[Tank Girl]

btw, I looked up the gear ratio chart and supposedly when I am maxed out, I am doing about 40 mph. I find it very hard to believe I am doing that. Wouldn't it be possible to max out my gears, but do less the chart calculates?

 

[rachelx1984]

Have you thought of shifting to a more aerodynamic position on the downhills. The position on a mountain bike can be quite upright.

When I'm maxxed out, I always shift my weight back and get down low to reduce wind resistance. Really does make a difference!

 

[AndrwSwitch]

Wondering if you recommended me getting a road bike so I could get my need for speed out, or is there some other benefit I'm not considering?

There are a few.

You'll already have the right wheel size and gear ratios not to spin out on road descents, which it sounds like was the problem that motivated this thread in the first place. Road bikes are available down to some pretty small sizes, and poking through some other threads suggests that some of the smallest WSD bikes are built around a 650C wheel size. If you had to, there are even children's road bikes with 24" wheels, but that's probably not something you'll need to do - those bikes are very, very small, and a 650C-wheeled women's bike is already pretty small.

Road bikes handle better and when set up correctly are more comfortable on a longer ride.

And it saves the annoyance of wearing out your off-road tires, or messing around with alternate tire or wheel sets when switching one bike between road and off-road use. For a while, I was saying people with disc brakes should get 700C road wheels for their mountain bikes to do this, but a new wheelset is often as expensive as an old road bike that will outperform a mountain bike with road wheels anyway.

I guess you still have a little bit of a problem if you're riding your mountain bike to or from the trails, but once you've got some saddle time on a road bike, you'll probably just see that part of the ride as a warmup or a cool down, and the lack of top-end speed may not bother you as much.

 

[s0ckeyeus]

Would her front derailleur even handle such large chainrings?

Personally, I wouldn't change much on a mountain bike for road rides unless I was going to dedicate it more to roads than trails.

 

[CHUM]

haven't read the whole thread...but if you go bigger up front you run into clearance 'problems' mountain biking....

imagine bending that front saw blade chewing it over rocks & logs....

or throwing a chain/crashing and digging it into your shin/calf.....hurts like a mudderfugger...

just spin faster....think hamster on crack....

my .02

 

[Shayne]

Yes, No Problem

Would her front derailleur even handle such large chainrings?

Front derailleur wont be an issue. It should handle a 50T no problem. I had a stock XT crank from that era. that came with a 50T ring.

Tank Girl: You would notice a bigger difference by getting a cassette with a 12T cog.
I don't know what's availble for 7spd anymore but you should be able to find a 12-25 or 12-24 cassette pretty easily.

Your crank is 110/74mm BCD. I have a larger ring I could send you for free if you want to go that route.

I've also got a Jacaranda S in the basement :thumbsup:

 

[s0ckeyeus]

Front derailleur wont be an issue. It should handle a 50T no problem. I had a stock XT crank from that era. that came with a 50T ring.

Could she still keep the 24T granny? I suppose even if it would fit, clearance wouldn't be wonderful.

 

[Tank Girl]

There are a few.

You'll already have the right wheel size and gear ratios not to spin out on road descents, which it sounds like was the problem that motivated this thread in the first place. Road bikes are available down to some pretty small sizes, and poking through some other threads suggests that some of the smallest WSD bikes are built around a 650C wheel size. If you had to, there are even children's road bikes with 24" wheels, but that's probably not something you'll need to do - those bikes are very, very small, and a 650C-wheeled women's bike is already pretty small.

Road bikes handle better and when set up correctly are more comfortable on a longer ride.

And it saves the annoyance of wearing out your off-road tires, or messing around with alternate tire or wheel sets when switching one bike between road and off-road use. For a while, I was saying people with disc brakes should get 700C road wheels for their mountain bikes to do this, but a new wheelset is often as expensive as an old road bike that will outperform a mountain bike with road wheels anyway.

I guess you still have a little bit of a problem if you're riding your mountain bike to or from the trails, but once you've got some saddle time on a road bike, you'll probably just see that part of the ride as a warmup or a cool down, and the lack of top-end speed may not bother you as much.

Thanks so much for the feedback, I really appreciate the way you always explain what you recommend and I get almost everything you're saying. The only thing I don't understand is how a road bike could be more comfortable and handle better than a mountain bike other than it could go faster.

With regard to comfort, I think I'm confused because when I ride on the road, it's the only time my bike feels plush. As for handling, my fat tires soak up all the road debris and train tracks and I don't feel much of it and would have thought it'd make handling easier...wondering where my thinking is wrong on this.

 

[Tank Girl]

Would her front derailleur even handle such large chainrings?

Personally, I wouldn't change much on a mountain bike for road rides unless I was going to dedicate it more to roads than trails.

You are right and I've decided to leave the set up as is. I realized today that while I know what I'm using when I climb and ride the flats, I don't really know what I'm using when I'm doing technical work, because I am so focused on negotiating my line. It may well be that I'm living on the middle ring and don't even know it.

 

[Tank Girl]

imagine bending that front saw blade chewing it over rocks & logs....

or throwing a chain/crashing and digging it into your shin/calf.....hurts like a mudderfugger...

just spin faster....think hamster on crack....

my .02

You are dead on about the front saw blade. My 46t has several worn down teeth and I was wondering how it happened, now I know.

As for throwing a chain and having it dig into my shin/calf, I didn't even realize that happens. If it does, I hope it happens on my left side to offset the 46t shark bite scar I have on the back of my right. (Don't you just love the clipless learning curve:madman: )

love the hamster on crack visual...reminds me of the saying...the wheel is spinning, but the hamster is dead.

 

[Tank Girl]

Your crank is 110/74mm BCD. I have a larger ring I could send you for free if you want to go that route.

I've also got a Jacaranda S in the basement :thumbsup:

Thanks, Shayne, that's sweet of you to offer, but I've decided to keep her as she is. Too cool that you have the Jacaranda S and thanks for telling me the exact specs on the crank, I just eyeballed it with a ruler because I couldn't find it posted anywhere on line. What year do you have? Mine is the 1993 rigid. Do you know if our set up is cassette or freewheel?

 

[AndrwSwitch]

Thanks so much for the feedback, I really appreciate the way you always explain what you recommend and I get almost everything you're saying. The only thing I don't understand is how a road bike could be more comfortable and handle better than a mountain bike other than it could go faster.

With regard to comfort, I think I'm confused because when I ride on the road, it's the only time my bike feels plush. As for handling, my fat tires soak up all the road debris and train tracks and I don't feel much of it and would have thought it'd make handling easier...wondering where my thinking is wrong on this.

For me, the important differences on a road bike are that the wheels and tires are lighter and narrower and my hands are closer together and palms-inward. The steer tube is steeper, and that's important too...

It's much, much easier to lay a road bike into a turn or pop it out, and the rolling resistance is less. Inflated to a sane pressure, probably a lot less than what's printed on the sidewall, it doesn't take much tire to give a plush ride on the road. So you can ride faster, with less work, and get in and out of turns faster. If you're worried about road debris, get tires that are in the wide end of road tires - like 28mm. However, it's possible to ride singletrack with 23mm tires. Don't let the occasional bit of debris or railroad crossing dictate the tire size you have for the miles and miles of asphalt.

My arms always get uncomfortable if I ride a flat bar bike for a long time on the road. Road handlebars don't have that problem. I think drop bars are a lot better than stopgap solutions like bar ends, too - I like it that my hands are only shoulder width when I ride my road bike. I feel more relaxed. And I already have an unfashionably narrow handlebar setup on my mountain bike. People cite multiple hand positions on road bars. It's nice, although I don't think it's that big a deal - current fashion, and I agree with this, is to spend about 90% of a ride on the hoods, using the other parts of the handlebar for occasional, fairly different sorts of riding, like sprinting, descending, or climbing something steep.

The steeper steer tube makes it easier to keep a road bike tracking straight on a climb. I don't think it's as important as the other stuff, though.

Riding position can be different or not - that's up to you. I think my road bikes have a slightly more forward-leaning position, but not hugely. I'm the same person, no matter which bike I happen to be on. I don't think that the riding position for road and XC should be that different, but I have a relatively narrow band of riding positions that are comfortable for me. So YMMV.

If you can find one that's not too far from your size, try it. They do take some getting used to and not everyone likes them, but I think that actually riding a road bike would do a better job selling it than I can.

 

[Tank Girl]

Thanks, AndrwSwitch, for all your help. I'll definately try one out.

 

[Tank Girl]

Couple of confessions for Mimi...

Just thought I'd tell you that if my mentor, or anyone else in my MTB group for that matter, knew I'd posted this thread, my future lifespan could be counted in the number of minutes it took for someone to come over here and kill me. They definately think I'm fast enough as it is and I should say I don't want to give a false impression, I'm not all that fast much of the time, it's just toward the end of rides when everyone is getting tired that I can still haul.

Second confession is O/T, but thought it might put a smile in your day. You know how people have tv shows and characters they follow? Well, within mtbr.com, there are some people I follow.

I definately follow any of the people who helped me in my downhill thread when I see their posts that catch my interest or that I need to learn about. But there are a few people I follow cause I like the way they aren't afraid to live out loud.

Nate in the beginner's forum is one. He is so frickin' funny. I was sold after he posted the "I gotta stop drinking" thread and his latest spin on Jerry Maguire, "Help Me Help My Wife" is just too sweet.

Then there's azmtb31 who I think should get an mtbr.com award for the most moxie it took to post a thread and the most fortitude it's taken since then to field some of the replies. I keep meaning to go over there and give her a "You GO GURL!!!" post and will likely do so after this.

Anyhow, thought you should know you are one of the people I follow because you remind me so much of some of my pals in the city. When I was taking Chinese at City College, they would help me, but it was kinda tough. My teacher was adamant that we speak Mandarin with a Beijing accent and would fillet us if we got it wrong. Two of my pals were native Cantonese speakers who had Mandarin as one of their dialects. I worked with them and they would speak Cantonese all day, unfortunately I would show up to class speaking Mandarin with a Cantonese accent and my teacher and another friend who was a Beijing native would rain fire down on me. One day I asked them why the Chinese were so different in the way they would correct me compared to any other language I had learned and that by American standards, their corrections would be considered harsh or abrupt and indicate they really didn't like me all that much. They told me that with the Chinese culture, it would be a sign of disrespect if they did not correct me. It would mean they didn't think I was smart enough to understand, let alone learn. Also, what Americans would consider abrupt or abrasive was actually considered a passionate response by Chinese standards and that the more the person cared about you and the subject at hand the more intense the response. Anyway, I guess this is my long winded way of saying I love how passionate you get about mtbing, how much you care that people learn and that you remind me of my pals whenever I see your posts. Not sure what other languages you have, but if one of them is Chinese, thought I'd share these pictures with you. The first is on a dry erase board I have at home that I used to practice my calculus on, but now use to practice my zhong wen. The second is of the first time I ever typed in Chinese. The paragraph you see, took me almost two hours to do. I think learning Chinese is the only thing more humbling and rigorous I've known after mtbing

Anyhow, hope this puts a smile in your day.

 

[Tank Girl]

btw, having trouble posting the pics...I'll have to try again later

 

[mimi1885]

A post for Me Thanks for the post it was really sweet. So you speak both Mandarin and Cantonese? wow. I'm part Cantonese and I don't even speak it the only thing I really said out loud is Kung hey fat choy

I'm glad to hear that you are representing the sport well, it's especially tough as we are in CA. Mountain bikers are pretty much bottom feeder as it is now, we yield to everyone. There are a lot of riders who just pick up the sport and ride without knowing the consequence of their actions.

The rest of my message would be in your PM box:thumbsup:

 

[Tank Girl]

So you speak both Mandarin and Cantonese?

No, only Mandarin. The only words I know in Cantonese are (spelled phonetically, as I don't know the pinyin) cho dai and dough jay. The command to sit down and the word for thank-you. I'm a special ed nurse and at the time I was learning Chinese, I worked in a special ed pre-k class...I can't tell you the number of times I heard cho dai...frickin' hysterical!!

btw, check your pm box

 

[theMeat]

Man, it's amazing to me how a thread about chainrings could evolve into a thread about how we feel about mtbr and it's members, lol. Guess that's something only a women can do. But it's all good, and it's nice to have a female perspective/touch up in here. Less ego and more open conversation is always a good thing, IMO.
Since we're on the topic of feelings would like to say I'm glad you're sticking with it and I'm sure you're seeing improvements in your stamina, technique, fitness level.
It's so true, I follow many threads because I find some people funny, witty, or just interesting.
May you ride like the fung wah.

 

[Mr.Magura]

If you need a real big ring, why don't you take a look at some of the road rings, and simply have an adapter made? That could easily end up being cheaper than buying a 50T MTB ring.

Magura

 

[Tank Girl]

I'm glad you're sticking with it and I'm sure you're seeing improvements in your stamina, technique, fitness level.

I love it and it's amazing how much I've improved in such a short time. Btw, think of you from time to time as you were the first person who ever told me about riding out of the saddle on a rigid. I'm tending that way more and more the stronger I become, I love how it makes me feel like a kid again.

May you ride like the fung wah. That ought to be a t-shirt!

And thanks to your post, I finally have a name for my bike...The Fung wAH!

I'm glad Mimi and I's little dialog put an lol in your day. It was good to hear from you again! Take care