Building a Commuter - Advice?

[AC43]

Dammit said:

My cross bike is 1x10, 44 front to 11-32 rear:



Which has yet to be defeated by some fairly pointy terrain, and will allow you to pedal until gravity takes over on the downhill.

Road cable-discs are the work of the devil (single sided ones anyway), however you can use linear pull drop bar levers with MTB BB7's and that works brilliantly:



I used the Retroshift/Gevanelle brake levers that come with a shifter - but the brake levers are simple Tektro units which are very cheap, you can just use a bar-end shifter that can also be picked up for pennies.

Love the look of that. What's it based on?

[Dammit]

The frame itself is a Boardman CX Team, everything else has been sourced from different places

[gazza285]

Gears are very over-rated, man up and single speed.

[yellowjack]

gazza285 said:

Gears are very over-rated...

So are beards and sandal tan-lines

[bakerstreet]

yellowjack said:

So are beards and sandal tan-lines

I disagree with that. I rocked a beard and tan lines last year and I looked amazing! Everyone tough so apart from Mrs Bakerstreet

On another note, I have nothing technical to add to this thread

[dai1983]

Dammit said:

I used the Retroshift/Gevanelle brake levers that come with a shifter - but the brake levers are simple Tektro units which are very cheap, you can just use a bar-end shifter that can also be picked up for pennies.

I've ordered some of their CX1 hydraulic shifters and they were posted from the states last Thursday.

http://www.gevenalle.com/store/products/shifters/

$414 including rotors and callipers but plus import tax and the rip off handing charge. Their European importer wanted £400 for them so decided that ordering direct would likely end up cheaper.

[Dammit]

It was a debate I had with myself, went for the German option mainly due to being annoyed with Parcelforce and their handling fee at the time.

I've got the Shimano R785's on another bike and they are brilliant, so I'd be interested to hear how you get on.

[Jimbo.]

Some Gump said:

Whatever you do, don't go singlespeed. I did, and it's just st.
Big headwind? Unlucky, you're turning up sweaty.
No fun down any form of hill, because you just spin out.
Fancy a longer ride home on a good night? Oh, you can't because the local hills hit 10% so if you grind up them you have sore knees for the next 2 days.

I get this "low maintainance" arguement, but in 4000 miles on my roadie i've adjusted the rear deralliur once. Meanwhile, the ss bike takes 3 times as long to change a flat due to horizontal dropouts and no quick release.

Bike is for sale if i've not put you off!!

They're excuses, rather than reasons against.
Sweaty? It's cycling. Deal with it.
Spin out? Spin faster. Or get aero. Or conserve that momentum wherever possible.
Longer ride? Well if distance is what you want, pick a route avoiding the hills. Failing that, ride the hills and get stronger.

In 4000 grotty miles, how often will you be cleaning and relubing the chain/cassette/mech/cables etc, etc? On my SS over winter I think I wiped the chain with a rag once, maybe twice a month. Still worked fine.

Fixing a flat is a non-issue. Use chain tugs to "remember" the wheel position and you're away.