Close to the financial institution a frozen lake…
…a predator stalks its multi-hued prey:
There the period-correct potential sufferer stands, unaware of the mortal hazard that lurks behind it:
Salivating, the predator anticipates sinking its claws into the bike’s tender midsection…till it notices one thing repulsive:
It’s an affordable, trendy derailleur!
Sure, additional to yesterday’s publish, this morning I carried out a derailleur transplant in an try to deal with my spoke-grazing points:
I used to be involved for a second after I famous that the Altus additionally has protruding pulley bolts, which you’ll be able to kind of see right here:
Thankfully although they don’t make contact with the spokes, and with my drivetrain now consisting of Suntour, Shimano, and SRAM elements spanning a interval of over 30 years it’s a rolling testomony to the truth that bicycle part interchangeability continues to be alive and properly. On this sense, components interoperability is type of just like the polar bear: everybody simply assumes it’s virtually extinct and makes use of its demise for example of all the pieces unsuitable with capitalism and the world, however truly it’s nonetheless doing okay regardless of all the pieces…although additionally like polar bears you do must go in search of it, it’s not simply going to fall into your lap…which can be a very good factor, since you actually don’t need a polar bear simply falling into your lap.
However yeah, $20-ish {dollars} for a brand new derailleur and all the pieces’s operating as clean as heat bitter cream. And it seems fairly good too!
Ore at the very least you don’t actually discover it, anyway.
And sure, as a few readers seen, this setup does require utilizing the shifters in friction mode. Nevertheless, I used to be already utilizing friction mode with the unique seven-speed setup. The truth is, the indexing mode was so balky on these it’s superb listed shifting each caught on within the first place. In the meantime, with the Hyperglide cassette it’s exhausting to mis-shift this factor even in friction mode, and more and more I feel that if shifting was listed from the start and so they got here up with friction at the moment it will be hailed as a significant improve.
In the meantime, in native information, a New York State Senator is completed driving her bike:
On the similar time, one thing I take into consideration typically, and that I attempted to get at in an Exterior column awhile again, is that advocacy can gas concern, and this may in the end be self-defeating:
Driving bikes includes a sure factor of hazard—as do snowboarding or strolling or having a shower—nevertheless it’s not remotely a loss of life sentence, and it’s way more seemingly to present you a brand new lease on life. So it’s a tragedy of a distinct type if our well-intentioned outrage finally ends up being simply one other voice reminding folks that bikes are “too harmful.”
No person ought to really feel pressured to journey a motorcycle in the event that they’re too scared. However the excellent news is that it’s not that harmful, even in New York Metropolis, have been the sheer variety of folks ensures there’s at all times one thing horrifying taking place to any individual. Advocacy has a method of presenting all types of conditions earlier than “regular” folks can journey: extra protected bike lanes, fewer vehicles, extra protected bike parking… Completely we’d like all these issues, however driving a motorcycle won’t ever be risk-free, and typically it’s necessary to deal with the biggest impediment, which is concern. That is one thing I attempt to do in my very own opposite method by saying it’s okay to not put on a helmet. In the end it’s not the dearth of facilities that’s holding bicycling again, it’s the concern, and if everybody obtained over that the opposite issues would maintain themselves.
We dwell in a time when everybody calls for reassurance from businesses and officers, and plenty of appear prepared to stay in a state of paralysis till they get it. However typically you’ve obtained to go forward and grant it to your self.
