The Balaniferous Bicycler

I put some new bling on my Karate Monkey.

It’s a little hard to make it out in the picture, but it says “36t” on the big cog.

That’s the much ballyhooed Shimano SLX HG-61 cassette. With my monkey’s mountain triple (FC-M460) cranks, I have stupendously low gearing (in inches):

The lowest gear is 17.8″ For most people, this is probably insanely low, but I am not like most people.

I am fat, lazy, and slow. And I live in a mountainous area. I suspect that low gear will see lots of use.

Shimano say you need a fancy “Shadow” derailleur to make this cassette work. Shimano are full of it.

This is just a regular Deore derailleur. I screwed the B-tension screw all the way in, and it fits. Just barely.

Shimano also warns you that the 22/36 combination can generate so much torque that you might damage your rear hub. They then suggest that you should buy one of their fancy 29er-specific rear hubs.

I think I have the hub situation well in hand already.

I took it for a test spin around the block today, and everything seems to work. Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to take it out to the woods this week and see if I am able to spin up some hills that I have had to walk up before.

The Lebanon Valley Rail Trail is taking over the world!

Lebanon Valley Rails to Trails has announced plans to extend the Lebanon Valley Rail-Trail along a path that follows the abandoned Lebanon & Tremont rail line and would continue to Lickdale, where it would link to the Swatara Rail-Trail.

The Swatara Rail-Trail also uses the old Lebanon & Tremont roadway and continues for another 10 miles to Pine Grove, most of that length within Swatara State Park.

It’s a scant 3 miles on-road from the Swatara Rail trail to the Stony Creek Trail. When this extension is done, Lebanon is going to be the hub of a nice little trail network – about 60 miles of trails, by my calculations.

You can help make it happen faster by kicking in a few bucks.

My Karate Monkey had been hanging on its hook in the garage since last fall some time. I was almost ready to sell it, since it wasn’t getting ridden.

I’ve ridden it a few times in the past 2 weeks just for something different. I had forgotten how much fun it is to take it to the woods and run over rocks and stuff.

I think I’m keeping it.

I took it up to Stony Creek today, and made a foolhardy attempt to climb Stagecoach road (steep!). I abandoned the attempt after about 100 yards, when I thought I was having a stroke.

Here I am all red-faced and sweaty after the attempt.

I’m thinking of getting one of Shimano’s new-fangled CS-HG61 cassettes for it. It’s unlikely that having 2 more teeth on the low gear would make that much of a difference, but it probably wouldn’t hurt, either.

Anyone know if this thing would work with a Phil Hub and a plain-old Deore dérailleur? I have a 34-tooth 30-tooth low gear now, and don’t have any problems with it.

Anyhow, 17 miles for the day, and I like my Monkey again.