Okay, let’s get back to the important stuff:
Bikes!
It’s been raining, which means I’ve been on the rain bike:
Though “rain bike” fails to convey what a fine bicycle the Milwaukee is. Moreover, rain duty is by no means a demotion for a bicycle; after all, just because it’s raining, that doesn’t mean you want to ride a lesser bike. If anything you want an even better bike to keep your morale up while you’re getting pissed on. And while when I first took delivery of the Milwaukee I was using it as sort of a “gravel bike:”
My Rivendell and my Jones are better suited to the role, and I’ve come to realize this bike is at its best as a road bike with fenders. So rest assured its living its best life.
Speaking of Rivendell, there’s lots of interesting stuff about shifting in this post, and would you believe they’re working on a rear derail(l)e(u)r?
We ARE now officially working on a rear derailer, a RapidRiser style (Shimano’s name for a rear derailer that works in reverse). This style is generically called a “Low Normal,” which refers to the way the spring is oriented and what that does to the derailer when it’s uncabled. A LN derailer automatically is in the low gear position/on the big cog.. I think it’s a better way for a derailer to move, even though one blogger doesn’t think so.
I need all the good news I can get right now, and quite frankly the fact that Rivendell are working on something as ambitious as a rear derailleur while the world is falling apart fills me with hope and lifts my morale faster than…well, a RapidRise derailleur. (I’m not the blogger mentioned in the post, by the way.) And while that would have been enough, my spirits were buoyed even more today by a package from Rivendell, which contained…a RapidRise derailleur!
I know just where to put it, too:
I’ve never had one of these reverse-sprung derailleurs so I’m looking forward to trying it just as soon as I have the time to perform some minor bike surgery.