A slightly different approach

Ever since Lodi Farms the Scalpel has basically been on the DL. The conditions there combined with parts that had passed their prime and my own poor excuse for mechanic skills kept the bike in the bike room just waiting for the latest QBP order to arrive. This week the QBP order arrived!

I decided to drop the triple ring set up and go for the simpler 2x9 (and yes, I made this decision before SRAM XX was announced) with a bash guard. I bash my ring much more then I should (though I have been getting much better with that). More importantly I almost never use the big ring on the Mountain bike and rarely really ever use the small ring for riding around here. So, why put a nice big ring on when I can instead protect my rings with a bash guard and just bump the size of my 2 smaller rings up a bit?

A little change of pace...

Enter the Race Face Team FR Ringset; 24-36-Lightweight Bash. Nice. Got to work on replacing the rings late this afternoon after a thorough cleaning of the road bike before quickly realizing I don't have the proper tool to remove my hollow tech crank arms and get at the small ring! 5:25 PM and Family Bike Shop just closed so I hustled my butt over to Proteus Bicycles to beg the use of their shop for a moment, with no beer in hand at that. They generously allowed me the use of their Park Tools combination crank/bottom bracket wrench (need to get myself one of those) and I was back in business. (BIG thanks goes out to Proteus for helping me out today!)

Yeah! I love shiney parts, even if they're rare on my mountain bikes...

Got everything all set up on the Scalpel including a new set of jockey wheels and took it out for a spin. SWEET! No chain suck, everything shifts perfectly and I even managed to correctly adjust the outer limit screw to keep the derailleur from trying to pop the chain out onto the bash guard! Now I just have to hope I haven't over geared myself for the 24 Hours of Big Bear course next weekend. Hopefully tomorrow morning's Shed/Gambrill ride with the team will give me some idea of what I can expect out there.

After a year of the blue tape the red looks a bit strange. I'll get used to it quickly I'm sure.

In other news I popped some new red bar tape on the road bike just for sh*ts and g*ggles. Now that my team kit is actually red I feel like I might as well keep my apparent favorite color scheme going...