Monday, August 28, 2006

Tipping the scales

Lesli and I spent some time at my parent's camp this weekend. Relaxing time around the camp fire, knocked a couple cold beers back with my Dad. Good times, glad we got up north to visit and check out what we'd been missing.
We hung out till the afternoon on Sunday, walked off breakfast and hit the highway for a rainy drive south.
The two hour cruise gave me time to think about bike set-up for sm100, which tires and wheels to run, and then remembered that my bike is in complete disrepair...
I picked through my junk pile of drivetrain parts and came up with two badly glazed discs. I guess I took them off cause they squealed more than they stopped. Don't know if this will work but I'll give it a try...better than spending $50 on new ones.Freshly honed thanks to my Ryobe Dual action sander. No more shiny rings..

On to tire/wheel set-up... I have been running Mavic XL with tubeless tires but had an awful ride the other day in the Fells with the skinny UST 1.95 Karmas. Conditions were slippery and these narrow Kenda's are better on dry hardpack. I am thinking the sm100 will be wet...or maybe that's just images from the 2003 SM100 movie that are stuck in my head.

So, how much lighter are my 717 / DT Hugi 240s wheels with tires mounted? Where I could come up with a cheap and accurate scale to weigh out some parts?...but then again, do I want to spend $$ on a scale?
Answer...make my own.

A 30 inch long piece of scrap trim with a hole in the middle...perfect! Ok, so what we have here is better than a digi metric scale. On the left is my 717/Hugi 240s wheel with Hutchinson Bulldog 2.1 ,with tube. On the right is the tubeless XL with 1.95 Karma. The difference in weight comes down to exactly an extra disk and two bolts... or about 125 grams. Tell me I had some time on my hands last night, you'd be correct! In the middle of my experiment the lights went out and I continued to conduct trails with help from my myo 3.

The rear wheel yielded similar results:

Weight Weenie didn't have info on how much half a Sram 980 cassette weighed but this is how the rear wheels measured up... I'd say at least 150 grams. Might stick with the tubeless setup for the rear because of the advantages of running lower air pressure.

Lights came back on and Lesli was almost done making her famous vegetarian chilly..enough bike geekiness for tonight.

4 comments:

jeff said...

whoa dude.

van den kombs said...

Man, you're like some bike MacGyver !

In case your sanded rotors don't work too well, I've got two brand new extra rotors (one shimano and one avid) that you might be interested in.
kc

Andy, R&D said...

I'll be ok..but thanks for the offer.

Might need some fenders though, looks like we're going to be biking through a tropical depression.

wraith said...

I think you'll save more weight if you make your shorts into daisy dukes. when jeff says whoa he means it!