Thursday, September 10, 2009

The Felt upgrade

We here at the 3D house are beginning to have a collection of random bikes. We have been purchasing and rescuing bikes all summer. Most of them are great they just need a new tire, or handle bars, or have a flat. We all have our favorites that we ride most of the time - depending on type of ride we are taking- Vixen rides the cruiser when we are laying out multiple caches; the yellow bike when we are going for a long ride; and the "art bike" when it isn't broken. Whateva always rides the Monster truck, no matter what the ride or race is! I myself love my Felt. It was my first "real" bike purchase and it has always been a great ride. It's super light and gunmetal grey! I ride it almost all the time. The problem is, in the last year I have out grown the Felt. I "pedal off" every ride.

This last week I was helping Whateva fix a flat on the Moster truck and I realized that I had a larger chain ring on my "art bike" than on the Felt. I promptly started to cannibalize the art bike. It took some time to get the rings off and reattached. But the real bitch was shortening the darn chain! I was worried that ultimately I was just screwing up both of my favorite bikes.

The transformation was complete. Now for the test ride......
HOLY CRAP!
Switching from a 42 to a 46 chain ring, there are a few things that automatically happen. You go a hell of a lot faster -my average mph went up! But my longevity went to shit, it will take a few weeks to train my legs to last more than 10miles!

I won't be riding any sprints with this ratio, but I will be moving up finishing spots in the next alley cat! (hopefully)

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