Track Training – Bath Gate Practice
I had to go to the track to help out with gates today anyway but I got a chance to do some training too as there were a few riders of my level so we did full speed first straight and challenged the older kids to races too, which didn’t got well for us 🤣
I guess I got about 8 or 10 full speed first straights in which was really tiring but really fun. I am getting a bit more used to the 36×16 gearing but I felt like I was missing a bit of top end speed that I had with the 37×16.
I have also noticed a huge difference with the higher bars when I am manualing and my manuals were amazing today. I am going to lower the bars by one spacer as they feel slightly too high when sprinting but once they are slightly lower I think that the bike will be setup perfectly for me.
While I was saying that I the gearing was a little low someone suggested dropping the rear sprocket to 15T which got me thinking that that may be a good idea so I took a look on the Gearing Chart Calculator and found that I should probably be running a 35×15 to have roughly the same ratio as 37×16.
The other option is to stay on the 36×16 gearing and learn to spin like everyone else which may be the better option as although the best gearing for a cruiser is apparently 41×18 which is slightly higher than a 36×16 at 53.54 compared to 52.88. At the moment my bike is on a 52.88 ratio compared to my usual 54.35 so there is a big difference.
I have been doing a bit more checking and the 35×15 gives exactly the same ratio (54.84) as a 42×18 gearing which is the gearing that I used to run before I started riding a 37×16 so that may be the best option for me to use although a smaller rear cog is worse out of the gate apparently.
Another consideration is that I am still not happy with the rear wheel setup in the Curtis so I am thinking that I will get another Yess Type X frame and build it up with the bits from the FTB that my son uses and then I can use both the Curtis and the Yess and decide which I like best. I am always going to ride the Curtis but I still think that I am faster on a Type X so if I have both I will be able to find out!
I am also not 100% happy with the rear wheel on the Curtis so I am going to get the 20mm Profile Elite hub built up to see it it finally feels right. The current setup with the 10mm to 20mm adaptors feels good but it has a bit of play and the adaptors look weird too which I am not super happy about either!
At least once I have a proper 20mm wheel it will be setup as well as it can be!
Once I have both bikes setup I can see which I am fastest on and then ride that one more and my Son can ride the other when he wants to ride.
Another advantage of the Yess frame is that I can get a set of Onyx wheels to race on and then train using the Profile elites so that the Onyx hubs stay race ready!
Before I do this I am going to set up the ftb with the bigger bars, 37×16 gearing and the rear wheel off of the Curtis and ride it for the rest of the week to see if it feels any better. If it does I may ride it this season instead of getting a Yess frame and save money and get a Yess or a Curtis with 10mm dropouts built up for next season. If I still don’t like the FTB the I will split it up and sell it this week to put the money towards the Yess Frame.