I noticed something weird about the first three morning ski sessions from this year. Yes, it is April and we are getting in our first ski trip of the season.
For reasons.
At any rate, the first morning session was 2:49:06, before we quit for lunch, and we covered 18.8 miles. According to my Strava.
Morning 1
The second morning was…painful. My legs were cratered from the first session of the season. Still, we put in 2:48:53….and 18.8 miles of terrain.
Morning 2
Day 3. Also painful. The morning session was, you guessed it, 2:29:57 and 18.5 miles.
Morning 3
I guarantee we don’t plan this in advance. Our start and finish times are probably offset by 90 minutes over these three days. We go until we (and that means me, the weak link) are worn out and need a break.
I decided to try the via Capri climb the other day after doing two repeats up Torrey Pines. Now, admittedly, I was slacking it up the TP climb. But I was running around 55-60 rpm cadence in the 3rd and 4th cogs, so it was not a complete spin. And the reason I was doing the climb slow and easy was because of a 875 foot vertical, 3 mile round trip hike I’d done the day before.
I have not been doing much weight bearing exercise in the past four years. I have been doing zero hiking.
My quads were not in great shape from the start of the ride.
At any rate, the TP climbs left me feeling ambitious, I guess. The new gearing scheme had me in the third and fourth cogs going up and still feeling okay. This is because the 32/22 (4th cog) at 39.9 gear inches matches up to the 39/27 39.6 inches of the previously lowest gear. Feeling normal-to-good in the lowest gear I’ve been riding on the road bike for decades.
So I got it in my head that it was time to try out the way that the new 32 / 32 hotness felt on the steep pitches of via Capri.
I failed.
I had to stop somewhere in the 13.2% gradient section. It was legs, not lungs, that called a halt. I was nearing 160 bpm, pretty near my top end right now, but I probably could have kept it there for a few more minutes. However, the legs gave out. I took a brief rest and then finished it off to the cross.
I like having a climb this steep where I can check the gradient for each section and compare that with the sense of difficulty on road. Strava gives point estimates of as high as 16.6% gradient within the main steep bit, which is smoothed out into 0.1 mi segments in the figure. And this is something that feels brutally steep. I can ride it from the saddle but I’m pretty far out on the nose of it, like a MTB climb.
But this is only a 2.5 km ascent. This is not that long. And it really gives perspective when the commentators on pro cycling give the climb numbers for a race and you realize this climb should barely trouble the sprinters, given the short length.
The famed Col du Tormalet runs 7% and then 8% for most of it, but it is an 18 km total climb distance. The equally famous Alpe d’Huez has sections of 7%-9% mostly, with a 10% section at the bottom. But it’s 14 km total and the 10% runs for a kilometer.
Correspondingly, other familiar local gradients can help us come to grips with, say, why a sprinter like Jasper “Disaster” Philipsen was able to make it over the Poggio in Milano-San Remo in touch with the climbers. That’s because the Poggio is a mere 3.6 km climb with gradients of 3%-5% at the steepest and the longest sustained 5% section is only 0.4 km. The earlier Cipressa climb is likewise only 3%-5% and it runs 5.5 km. The bigger guys can sustain the extra power needed for limited numbers of kilometers over these moderate inclines. It is only the 10 km plus grinds, and the steeper gradients that let the lightweight climbers easily dance away to gain minutes. If they want to use the Cipressa or Poggio to drop the larger riders, it is a much harder task and they run out of room to gain seconds or minutes.
Casting about for something similar on local roads, Torrey Pines is a fairly steady 6% climb with a few sections that near 7%, and it is about 2.25 km in length. Steeper than the two famous climbs of Milano-San Remo, albeit shorter than even the Poggio. And I see local dudes big ringing the TP climb all the time.
The top 1.2 km of the Soledad Mt Road climb is perhaps a better comparison, it runs 2%-5%, about evenly split at the 4% threshold. This does come after about 0.6 km of 7% gradient so it can feel harder if you’ve killed yourself on the early part, but it also provides contrast with the lower gradients above which seem easy by comparison.
For me there’s a cutoff somewhere around a 4%-5% gradient. Below this is riding. Above this is climbing. Also known as suffering. And when I am group riding, this is also known as “getting dropped”. Or at least risking getting dropped.
Even back in the day when I was much, much lighter and much more powerful, the gradient cutoffs were about the same. Reason being, you never go any easier, you just ride faster. So whether it was the fast group in my 20s or the D ride now, the same sections put the hurt on me relative to others in the group ride. The start of El Camino Real is 6% but then it slackens off to 3% or less….until one more 6%ish pitch at the top. These were places I needed to strategize back in the day to keep from blowing up and they are similar problems now. Back then more of the ride would arrive together at Torrey Pines…and I would promptly get dropped.
I am bad at climbing. I have always been bad at climbing.
It was the middle of March in 2020 when we realized life needed to come to a screeching halt. Covid was among us. The SARS-CoV2 virus was contagious, the clinical sequelae severe and the deaths were starting to stack up. We went into various forms of lock down.
Confined at home, for the most part, many of us cast around for things to keep ourselves busy. I realized that I hadn’t been on a proper bike ride for eight months.
While my cycling had been intermittent for the past two decades, this seemed to be an unusually long time. So I went for a ride.
First Covid ride
May 2020
And then I went for some more rides. A LOT more rides at first. And I puttered around in the garage fixing up my old bikes. And rode some more.
The Covid crisis, and the past four years, corresponded with growing independence of my offspring. It also corresponded with a traditional midlife crisis period of my life.
I decided I did not want to stop riding until I am physically unable. I had ridden at the exercise/enthusiast level since I was about 12 years old, albeit in a geographical region that had seasons. I was able to race two spring seasons at the end of high school and joined my college race team in my first year. Once I graduated, I rode bikes pretty regularly for another five years, this time in lovely year-round climate San Diego.
Then about two decades of life intervened and took me away from regular riding.
Thus, my Covid-induced conviction that I wanted to return referenced the kind of frequency that I was maintaining in my late teens and early 20s. I intended this not merely to be a Time of Covid thing, but I wanted to maintain riding as we slowly returned to some semblance of normal life. And I’ve been doing pretty well at that. It is rare that I do not get on a bike for a reasonable length ride for more than a week. I don’t think I’ve gone over 10 days between rides in the past four years. I even get on the trainer in the garage now and again when the weather is bad or the light has gotten away from me. As I did last night.
I emailed the sales email at Wheeltop on 11/17/2023 to ask “Will the shifters for road and MTB be cross compatible with the rear derailleurs? Will it be possible to use the road shifters with the MTB derailleur?“
The reply came within hours: “Hello, this is EDS Aftermarket. Sorry, these two are not compatible.“
I thought this was disappointing, stemming from my interest in these products being the ability to tinker with them, and use them on older bikes. MTB bikes with 3 chainrings. Bikes with 9 speed cassettes, that I may want to upgrade to 11 speed. Bikes with 10 speed Campagnolo cassettes.
My excuse to myself for a $400 outlay for an electronic system was the flexibility. The derailleur was configurable from 7 to 13 cog cassettes! Amazing. If it didn’t serve the function needed for one bike, maybe it could be adapted to another. After a positive experience adapting my MTB version (EDS OX) to two different MTBs, I was thinking I would like to try it on the Frankencrosser, which has a poorly working bar end shifter, an old Shimano 105 derailleur that has a limit of about a 27 tooth cassette and a road crankset that limits the small chainring to a 39 tooth. Definitely a candidate for a Wheeltop EDS derailleur and the larger cassette cogs that would be thereby permitted. I thought half-heartedly about kludging the flat bar shifter onto the drop bar several times but never really got around to it.
When Wheeltop teased the road version at a price of $457 for the cable brake aluminum version, well….that was enough to pique my interest. Thus my email to the sales contact. It might be a more interesting product if it provided me several options to mullet the bikes. Maybe the road 2x derailleurs on my commuter and the MTB 1x (optimized) derailleur on the Frankencrosser would be cool? I was very disappointed to see them apparently not permitting cross-compatibility.
I admit I was more than a little dismayed to see that when the cable brake groupset became available for sale it was listed at €649, which is about $709. That is a steep jump up in price. And with the news it wouldn’t be cross-compatible took away many potential fun applications on my fleet.
Well, it is Taipei bike show time and I ran across this very interesting assertion in the Velo writeup by Alvin Holbrook.
Wheeltop says their shift levers pair with their wide-range mountain bike derailleur, though they suggest that there will be a ready-made alternative for drop bar folks who want a wide-range 1x gearing coming soon.
It’s been over 3 months since the wheeltop.com site available to the US teased the imminent arrival of the road products, EDS TX. Prices listed were as low as $457 for the aluminum cable brake version ($466 for carbon) and as high as $572 for the carbon hydraulic brake version. Then there was some time where the US facing website went off line for a week or so.
I checked back off and on and there were some formatting and content changes. The link to the MTB version would sometimes go to a 404 page and the road version page went from the original 4 variant listing, with prices, to one or two variants. Sometimes with prices listed in euros. Always with a notice that the product was “sold out”.
This week I noticed that a “buy now” button had appeared on the website, which still opens up with a splash page for the EDS TX road product. At first there was a banner across the top that referred to product being available from a Malaysian outfit. Then it quickly reverted to other content. The product page itself still claimed the product was sold out, as recently as yesterday.
Today, the “buy now” links to a page offering the EDS OX in Hydraulic Brake groupset (€739), the cable brake groupset (€649) or the Hydraulic groupset with brakes excluded (€699). It is unclear why this page doesn’t have dollars but there’s a note about free shipping to Germany and French so maybe this is EU facing website and the US one hasn’t been made yet?
Both of the variants appear to feature carbon brake levers. The hydraulic brake groupset appears to include the brake calipers, whereas the cable brake version includes no actual brakes in the “groupset”. The website let me add it to a cart and apparently to order, but I’m not ready for that yet. The link to the MTB product still goes to a 404, a bit weirdly. One would think that if Wheeltop had settled whatever issues they had with SRAM’s patents, they would have done so for both on road and MTB versions.
This is disappointingly expensive, to my eye. The €649 works out to $705 USD at current exchange. This is ~50% higher than the original tease. It also appears to be within the approximate price range for which one can order SRAM Rival AXS groupsets online. I just can’t see myself pulling the trigger on this.
This is not a level of try it out mad money.
This is not a price to “just see” if it can be retrofitted to an older frame with an outdated cassette and whatever chainrings one happens to have mounted. If that was so someone’s goal.
This is not a price to just see to how well the cable brake version pulls, or doesn’t pull, various types of brakes. A bit of investigation on this topic is leaving me very unclear on exactly what type of bike, cycling and/or setup they have designed this system for.
The FAQ says the cable levers are compatible with v-brake and disc brake systems which sounds like it may not work with traditional road brakes. The amount of cable that is/needs to be pulled is different*. It is, correspondingly, not immediately obvious which mechanical disc will work with it, although the specification of v-brake compatibility tends to suggest a MTB version of a mechanical disc would be the closest fit. This suggests that perhaps this is targeted at the gravel market. ok, fair enough but all the marketing videos show road bikes. The FAQ also lists the derailleur as having a maximum cog size of 36 teeth (minimum 30**, huh?) and a maximum wrap capacity of 36 which puts this squarely in endurance road bike territory. Let’s say you were sporting a 12-36 cassette, that leaves you 12 teeth for 50/38 or 48/36 max up front. Or maybe you go with a 12-34 cassette and a 48/34 combo. Now, maybe you can get it to work with a couple more teeth of difference but on spec this looks like endurance road and not like gravel gearing.
It does seem like a very badly missed opportunity for them to make the road shifters incompatible with the MTB derailleurs, as per an email I got from the company contact. There are three cage length versions of the MTB derailleur available, 58, 75 and 93 mm, with specified respective compatibility with 32 t, 42 t and 52 t maximum cog cassettes. I don’t know if there are any geometry changes to the derailleur parallelogram or if this is just a proxy for chain wrap in these systems since they are designed for 1x chainring drivetrains. Still, being able to use a wider range cassette would be more consistent with an application to gravel bikes. And one wonders about why the company would make a 36 t capacity road version and a 42 t capacity off-road version when the latter would seemingly be fine for the road application. Oh, right, the MTB version allegedly has a clutch.
I guess I’m still stuck on the key Wheeltop feature of permitting flexible configuration across 7 to 13 cog cassettes. This feature teases the Bike Tinkerer that it can be adapted to bikes dating back to the late 1980s when 7 speed replaced 6 speed. I want this kind of Bike Tinkerer’s Delight to be extended as far as possible. SRAM wireless is cross compatible across road and MTB so that one can put wide range gearing on a drop-bar bike. I wish Wheeltop had opted for this additional sort of flexibility.
I suppose, however, that focusing too much on a sort of retro-mod, restoration market may not be optimal for the company. The MTB version was described in the FAQ as not being compatible with more than a 1x chainring setup and needing a 12 speed chain for optimal performance. If the road cable brake version is pitched for mechanical discs, and therefore modern disc-brake road frames, this is a similarly forward-looking marketing choice. It makes the consumer view this as a competitor for current SRAM AXS and Shimano di2 products, rather than a competitor for, say, Microshift. This lets the company price the drivetrains below current SRAM/Shimano offerings and look like a bargan. The same price might look unattractive to the consumer who is considering Microshift to update older bikes.
The Microshift Sword gravel products are only 10-speed capable, but are otherwise pretty flexible. The SB-G7000 right hand shifter ($90; $175 for the pair) works with both their clutch rear derailleurs (~$75) in a 1x setup (48 t max cog) or their 2x setup (38 t max cog). Left levers are available in either front derailleur shift or dropper post models. The Sword components appear to be compatible with their AdventX line which offers another drop bar shifter model and flat bar shifter options. Wheeltop could have offered a similar capability, with the ease of wireless, by making their road and MTB systems cross compatible.
They would also beat out Microshift in cassette speed compatibility since Microshift’s 9 speed Advent is, obviously, not compatible with their 10 speed AdventX. This is important for any consumers that are thinking about the upgrade-path . Say you have an old standard road bike fitted with the old faithful HyperGlide-compatible freehub, and are looking to replace or update the shifting. With Microshift, you have to commit to 9sp (~$200 for shifters and rear derailleur) versus 10sp (~$250) up front. This may also mean buying a new cassette to go to 10 speed ($40), or even to 9 speed ($32) if your bike is old enough (but has a Hyperglide standard freehub). With Wheeltop’s system you can just slap it on a 7, 8 or 9 speed system as is and then decide at a later date if you want to upgrade, even all the way to 11 speed, at the cost of a new cassette and chain. Or up to 12 speed with the additional cost of a new rear wheel, or freehub conversion. Were I to be upgrading an older bike, an extra $200 would be well worth this kind of flexibility and the additional ease of wireless installation. I am not sure an extra $400, at the current WheelTop EDS TX price, is similarly attractive.
I’m not sure either Wheeltop or Microshift are the best option if one is planning a fixed upgrade with no alternates or upgrades in the future. Campy Centaur 11 speed is working great on my cross bike and currently runs about $75 for the rear derailleur and $145 for the shifters/levers. Add $60 for the 11-34 old-HG compatible 11 sp cassette and $25 for a chain and we’re at $305 vs the $315 for Microshift 10-speed Sword shifters/derailleur/cassette/chain. Admittedly the latter does come with a clutched derailleur and the ability to switch from 2x to 1x at the additional cost of a cassette and derailleur (or only the pulley cage if you are handy).
*Now, I may be overselling the brake issue. A v-brake requires more cable pull than a traditional rim caliper brake. That means that while a traditional road brake lever bottoms out before being able to fully activate a v-brake, a v-brake road lever can operate a caliper. The only question is how much modulation, or feel, you lose due to each mm of lever travel eating up more caliper travel than expected.
**I am not that worried about minimum cog size specifications for the lowest gear or innermost position. Sure, a derailleur designed to handle a 36 t inner cog may drop pretty far away from a 25 or 27 t in that position, if you used a racing cluster. That may degrade performance somewhat. However, I’ve been using my MTB version (EDS OX) which is designed to handle up to a 52 t inner cog on cassettes which have only a 34 t inner cog. It shifts the inner two up and down reasonably well.
ETA: I clicked on the shipping link and found this, along with a mention of their warehouse being in Hesse Germany. Maybe a US address would be refused?
The proper number of bikes to own, per bike geek gospel, is N+1. Where N equals the number of bikes you currently own. This is also known as Rule #12 of the Velominati.
As a life long disciple, in the Church of Cycling, I do own a rather large number of bikes as we are commanded.
However. N=4 would be a fine number. At the moment, this is the perfect number for me. These four types I describe are distinct enough that they always give a different ride experience. And riding each one tends to enhance the feeling of appreciation for the strengths of the other types.
It may seem odd to neophytes but having more than one bike in your regular riding rotation enhances the pleasure you get out of each one.
The Road Bike
Classic road bikes
Take the classic road bike. It’s designed to go very fast on smooth paved surfaces. It’s designed to feel like the pinnacle of pedaling efficiency, with each pedal stroke shooting you forward with seemingly little effort. And it does. When I go out on my road bike, it feels faaast. Responsive to every input.
But if all you do is ride the road, you lack contrast. You might get used to it. Even a bit bored, if all you ever do is ride a road bike. But. Jump on one of these efficient pavement eaters after riding a slower, fatter tire equipped rig and your contrast is substantial. It feels even faster! Like a cheat code or some sort of fake. These machines never fail to satisfy that urge to feel powerful and efficient, even as you roll away from your door.
The Hardtail Mountain Bike
Classic hardtail
Roll away from your house on the classic hardtail MTB and it instantly feels comfortable. Capable. Like you could ride on any terrain and pay minimal attention to the bumps and obstacles. Start off down your favorite off road trails and any inefficiency you felt on the pavement disappears. It feels right. If you have a XC racer type MTB it can even feel efficient off the road. Like every pedal stroke zooms you forward. You know. Faaaast.
It carves the turns and races you down descents, letting you feel like a real rider. It leaps out of corners as you lay down the power on flat twisty sections. It climbs like a goat, letting you balance rear drive traction and forward momentum to an exquisite balance when the trail turns upwards.
The Cyclocross Bike
Cyclocrosser
But perhaps instead of a real MTB trail you want to ride on smooth dirt and gravel? You hop on your cross bike. Or your race category gravel bike. Compared with your hardtail MTB it feels super efficient. Smaller tires with less tread, efficient drop bar positioning and steeper frame geometry lets you fly!
Jump on the road segments of your route and it feels like you are in a sports luxury sedan compared with the feeling of your road bike. The tires eat up minor vibration. The head tube angle is slightly slacked out, lending a comfortable stability compared with the rapid steering of a road bike. The arm and upper body positioning on road tucked is close to the center and the improved aerodynamics over a MTB can be felt in a headwind. A perfectly balanced ride.
The Dual-Suspension Mountain Bike
Dual suspension
Comparatively the dual suspension MTB feels like a truck. Sitting high in the shock travel, up on 19” wheels fitted with 2.3-2.4” wide rubber, it feels a bit disconnected as you ride off. Compared with a hardtail set up for maximum speed it is not as sharp. But a lot more solid. Planted. Secure.
Impervious to any trail imperfection, challenge or feature. Ramming a small rock, trail crater or root is a mere nothing. Drop a foot or two at full speed and the bike just…plants itself gracefully and keeps on moving down the trail. Who doesn’t like the ride of a truck when the pavement ends?
When I was contemplating buying this bike, I ran across a few forum discussions about the shock remote settings. More than one person claimed that the advertised three position fork/shock remote (the Squidlock) was only producing two settings. There were assertions that the fork or shock themselves only had two positions. Or that the shock had three but the fork only two. Sometimes this was tied up with the exact year model so it is hard to know if that was true for, say, 2020 but not 2021.
When I broke my shock shaft last year, and installed a temporary replacement and then the repaired OEM shock, I learned some things. Things that may possibly explain the debates.
Ekar is the only Campagnolo groupset with appreciable OEM presence and offerings as custom builds. It is essential to service this market aggressively and guard it jealously. The groupsets have to be supplied in the numbers that are being requested and there has to be keen attention paid to price competition from the opposition.
I put in a 4 h day on the MTB and it was uneventful. Admittedly, it was an easy day. Cool temps and with a slower rider joining during the middle portion. The ride was overall pretty slow and we did lots of pausing to group up. The last 8 mile section was on pavement and mostly downhill.
I watched my favorite hockey team, the Vegas Golden Knights, halt the mid-season winning streak of the Edmonton Oilers one short of the record held by the 1993 Penguins last night.
A recent ride gave me the chance to test out the braking on the bike under somewhat demanding conditions. I descended the via Capri climb (demanding) in dry and reasonably warm conditions (somewhat). While I’ve not made a regular habit of it, I have descended this section of road many times with rim brakes on my road and commuting bikes, probably at least once on my mechanical disc bike and maybe (?) on a hydraulic disc brake mountain bike. While I probably worry about brake failures on the rim brake road bike every time I go down it, I’ve never had any problems.
In a moment of weakness last summer I was sucked in by an ad on Facebook for University-associated bike kit designs. They had a design for my graduate school university, which is what got me interested. The vendor dropships from China, and very likely nobody is paying any licensing fees. Despite scathing online reviews, the jersey I ordered last summer was fine. Not particular high quality but then again it was pretty inexpensive, especially when you consider this has to be low volume production. And it filled a need in my collection for a light weight long sleeve jersey.
The bicycle industry has invented a bazillion saddles, presumably because sitting discomfort is a problem for a lot of would-be bike enthusiasts. First in my memory were the Avocet bumps and judicious gel padding placement. Then women’s saddles that were comparatively short and wider. The current obsession is with individualized saddle width and length for all riders, This emerged alongside a longer standing obsession with central cutouts designed to relieve pressure on the choad. Your taint. Aka the perineum. Lots of claims are made about various saddle features increasing comfort. The present focus acknowledges individual differences, which is an actual advance regardless of specific saddle design features.
Finally got around to dropping by a LBS to put hands on the new Shimano 105 12 Speed mechanical levers. I didn’t ride it or anything, just wanted to get a feel for the function of shift and brake levers.
This is no way to do a real comparison. I didn’t even get to see how it shifted the cogset.
Still. One can get an impression from just clicking the shift levers and pulling the brake levers. For example the Tiagra shifter I tried in the shop was absolute garbage in comparison. Sloppy feel to the pivots. Sloppy lever throws. Long throws. It’s a cheap groupset, designed for inexpensive bikes and it feels like it.
Sun Dappled Forest 
