The Lounge of Terrestrial Wheelmen

[Tom Servo]

Kinda wishing that I could go riding. The mandatory WFH thing leaves you feeling a little cooped up, but we're actually getting a bunch of needed rain and that's not so great to go riding in.

[FaultyMario]

Do you have a trainer?

[George]

I am grateful for the gravel trail that runs right behind my house. Hoping I'll get make time for some cycling through all this.

[Tom Servo]

We just ordered a trainer, should be here in a few days. Should be a little bit exciting changing out the cassette over and over again since my bike is an 11-speed and Michele's is a 10, but seems like a small price to pay.

[George]

Mind if I ask why? Is it because you'll stay on the same cog most of the time and wear that one out sooner than if you were shifting across all the gears as part of riding outdoor terrain?

[Tom Servo]

I might be wrong, but I think the distance between cogs may be slightly different for a 10-speed cassette and an 11-speed cassette, and since both bikes have indexed shifters, one of the two bikes wouldn't actually line up quite right when shifting.

Maybe I'm wrong, it says to use a 10-speed cassette you have to use an included spacer, so maybe it's just that it's offset a little bit and we can run her 10-speed shifter with the 11-speed cassette and she just wouldn't be able to get to the 28t cog, but my initial thought is that an indexed 11-speed shifter will move the derailleur not quite the right amount to mesh with a 10 speed cassette and vice versa.

[Tom Servo]

Upon further investigation, it kinda sounds like "it sorta works, but not really all that great," and that the 11-speed cassette does have slightly less distance between each cog, so a 10-speed indexed shifter won't play nice. Maybe I can put friction bar-end shifters on my Madone.

[George]

I guess I don't know what you're getting, in that case. I was thinking of rollers, I guess. Good luck!

The Madone needs downtube shifters!

(yeah, I bet isn't set up for those, unlike your LHT)

[Tom Servo]

Yeah, no bosses to put them on there

I ended up getting a Wahoo Kickr as a bunch of people at my work have them and I hear a lot of good things about them. The trainer has a freehub on it that you put the cassette on, then take the bike's rear wheel off and mount it via the dropouts onto the trainer. The fun part is that it can work with zwift to compete online and such. The downside is I just found out zwift doesn't work on chromebooks, which sucks.

[M4FFU]

First outdoor ride on my new bike yesterday, and what a difference riding a bike that fits you makes. Did 45km and in the 2 odd hours of saddle time but butt didn't hurt at all. My legs, mashed, but still, early days

Was nice to get out into the empty countryside and not have to have head space of loo rolls, pasta and virus panic. Saw quite a few out on cycles which is encouraging.

Tom - I've got the Kickr Snap, which is the wheel-on version. I do like the wahoo software. I'm using trainerroad which is a bit by-numbers compared to zwift but I just watch youtube with it