*[If you’re the winner feel free email me, maybe we can find you…something.]
That’s proper, additional to yesterday’s publish, the reply is that I swapped the cassettes, however I didn’t swap the lockrings:
As you possibly can see, the lockring for the 12-tooth cassette is greater than the one for the 11-tooth, so after I put it on the 11-tooth cassette it didn’t enable the chain to completely interact the cog:
See, that’s what occurs once you rush issues. If I had been a professional biking group mechanic I might have simply value my sprinter the race:
If he had been sporting a microphone, you’d hear him shouting, “HEY YOU SON-OF-A-BEETCH, YOU RUEEN DA BIKE, MARIO NO CAN A-USE-A HEES ELEVEN!!!”
So when you study something from me, it must be to take your time when doing bike upkeep. Hey, it’s not a lot, nevertheless it’s all of the knowledge I’ve bought to impart. For the actual essential stuff, like the way to enhance your biking cadence, you’ll have to seek the advice of the consultants:
Sadly, I’m not presently a Bicycling member:
Although sadly for them they tipped their hand and all the things it is advisable to know is in entrance of the paywall:
See that? All it is advisable to do to spice up your cadence is get a motorbike match, shorter cranks, an indoor coach, a pc and cadence sensor, a bigger cassette, smaller chainrings, a gravel drivetrain, and a triple.
Although I discover they did miss “downshift.”
Foolish me, there I used to be pondering all it is advisable to do to spice up your cadence is pedal quicker.
So why are cyclists so obsessive about cadence anyway? I’ve been driving for many years and I’ve but to determine the explanation, although I do bear in mind after I bought my first biking laptop with a cadence sensor. So high-tech! Wow, an entire new quantity on the display screen and all the things! Sadly, not like pace or mileage, that are cool and attention-grabbing issues to know, I had no thought by any means to make of this new data. Certain, I now knew precisely what number of instances I used to be turning the cranks per minute, however was I turning it too many instances or too few instances? It was all tremendously thrilling, and but like a novice gamecock coach, I had no context:
Then there was Lance Armstrong. It turned out he and all his rivals had been mainlining EPO and blood baggage by the gallon, however again then the “consultants” claimed that the key to Armstrong’s success was biking genius Chris Carmichael’s good high-cadence approach:
Pedal bike quicker =win race? WHO’DA THUNK IT??? Man, for awhile there, Chris Carmichael had it made. All he needed to do was journey round making up shit about bricks. He was even into singlespeeds and fixies earlier than it was cool:
See?
Certain. And typing with one hand for 4 hours is equal to typing with each arms for eight hours. That’s why you you should utilize one hand on the workplace after which inform your boss you’re going house at lunch. (Not less than till DOGE will get clever to it.)
And but right here we’re in 2025 and I nonetheless don’t know why the hell I ought to care what my cadence is. Doesn’t it simply come naturally? However I assume no person would learn an article known as, “PEDAL WHATEVER FUCKING SPEED YOU FEEL LIKE AND STOP BOTHERING ME.” So as a substitute we get “Six Surefire Methods To Supercharge The Shit Out Of Your Cadence,” and YouTube movies with rhetorical query titles and other people with dumb puzzled expressions–although normally you don’t have to look at them to search out the reply:
It’s not, it sucks.
Sure, you’re all going to die.
Sure, however they will solely be used with gravel sneakers, and gravel socks, and ridden on gravel, or else you’re all going to die.
Talking of gravel, the UCI Gravel World Championships in Good has been cancelled:
They’re now in search of a brand new venue:
And clearly they need to look no additional than Cleveland:
There’s gotta be some gravel round there someplace.
As for the gravel in Good, I needed to study extra about it and located this:
I then clicked on the #whatisgravel search hyperlink:
And located this:
Apparently gravel is now fully ineffable, although the message was accompanied by this picture:
I assume he’s gravel personified, regardless that he’s standing on a floor made from processed gravel.
However perhaps essentially the most annoying factor about gravel is the punctuation–sorry the PNCTN. See, the gravel type handbook requires all phrases to be rendered in all-caps with no vowels. Nevertheless, apparently Open, the corporate with maybe essentially the most irritating mannequin naming conventions in all of biking (and that’s coming from somebody who rides a motorbike known as a Platypus) has been granted an exception and is allowed to make use of vowels simply so long as they embrace a bunch of gratuitous durations:
So 4 durations…however you’ve bought to offer the clear coat your self:
They’re not even attempting anymore.