Sunday, July 3, 2011

Triple Shogun

This morning I spent an hour converting my old Shogun to a triple crank setup for my dad.  He's due for knee surgery soon, and a 42/28 combination didn't seem low enough for his neighborhood (I grew up on top of a hill).  A compact double or triple setup seemed like a perfect solution, and as a project, it was really pretty simple.  I spoke a bit about what I planned to do a couple of posts back, but here's how it went:

The first thing I did was to disconnect the cables from the derailleurs.  Next up, off came the chain.  I gave it a good look and finally figured out it is the Shimano chain that served a short stint on the Kestrel, then moved over to the Shogun when I upgraded the Kestrel to an 8-speed drivetrain, and put the 7-speed stuff on the Shogun (originally 6).  I didn't have any replacement pins to reconnect it, so I just tossed it.

With the chain off, I could remove the 105SC derailleurs.  They're in nice shape, but are not able to support a triple crank setup -- neither has the right cage length for the job.  So they came off, and they went into a box.  These will make their way to Ava's Fuji this winter, as we build that bike up.  next off the bike came the cranks, which are the original Exage Sport cranks (in 170) that came on the bike.  These went into my parts box for someday -- the cranks are shorter than I prefer, but they are decent parts and may work for one of the girls when I build up another bike.

With the cranks off, next I pulled out the bottom bracket. I guessed (correctly) that the 111mm Phil Wood bottom bracket would be a skosh narrow for a triple crankset, so out it came.  Into its place went the 113mm UN-72 I bought to use with Phil rings on the Motobecane, before I realized that was going to mess my knees up.  With the Phil BB I took out, the Exage Sport cranks have a Q of 150mm, which is about as wide as I am comfortable with.  Point being that I could use these cranks myself on a future build if need be.

It all went back together with the new parts pretty quickly.  Rear derailleur after the bottom bracket swap, then cranks, then front derailleur, then chain.  At the rear is a nice old (but unused) Shimano LX mountain bike derailleur, and up front is an Exage triple front derailleur that just barely passes muster with me. If the relative lack of quality of that part bugs me enough, I'll swap it out for something nicer, but it'll do the job dad needs it to do while he rebuilds his knee.  But it works just fine -- and feels better than the 105SC part did, with the over-leveraged left-side shift lever on the bike, actually.  Ended up taking off the cheap old Exage toe clip pedals that were on the bike, and throwing on an old (and still cheap) pair of MTB pedals I had once taken off my ex-wife's Gary Fisher MTB (which Juli now rides, at her place).  As with the front derailleur, that's not a part I'm proud for my dad's bike to wear, and they may may be upgraded at some point -- maybe Christmas presents or something.

After a quick test ride and some adjustments to the rear derailleur adjustment barrel, the bike is ready for Dad to put it to use.  He should be able to get up pretty much any hill with a 30/28 combination, and if not, I can easily throw on a new freewheel (the rear derailleur can handle a 30 or maybe 32).  In that event, I'd just get him a seven-speed cluster, and install a set of 7-speed shifters I have kicking around.  I know... nothing is ever done.  I can't really help but tinker, though.

All for now,

J

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