Fewer Gears, a Psychoanalysis

Part of me will always be a full-on bike tech nerd. Can’t help it. I understand how the Cane Creek Double Barrel rear shock works; I know how fork rake affects handling; apparently, I even patented a suspension system back in 2007 (more on this soon). But there’s another me–sadly, also an early-40s guy with marauding twin boys and permanent joint pain–who really seems to appreciate simpler things. Particularly when it comes to bicycles.

According to our communal data dump, Wikipedia, “asceticism” is defined all thusly:

Asceticism (from the Greek: ἄσκησις, áskēsis, “exercise” or “training”) describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals. Some forms of Christianity (see especially Monastic life) and the Indian religions (including yoga) teach salvation and liberation and involve a process of mind-body transformation effected by exercising restraint with respect to actions of body, speech, and mind. The founders and earliest practitioners of these religions (e.g. Buddhism, Jainism, the Christian desert fathers) lived extremely austere lifestyles, refraining from sensual pleasures and the accumulation of material wealth. This is to be understood not as an eschewal of the enjoyment of life, but a recognition that spiritual and religious goals are impeded by such indulgence.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Asceticism

From Wikipedia, I’d almost expected something more along the lines of “the ability to evade airport security through feats of agility while smuggling illegal substances in your ‘body cavity,'” but they came through for me here. Asceticism is a kind of austerity of desire. As I get older, I find myself riding bicycles that better meet that description.

Don’t get me wrong. I owned a badass bike shop for over a decade, and I’ve not decided to sell off the brilliant bikes I’ve accumulated in favor of things I make myself out of PVC pipe. I like quality as much as ever. A part of me is just sick of doo-dads and crap. And by “doo-dads,” I mostly mean “gears.”

I dislike multiple gears. Always have. And yet they come in exceedingly handy where I live. The compromise I’ve worked out over the years seems to be using as few of them as possible, and leaving the one I keep nice and big and painful to pedal. To that end, I’ve been tinkering obsessively with this 1×10 project bike lately.

You’re mostly looking at a Merlin-era Jeff Jones Steel Diamond frame and Truss Fork. Though they’re very thin, I’ve had surprisingly good luck with Reynolds carbon 29er wheels, and I’m going for almost a monster-cross kind of vibe here–something I can ride anywhere, from pretty ugly trails to pavement.

There’s a Maxxis Ikon on the back right now, and an Ardent up front, but that’s going to change. I’m using Hope Tech X2 brakes. Stem and post are Thomson, and the crankset is a RaceFace Deus spinning on an Acros ceramic bottom bracket.

I’m using an MRP 1.x guide to keep the chain on a 34t Salsa ring. The rear cassette is an 11-28t SRAM PG-1070. An X.9 10-speed rear derailleur gets switched by a single SRAM thumb shifter (from their TT shifters) mounted on a Paul Thumbie, and pulling through a combination of carbon and white Nokon cables (didn’t have a full set of any one color around).

So how’s it working out? I have to admit, I’m in love with the single ring up front idea. I think triples are the anti-Christ and have used doubles for years now–was beyond happy when SRAM released the original XX group (which I still have on a Pivot Mach 429). But I’m less in love with the admittedly small amount of chain rub I get on the MRP 1.x guide. I’m considering modifying that, or maybe even going with an N’Gear Jump Stop along with an outer bash guard, or fiddling with a Paul’s Chain Keeper (which looks like it’d be exactly the same as the MRP. Noise really is very minimal and can’t be heard on anything but pavement, but still, I just can’t abide the idea of my chain dragging along across the inside of a chain guide, even if I can’t constantly hear it.

But the next immediate project is the gearing itself. Tight trails and steep climbs or not, I’m going to bolt on a larger front chainring–like a 36 or 38-tooth. This may mean switching to a cassette with lower gearing as well, to offset, but I’m going to try the really tall and miserable gearing first. I just hate small diameter chainrings and cassettes, and the 34t isn’t doing it for me. I swear I’m one of those weird people who can feel a big decrease in chain friction (or something really positive) when switching to larger diameter chain rings and cassette cogs. All this needs some experimentation.

But that’s why this is a project bike, and that’s also the beauty of simplifying things. How long am I going to last on a bike with essentially road bike gearing, narrow tires, and no suspension? The nerd part of me? Not long. He geeked out on setting up the Nokon cables (which switch to white right where they pass the white headtube and along the seat stay, then go back to black), and hasn’t shown his face again since. But the ascetic me, the one searching for spiritual guidance or something, really likes riding this bike.

Any psychologist would probably say the 1×10 Jones project is my response to getting older, and to leaving the online bike shop I founded and operated for way more than a decade. And they’d be right. I left Speedgoat.com at the end of April, and I’m taking a deep breath right now, clearing away the clutter, and reprioritizing what’s really important to me. I grew up riding rigid steel mountain bikes with gearing that was simpler and much harder to pedal. So many bikes and years later, there’s something really wonderful about coming home to that original feeling again.