Steve Tilford

I was just reading an article at Velonews this morning and according to the review, the big “failure” of the new XTR trail group was that they don’t have a 42 tooth rear cog, thus makes it unacceptable for a 1x setup on a MTB. I don’t get 1x. Not at all.

The article says that 1x allows a wider range of gearing. That is complete bullshit. I hadn’t raced a MTB race in a really long time and happened to be out in Vail for the GoPro games this past summer, so I decided to ride the race on the spur of the moment.

I had a couple issues, but finally got into the top 15. After the race, I was talking to a guy I was riding with at the end and he told me that he didn’t have enough gearing for the climb and he wished he would have put on a 30 in front instead of a 32. I was riding 1998 XTR 9 speed, with a 34 in the back, but a 24 in the front and had no trouble climbing.

I remember Jimmy Mac telling me that the 1x setup doesn’t work for the weekend guy because of the same reason. But, that might have been before the 42 rear cog and 10 tooth small cog Sram has now. But, I still don’t understand it.

I love front chainrings racing MTB. I think it is awesome going hard into a climb, just a little overgeared, then just one shift in the front and be in the perfect gear for the start of the climb. Honestly, I don’t really understand getting rid of the granny gear in front. I was riding a 24 x 40 up Powerline in Leadville. I didn’t plan to be in that gear, but I didn’t plan to be all cramped up and barely moving. If I would have had a 30 x 42, I would have been dead in the water for sure. The extra weight of having a 2nd, or 3rd chainring in front, then obviously a front derailleur and shifter, is well worth it in relation to have the options of having a wider selection of gearing.

Plus, who wants to be going and changing their chainrings for different riding? I don’t. I do a lot of MTB races that start out on pavement. Races such as Chequamengon, Lutzen, Leadville, a lot of them. And I’ve noticed that the rollouts are super tame compared to historical starts, not that I’ve done Leadville and Lutzen more than once. But Chequamegon this year was much easier than the past.

And the reason is that the biggest gears that most of the fast guys have is a 32 x 10. These guys are all spun out. I feel undergeared with a 42 x 11 and well even more so with only a 38 x 11. I don’t think a 32 x 10 is a big enough gear for lot of longer MTB races I do. That is like the gear of being between a 53 x 16/17 on a road bike. I would never start a road race with only a 17 in the back as my hardest gear.

Even in longer off-road races, like Berryman that I did last month, I was riding pretty fast on the open road sections. Fast enough that I needed a 42 x 11. Plus, the jump in the back from a 36 to 42 is huge. That is 6 teeth. XTR is bad enough going from 35 -40, a 5 tooth difference. I don’t know that the rpm difference of shifting between a 36 to a 42, but it is huge.

I’ve ridden single rings in the front a lot. My A bike in cross used to be one chainring in the front. But on the starts, I’d be on my B bike with double rings and then switch once that initial start surge was over. But cross is completely different that racing MTB. You might run into the situation where you need that other ring 3 or 4 hours into a race. And you don’t know how you are going to be physically when you get there.

The biggest downside to all the different choices in front chainrings is how many different front derailleurs there are now. I have 4 different Shimano front derailleur in boxes and none of them fit my MTB. There are 2 and 3 chainring derailleurs, plus top pull, bottom pull and front pull, then low band and high band. They use shims so there aren’t so many clamp sizes, but still it is really hard figuring out what derailleur to order by the specifications. And this isn’t really such a big downside, is it?

So, by now, I think you understand, I like the options that front chainrings offer, like 2 front chainrings, sometimes 3. You’ll have a hard time convincing me otherwise.

This was a great crankset.

I was thinking about replacing the brake vacuum pump on my van last week and was thinking about how difficult it would be for the average guy. I was talking to Catherine about it and, admittedly, she said that there is no way that she could do it.

I proposed a scenario where she was locked in a room, prison-like, with only the automobile tools, van and the new pump. She couldn’t leave until the pump was installed and van running. She said it would be a life sentence, and I somewhat agreed.

There were a couple tricky automobile situations with the pump that would have stumped her. Releasing the serpentine belt would have been difficult. Then, the two lower bolts had been rounded by some other mechanic and it was super lucky, and really difficult, getting them off without disassembling the whole front end of the van and cutting them off.

I’m not sure if it would have taken her years to do the job, but it would have been weeks for sure.

And here’s the deal. Catherine is really smart. She is an attorney and a critical thinker. But she has nothing in her head about repairing automobiles. Or mechanical situations in general. She wasn’t raised in an environment, or had the exposure, to any knowledge of how things work, thus, she doesn’t do things like this. It doesn’t mean she can’t, but it means that it is super difficult, nearly impossible for her.

We each have our brake vacuum pump issues. For most of us, law would be too much. Or sewing. If someone locked us in a room and said we would have to construct a perfect expedition jacket, it would probably take us weeks, months or years to carry out.

What we have to realize as a society, that our society has many people who are missing certain abilities to participate as we think they should. Things as simple as not getting pregnant at 13 or being able to fill out a simple form or keeping a roof over their head, is beyond their abilities.

We should, and are, trying to keep everyone up to speed at the basics, but we really need to understand that the basics are beyond what some people have the ability to do.

We shouldn’t belittle these people or cast them out. We need to understand and accept them. They might be lost doing simple things, but they might be the ones that can change the brake pumps that we all have. We need to embrace them, feel and act on our responsibility for them, and give them all the help they deserve.

I heard a podcast that did a study of silver and bronze medalists at the 1992 Olympics games. It said that the bronze medalists were much happier than the silver medalists, which sort of seemed strange, but not really.

It said the rationale was that the silver medalists were comparing themselves to the gold medal winners and were doing what-ifs. The bronze medalists, on the last step of the podium, were just happy to not be in the huge group of no medal winners, so they were much happier.

I think looking at life that way is good for all of us. Perceive you situation as you’re the bronze medalist in life. As I’ve said here before, we all have already won the life lottery. If you’re reading this right now, you have more and are in a better life situation, than 80% of the planet’s population.

So, even if you consider yourself poor and struggling here, you need to realize that you really are already at least the bronze medalist and maybe even the silver medalist, at life. And all the people, the billions that aren’t on the podium with you, have it much worse.

I heard someone say that being grateful is a huge part of being healthy and happy. I had never thought of it, but it is so true.

We all have tons of things to be grateful about. And once we are grateful, it allows us to put ourselves into others shoes, which will lead to empathy and compassion. We should make it a point to acknowledge that, on a daily basis. It will make us much more grounded, and happy souls.

Have a great Thanksgiving!