Old Man Gears for an Old Man?

new bling - a Shimano HG-500-10 cassette is now on my bike

Since I went for super-short cranks, I have had a bit of a hill problem.
My 175mm cranks had a triple ring setup, and I used to run 48, 34, 26, along with my 11-32 SRAM PG850 cassette.

The 145mm cranks I switched to (MUCH easier on my ageing right knee) are only a "double) at 48, 34.

So my "crawling up a hill" gearing had gone from 26f/32r (= 0.8125) to 34f/32r (= 1.0625) - a rise in gearing of 30%

Hmm, I thought to myself.
I have friction shifters (so I don't have to worry about indexing), and a "long-cage" derailleur (a Shimano RD-591), so, maybe I just need a new cassette and chain, give everything else a clean up, fiddle with the b-screw, reset the High and Low stops on the derailleur, and job done?

Sort of ;-)

Still got a (slow) half-marathon in me!

Hi,
I'm still here
More than two years since the crash (in which I badly broke my shoulder), I am mostly "back to normal".
Or course, I am still in my 50s, so I have the issues from that ;-)

Anyway, while a basic test of fitness might be something like a Cooper Test (run one mile in twelve minutes - and, no, it isn't very hard), a better test of my current ability might be just how far can I run.

So I did.
Two days ago -  and here it is on Strava (at top of post, and here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/2284443506)

Still here!

Yep.
I'm still here.
Been working on a few things.
Got a few product new reviews to write up.
Watch this space!

BikeBins hard-sided locking panniers - approaching the seven year mark!

Almost seven years on, and we are still using our Bike Bins panniers.
Here I am about to lock my helmet inside on a trip to the local hospital.

Almost seven years!
I always intended to make this a long-term review, and you won't find reviews as long as THIS elsewhere!

It was in June of 2010 that we bought our pair of hard-sided locking panniers from Bike Bins.
They are currently 45 quid each (or 80 quid for a pair) including VAT and shipping.
We paid about 65 for ours, but that was seven years ago!

Anyway, we still use them.
In the seven years, the colour has faded rather, and we have broken one mounting rail (which, because it uses standard Rixen and Kaul parts, I was able to repair for a reasonable cost).
Here are links to where I have written about them in the past, so you can easily read what I wrote then:

The original review
2 years on
3 1/2 years on
Approaching 4 years
Problems at 4 1/2 years
The repair
5 years, and a comparison with other panniers we own 

New Shifters, and Nine Over Eight Gearing?

Winter dreaming about gearing.
Having recently got my hands on a pair of "old school" "thumb" friction shifters, I will have a bit of flexibility with gearing.

Three factors that influenced me buying the friction shifters are:
1) I have an almost unused rear wheel that came with Hoppy (that was quickly swapped out for the eight speed I was using on Mermaid) that has a seven speed freewheel. With friction shifters, to swap wheels I'd just have to alter the stop screws on the derailleur. Indexing is irrelevant on an unindexed system :-)
2) Having removed myself from the hegemony of having to have the same "speed" shifters as rear gears, I can run a variety of set-ups, including unorthodox ones. Irregular spacing between cogs? as long as the chain can handle it, so can the friction shifters!
3) If I fancy another go at an aero setup, then friction "thumbies" mounted on the aero bars will be MUCH cheaper than the "proper" aero "bar end" thumbies.