Friday, June 6, 2008

A climbing tikit for $30!



I've always wanted to improve the climbing ability of my Bike Friday tikit - and the cheapest way is to reduce the size of chain ring from 53t to 42t. I managed to find an unused 1980s new Shimano Biopace elliptical 42t chain ring at Rebound Centre which was duly installed on my tikit.

Effectively reducing the gearing by 20%, the tikit now can really tackle those hills easy. Downside is the downhill performance isn't so good as you tend to spin out faster - after 35km/h or so. Such are the things in life I suppose.
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More info about the advantages of elliptical chain rings here by the late guru, Sheldon Brown.

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Best $30 zhnged mod ever, I reckon...

2 comments:

Vik said...

I've been happy with my Tikit's gearing so far, but I haven't tried touring on it yet. Thanks for the post...I'll my eyes open for a chainring that fits so I have make the mod should I feel the need.

=-)

Vik

Unknown said...

Another easy option is replacing the rear cassette with one that has 32 or 34t. The Microshift seems to be able to handle the larger cog just fine. I installed the Microshift on another bike when I replaced it with an SRAM X.9. The larger range on the cassette also means you don't lose the high gears.