, they worked insanely good. Almost unbelievably good. Super steep rocky climbs, even when a little bit muddy, would be no problem at all. And all of this with a next-to-slick tire. I was convinced. The only downside I noticed, was the front tire slipping away when braking downhill or making for a not so save ride in wet corners, but maybe that's just what my mind said. And the best thing was... even if these were 43mm wide tires, they rode like proper road bike tires on concrete with no noticeable rollingresistance disadvantage.
With this knowledge about what tires I need for the riding that I do (most important fact that you find the tires for your special needs not the needs of somebody else), I knew that I wanted to go full slick in the back and only a slight more thread then a slick in the front. My choice now is the panaracer slick in the back (700x43) and the ultradynamico cava up front (700x42). What I'm not talking about here is tire casings, cause this would mean stepping into a whole other realm of knowledge and experience. Just let me tell you this much: the more supple the casing, the more lighter and puncture-un-resistent the tire is, the better it is rolling, damping and feeling.
Now you might question: But what about all the other contact points that there are? No worries, I got you covered. More about that in the following letters...
love, xoxo
Alex
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