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Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Off The Hooch


This is a great article - I think it describes a lot of folks (including me).

Many of us think we are moderate drinkers because we aren't alcoholics, and we are under control of our alcohol consumption.  A couple a night, a little extra on the weekend...

... and before you know it you have boxes and boxes of empties in your garage, and you're trying to figure out who drank all that stuff???

It adds up.

Alcohol is bad for you.  The health benefits are extolled in a handful of studies, and those ones get trumpeted in the headlines because it's a message we all want to hear.  But any trivial benefits are more than offset by harm in other ways... especially as moderate drinking turns to more-than-moderate.

I've increasingly found alcohol just makes my life worse.  That great feeling after a beer fades to feeling lethargic and down an hour later.  When I over-indulge that feeling lasts for a day after, sometimes even more.

Not everyone has that problem, but I do.

So it's time.

I've taken a month off before and felt great while doing it.

This time, 6 months.  Once it's out of my life I can decide whether to bring it back, and if so how to limit myself to less-than-moderate.

Sorry, alcohol.  It's for the best.  See you in 2018, maybe.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Converting my Triple Norco Nitro/Charger to 1x


I originally bought a 2012 Norco Nitro 9.3...

... but after a warranty frame replacement it turned into a Nitro9.3 with Charger components.

It came with a triple chainring (44/32/22) and a pretty standard 10 speed MTB cassette (12-36).

After an emergency repair last year that temporarily turned it into a single speed, I realized that I don't need all those gears.  With the 1x trend I figured it was time to make the plunge.

Nothing was wrong with my bike, so I made the decision to do it in place.

What is 1x?

A single chainring in the front, instead of a triple or double - and no front shifter or derailleur.  Basically your rear derailleur does all your gear changes.

Rear Cassette 

First thing you need is a big range cluster on the rear cassette.

You can take your existing cassette and mess around with it - add a big bail-out ring, drop some, etc.  But if you're like me, you're probably overdue for a new cassette anyway... so I went and bought a new Sunrace MX3 10 Speed Cassette.

$68USD.

This took my rear cassette from 12-36 to 11-42, with reasonable jumps across the whole range.

Front Crankset

Here there are a lot of options.  The "cheap and cheerful" option is to replace your big ring with a bash guard and dump your small ring... leaving just the middle.

There are all kinds of problems here, though.  Without a chain guide in place of the front derailleur, you will probably dump your chain.  You can get a different ring that has alternating teeth - but once you buy that and the bashguard, you're talking some good dough already.

I decided my old crankset was probably not worth saving, so I just replaced the whole thing with the  Race Face Ride Single Speed Crankset.

I found it online for $99USD, and it included an appropriately sized bashguard!  The teeth alternate to keep it firmly where it is meant to be.

Oh and it came with a new bottom bracket!  What a deal.

It's 32T - I don't know if it came in any other configurations, but that was perfect for me since it matched my existing middle ring.

Rear Derailleur and Chain Guide

There are people who say you need a special "clutch" mechanism on your rear derailleur.

There are other people who suggest you need a Chain Guide.

These are both to keep the chain from popping off your front ring.  So far I haven't had any problems, largely on the strength of the alternating teeth on the front ring.  If I start having trouble I'll address it, but I bounced off a lot of stuff without a drop yesterday.

Front Shifter and Front Derailleur

GONE!

It was a little weird not having it... I kept trying to use it instinctively!  That will change soon enough.

First Impressions

I love it.  MTB'ing throws a lot at you, and there are always those times you find the hill steeper than you thought too late and you're in the wrong front ring... no longer.  It's just a lot simpler.  Less things to go wrong.  Probably not massively lighter, but lighter.

One thing I hadn't even thought about is CLEARANCE!  I have more of it!  I'm on a 29-er so I already had a lot, but there is one log I was putting a lot of chainring marks in... this first ride, cleared it!  Yay.  And if I didn't, the bashguard is there to take the brunt, rather than bending teeth.

The jumps between gears were not noticeably larger than before.  For the road they probably would be - I like to find a pretty specific cadence and stick to it.  But MTB it's always pretty dynamic anyway.

Old largest ratio was 3.67:1, new is 2.91:1 - so my top speed should take a hit if I'm ever on roads, which really isn't the priority for this bike. Or my cadence will have to be more hamster-wheel-like.

Old smallest ratio was 0.61:1, new is 0.76:1 - a pretty modest loss of lowest gearing.  We went up some steep stuff, and it was fine.

Total Cost

$168USD+tax+shipping.  Pretty modest.  Being in Canada the exchange rate stings a bit, but still very reasonable.