I have - as you may be fed up of hearing by now - an ancient
Scott Sawtooth, a rigid MTB I got in 1988 with the very
first generation of trigger shifters and eighteen (count
them) of your Nipponese gears.
I have recently acquired - as you may also be fed up of
hearing - a Klien Mantra frame, with some bits left on it. I
want to end up with a working bike based on the Mantra frame
- without spending too much money, especially on
transmission parts, because the long term objective is to
fit a Rohloff (but the budget for that is likely to be a
while coming).
The back wheel off the Scott wasn't usable because being a
six-speed the axle was too short. And the combined
shifters/brake levers off the Scott weren't usable because
they were canti levers and V brakes need more pull. So thus
far I have been out and bought
* a new rear wheel
* a new cassette
* new shifters
* new gear levers
* new cables
With that lot I've assembled a bike to the extent that it's
more or less ridable, and have discovered that
* the rear deraileur (Deore XT) that came on the frame is so
shot that it's not guiding the chain well - the jockey
wheels are worn to very odd shapes
* the chain rings are worn beyond use - there is the most
apalling chain suck, particularly on the granny ring.
So the next decision is what to do about these. The bottom
bracket feels OK (although I haven't stripped it to check)
and the crank set, which is an Icon four spoke job, seems OK
too if a bit cosmetically worn. The Scott has Biopace rings
but they're not in that great condition. I could swap them
on but it would mean swapping the crankset as well which
would almost certainly mean swapping the bottom bracket...
and all this would mean the Scott had definitely reached the
end of its days and still wouldn't have a very good setup on
the Mantra. I think I'm pretty much going to have to go out
and buy new rings :-(
Then the deraileur. It's fundamentally a good one although
like the rest of the bike it's had a hard life. My options
seem to be
(i) Replace the jockey wheels; or
(ii) Swap the old 6 speed deraileur off the Scott onto the
Mantra. This will only work if all Shimano deraileurs
move the same amount for the same amount of cable pull
- does anyone know if this will work? - or
(iii) Go out and buy a new deraileur
Or finally, the really radical option, instead of wasting
money on all these parts to revive a deraileur drivetrain
which is intended to be temporary anyway, go straight out
and get an SRAM S7 or Shimano Nexus 8 hub as a poor man's
substitute for a Rohloff (but then presumably I'll need to
get the dropouts re-engineered as well which is not going to
be cheap).
At the moment it being the start of the sailing season funds
are a little limited, so ideas about how to get this working
without buying all new shiny things would be very welcome!
--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke)
jasmine.org.uk~simonOpen ↗
I'm fed up with Life 1.0. I never liked it much and now
it's getting me down. I think I'll upgrade to MSLife 97
-- you know, the one that comes in a flash new box and
within weeks you're crawling with bugs.