And the bike is done. Complete. A working unit. All that good shit.

As promised, Aaron replaced the front mech with the proper one (triple vice double) and made the shifting damn near perfect. My only real issue now is sometimes I get retarded and forget to trim up the front derailleur so it doesn't hit the chain. And sometimes you have to make the shift from the small ring to the big one in two steps to make sure you take all the slack out of the cable.

Aww. Poor me.

The whole system is great. All smooth and silky.

And now the bike weighs 34 pounds. That included my pump, a half full water bottle and my tool kit still strapped to the seat. The thing is a freaking tank. Very smooth, very stable, but a freaking tank.

With the new gearing, going fast is less of an option. running my biggest gear (50x12) I can usually hit around 35 on a good descent, not 40+ anymore. I don't have all the sweet spots in the gears worked out yet. But, I have found that I'm bringing a lot more combinations into the picture than I used to. With the 28 tooth chainring, I used my 34, 30 and maybe the next one down because I only used that little monkey climbing. Coming up Sand Point Way, I dropped into my 30 and stayed in it for a while. Toodling happily along (yes, I toodle on my bike) I looked down and realized I was running my 30x14 or somewhere thereabouts.

One of the reasons I switched to the new gearing was precisely that, to expand the range of gears I actually use. Sounds stupid but it seems to be working for me.

Now I just have to deal with the fact that I'm all fat and out of shape...