One Bike To Rule Them All

I don’t race and I don’t plan to start at age 48. I work at home, so I don’t really need to commute on my bike. I just like to ride my bikes and have fun.

Looking at my current inventory of bikes, what I was seeing was not matching the type of riding that I was doing now.

My Giant TCR Advanced race bike, though tons of fun to ride, was hardly an all-conditions vehicle. Great for group rides and climbing, it really wasn’t suited for tooling around the neighborhood with the kids or riding the bike trail with friends.

My Pake C’Mute, a commuter/cyclocross hybrid seemed to fit the bill, but the frame was always a little too big for me and the parts choice always felt like a bit of a compromise.

It was time for a new bike.

I knew what I didn’t want. A hybrid. Now, some of my bike trail friends ride hybrids and that’s okay – it just wasn’t for me. I wanted a slightly more relaxed race style frame – light, but without the worries that come with carbon fiber. Space for wider tires. Disc brakes. Maybe a single-speed drivetrain.

The answer came in the form of a Raleigh RXS in Single Speed Cyclocross World Championships livery. The aluminum frame and carbon fork were light, yet durable. Plenty of space for comfy tires. Disc mounts. Eccentric BB.

Were there quirks about this frame? Why, yes there were.

While the sellers of the frame were technically correct in saying that the bike could be set up as either single speed or geared, they neglected to mention that there were not cable stops for derailleur cables on frame. This is not what we call an insignificant detail.

A PF30 sticker on the down tube also gave me fits, but more on that later.

With the frame in hand, it was on to the drivetrain. Luckily, my friends over at SRAM had just e-mailed me about their rebooted hydraulic drivetrains. With all of the vital details sent over to the Indianapolis crew, I was free to work on the rest of the bike.

A dig into the parts bins dug up some fine Zipp Service Course parts in the form of a bar and stem.  The Service Course line is very well made across the board and I especially like the Torx mounting hardware that they use on the stems.

For a seatpost, there was only one choice: Thomson. If you look at all of my bikes, you’ll see a Thomson on each one. They’re insanely easy to adjust, especially when you’re trying to dial in seat level. Go with the Masterpiece model if you have the means, but the Elite model really gives nothing up to the top of the line.

Another trusted brand for me is Selle SMP. I’ve been trusting the tender bits to their saddles for about five years now. While they are anything but conventional. I’ve found them to be extremely comfortable if you devote the time to get the level  and fore/aft of the saddle matching your body. Set and forget.

By the way, while I am a devoted eBay shopper for bike parts, I’d recommend trekking to your local bike shop to shop for Selle SMP. Don’t fall victim to the  numerous counterfeit models at unbelievably low prices on eBay.

Still, eBay was my savior for a set of wheels and tires which took the shape of a like new Fulcrum Racing Sport CX Disc set with Schwalbe Racing Ralph tires.

All of my other parts in hand, I was a happy boy when a large box showed up at my door bearing SRAM’s Force 1 Hydraulic groupset.

Force 1, if you’re not familiar with the designation, is SRAM’s new 1×11 drivetrain. For Force 1, a narrow-wide chainring is paired with a wide range 11 speed cluster and derailleur to duplicate the ‘sweet spot’  of most bikes’ gearing range without any of the dead spots.

The standard cluster for the Force 1 group is an 11-36 cassette. When paired with a 38 tooth chainring, the drivetrain has offered me more than enough range for all of the riding that I do.

If you’ve got a sharp eye, you’ll notice that I’m not running a  Force 1 crankset on my bike. There’s a story behind that. As I mentioned earlier, the Raleigh RCX frameset features an eccentric BB in what was seemingly a PF30 BB shell. The frame has a split seat stay because it is intended to be run single speed with a Gates belt drive. The frame also had the capability to run gears (sort of), so that is the configuration I chose to go with.

Assuming that a frame with a PF30 sticker near the BB shell actually had a PF30 bottom bracket, that is what I originally ordered from SRAM.

When I went to install the crank, I was quite surprised to find that the PF30 BB was smaller than the BB shell. After detailed measurement and research it was determined that I would need to use the eccentric BB with a GXP bottom bracket.

Simple enough. A call to SRAM and we swapped the Force 1 PF30 crank and BB for a GXP version. Back to the shop!

With the eccentric BB reinstalled, I threaded in the GXP cups, slipped in the crank, tightened it up and…. it was frozen. The crank would not turn. Yes, the Force 1 crank was a 68mm unit and I was dealing with a 73mm shell width. One more call to SRAM and we swapped out the Force 1 crank for an XX1 MTB unit and all was good.

Braking for the Force 1 Hydraulic gruppo comes from SRAM’s completely redesigned road hydraulic system. SRAM’s initial launch of their hydraulic system had issues, but SRAM did the work to do a proper recall of all of the affected brakesets before a ground-up redesign and re-release of the system.

I ‘ve never worked with hydraulic brakes before, so I took the pieces to my LBS for hose shortening and bleeding. With those installed, I was able to do the final shifting adjustments and all was ready to go.

Adding a derailleur to the Raleigh frame was more than a little bit of a challenge. While I was easily able to order a derailleur hanger via a local Raleigh dealer, running cables to the derailleur proved more difficult as there were no cable stops specced on the frame.

Once again, I turned to the internet for solutions and found what I needed in the form of some vintage Campagnolo bolt on cable stops. One, after a little mangling and drilling, mounted to the brake bridge. The other, after being ‘beefed up’ with a more substantial bolt, mounted low on the drive side seat stay.

Also missing on the frame were top tube cable guides for anything besides brake lines. I was forced to zip tie them shifter cables to the brake lines.

I mentioned above that Zipp was using Torx bolts on their stems, Sister company SRAM has turned to using Torx bolts across their drivetrain systems as well. Both mounting and adjustment felt more secure than with hex bolts. I definitely see other component companies following SRAM and Zipp’s lead on that spec.

My initial impressions of the SRAM Force 1 system were very good. Shifting was crisp across the entire cluster without any of the grinding that you would associate with cross-chaining. Yes, not even the slightest hint of derailleur rub across all of the gears.

The eleven speeds of the system have proved to have more than enough range for all of the cycling that I’ve been doing. My Giant had a compact crankset, so I haven’t missed anything when climbing hills. Furthermore, I’ve not been able to ‘crank out’ to the tallest gear, though I’m sure I could while riding in a paceline on skinny tires.

I was pleasantly surprised with the braking performance of the Force 1 groupset. The hydraulic system offers a great deal of braking modulation – much more than a rim brake would ever provide, though I’m still fighting some rubbing and vibrations issues that I haven’t encountered with the mechanical disc brakes on my mountain bike.

The best compliment that I can give to the Force 1 group is that it just works. Once set up it just does what it is supposed to do without little additional thought.

Finishing out the build, the bike got a little additional bling thanks to some very nice flat pedals from Loaded Precision and some titanium rotor and brake bolts from Proti.

Proti has long been making titanium bolts for the motorcycle industry, but earlier this year, they decided to bring their expertise to the bicycle world as well. Where most titanium bolts are CNC machined to shape, Proti uses a cold forging method that results in a much stronger bolt. They offers kits for calipers, rotors, water bottles and the Cannondale Lefty fork, but if you know what size you need, bolts are available for most any specification.

Will this be my ‘one bike’? Quite possibly. The Giant is already sold.

Will a 1x be the drivetrain for everyone? Probably not – I don’t see the hardcore racing roadies giving up their double chainring. That said, the system is already making strong inroads into the cyclocross and criterium disciplines and there were more than a few 1x drivetrains plying the roads of Kona for last weekend’s Ironman triathlon.

It’s already proven it’s abilities in the mountain bike world as well. While the gearing requirements for MTBs is different and wide range gears have always been the norm, it’s rare to see a mid-tier or above mountain that’s NOT running a 1x system.

The same arguments that can be made for 1x drivetrains can be made for disc brakes. They are becoming ubiquitous because they work so much better than the system that they replace. Whether hydraulic or mechanical, disc brakes just work better.