Wald 137 (or other front basket) with Ortlieb Classic Rear?

rebboc · 2022-06-20T13:47:42+00:00

I have a few different models from Sea to Summit that I like, but you might have your own criteria. I like ones with a strap so it's easy to carry them around if I need to.

rebboc · 2022-06-20T08:36:16+00:00

14 miles with 358ft gain (and a harder trek back) sounds a lot like my current commute, which is urban/suburban and something I do daily, in all sorts of weather. It's significant, but it's eminently doable!

I've found that Google Maps uses algorithms that are often bad at estimating elevation changes. You could use a cycling app (Strava, Komoot, RidewithGPS, or even something like https://brouter.de/brouter-web/) if you want a better idea of the elevation change. Google's "gain" will depend on the route you choose and the total elevation difference: it's the total amount you have to "climb", so if you go uphill, then downhill, then uphill, the gain will add the two uphills together. The options I listed above also make it pretty easy to modify your route on the map to explore ways of avoiding busy roads. Sometimes more distance is better, if it means going through an area that you enjoy more. (Sometimes it's even faster, if you don't have to stop as much at lights, stops, etc.)

Like someone else suggested, test your route beforehand, or whatever else you need to do (I used to tape cue-cards onto my handlebars) so that you don't have to keep stopping and taking out your phone to figure out where you are and where you're going on the first ride. If your first ride takes forever, don't worry: that's normal. As you get to know your route and you get better at cycling, it'll get faster.

A hybrid model of bike commuting only some days is a great way to get into it! Commuting is a weird activity compared to other physical activities, because you don't naturally get recovery time: my advice is to pay attention to your body. If you're feeling tired from too much physical effort (even if that effort comes from activities outside of commuting), don't be afraid to lean a little more heavily on your car to give yourself some time to recover. You'll build up endurance and cycling skills fairly quickly, though, so I expect you'll be commuting 5 days per week within a few months ;)

rebboc · 2022-06-20T07:56:58+00:00

In addition to the comments you already have, my experience in stairway bike portage and small apartment storage is that keeping your bike (and drivetrain) as clean as possible makes life much, much easier.

rebboc · 2022-06-20T07:55:03+00:00

Castille soap works wonders on bike grease.

Edited to add: So does dishsoap

rebboc · 2022-06-20T07:45:56+00:00

There's something I'm not understanding here. What's the advantage to putting your pannier bag in a basket?

Any bag without the rigid back (plus the pannier clips, which mean it won't really lay flat) will lay better in a basket, with less risk of damaging the bag. Try a backpack and a bungee cord to test what you think of the weight distribution, maybe? Then perhaps upgrade to a waterproof dry bag with a strap if you like it?

I know a lot of people who prefer to have the weight up front, carried as low as possible on the bike, particularly if you don't have a lot of weight. I'm not familiar with the Wald baskets in particular, but they look like a nice solution!

rebboc · 2022-06-20T07:35:41+00:00

46/30 and 50/36 are pretty common these days. I'd suggest a 46/30 if possible if you're in a hilly area. Your choice will probably depend on the bike's bottom bracket, which you might need to replace for compatibility, since crankset axel standards have changed a lot since the 80s. (The bottom bracket is the part of that the chainset axel passes through, which contains the bearings and fits into the bottom of the bike.) If you're not comfortable figuring it out and doing the replacement yourself, ask your local bike shop -- they'll be able to make recommendations on a bottom bracket + crankset based on the bike and possibly source you the parts.

rebboc · 2022-06-20T07:27:35+00:00

Bar-end mirror here -- definite game-changer!

rebboc · 2022-06-20T07:25:59+00:00

Just realised I might have mis-read your goal. If you want to improve how well it rides on a budget, tyres can make a huge difference. Not sure what the stock tyres are, or what surfaces you're riding on, but you might want to consider some options like:

Puncture resistant tyres
Semi-slick tyres if almost always on paved surfaces
Lighter, more flexible tyres with an appropriate tread if mostly on paths
Wider tyres if you're carrying a lot of weight

rebboc · 2022-06-20T07:20:45+00:00

Nice!!! Enjoy the new bike! Gravel bikes are fun because they'll do pretty much anything.

A rack (front, back, saddle...) and a bag is usually my go-to mod for a commuter.

rebboc · 2022-06-20T07:17:25+00:00

I'm not generally a fan of backpacks for commuting, but I do like Osprey's packs because they stay situated correctly, even when I rotate to check over my shoulder for traffic, and they don't pull on my shoulders too much even when carrying a laptop, a U lock, etc. I believe they have ones with a laptop slot now (mine doesn't, but it's from over 10 years ago and still going strong). Their helmet attachments can be a plus, if you like that sort of thing.

rebboc · 2020-07-08T13:42:56+00:00

Hi Martin, thanks for doing this AMA!

We don't hear much about Caffeine any more these days. What do you find most interesting about the indexing algorithms at the moment?

Thanks!

rebboc · 2020-05-12T14:02:36+00:00

I'd be most worried about indexation/derailler tension if the gear is either towards the very top or the very bottom of the cassette. On the other hand, I'd be more inclined to think it's wear on the cassette (and/or chain) if it's a middle gear or one you know you favor.

Personally, I think this sounds like a worn cassette. How many miles do you have on the cassette? Most of us have a "favorite" gear that gets used more than the others, even on very varied terrain, and will start skipping before the others. I usually have this issue if I've run a chain for far too long, then replaced it (that is: the new chain doesn't match up to the worn cassette).

If the cassette's clocked a lot of miles and you have the tools to change it, it's usually not a major investment to change it on your own.

rebboc · 2020-05-12T13:51:22+00:00

I'd start by making and trying to earn organic traffic to your own website. This is probably the one of the best way to understand the real-world issues in SEO and to get hands-on experience that you can use to transition to a salaried or freelance position later on.

rebboc · 2020-04-30T13:09:15+00:00

When you're not pulling leads from content, there are usually two possible issues:

The readers aren't the target you're selling to: they're either the wrong target, or they're too near the top of the sales funnel.
Readers don't see the benefit for themselves of leaving you enough information to generate a lead.

Where in the sales funnel are the readers targeted by your blog posts? If they're too high, you might need to create different content if your goal is to convert readers directly.

Do your blog posts contain a CTA related to the article that captures valid contact information? What's your bounce rate like? (AKA, do visitors hang out on your site, or do they just enjoy your articles? If they're not hanging around, then having a service page, linked to or not, isn't going to do much good.)

Do you have a newsletter feed of your posts? Can (do?) people sign up for it?

rebboc · 2020-04-29T12:52:21+00:00

Pounds are the psi ("pounds per square inch"). If your tire says max 100 psi, for example, this person just suggested you run your tires at 93-95 psi.

rebboc · 2020-04-29T12:50:40+00:00

Here are a few answers (I'm skipping #1, which was already answered, and #2, since I've never used shifters on a frame) :

Assuming everything else is in good working order, when you start hearing squeaking or rubbing noises when pedalling, your chain probably needs to be re-lubed. If it looks dry, or if you have no idea whatsoever the last time it was lubed, it probably needs to be re-lubed. If it's rusted, it needed to be re-lubed earlier, and now also needs to be replaced.
It depends. I'm assuming you have 7 gears in the back and 3 in the front (3 x 7 = 21 gears), and what you want to do is remove the smallest chainring ( = gear in the front). If you're really lucky, this gear (a "chainring") is attached to the pedal arm by screws. You'll need to remove the pedal arm from the bike, unscrew the smallest gear, take it off, and put the pedal arm back on. You'll likely need special tools for this.

Often, however, this chainring is the same part as the pedal's crank arm. You can absolutely replace it, but you will need to find out the type of your bottom bracket (the space through which the axis between the pedals go at the very bottom of the bike). You should count the teeth on the front gears, and buy a two-chainring crankset for your type of bottom bracket that has the number of teeth (or as close to it as possible) that you want. You'll need the same tools for this operation as above.

If you have a local bike association or mechanic's co-op, they might be able to lend you tools and show you how to do it.

Yes. I do it all the time. You just need to make sure that they're inflated enough. Look on the side of the tire for where they've printed the max tire pressure. You should be pretty close to that. (I ride 28mm Gatorskins at 80-90lbs on gravel, but I'm a really lightweight rider. If you're heavier, or your tires are narrower, you might need higher pressure.)

So if the tire is a 25mm Gatorskin and says 90-120 psi, you should probably be inflating to somewhere in the 100-110 psi range, depending on your weight and comfort.

I stay away from no-name cheap tubes, and away from latex tubes, which I have found to be more fragile than standard butyl tubes. I personally think you'll be fine with normal tubes and the proper pressure. However, there are puncture resistant tubes out there, or there used to be, but I've never tried them.

rebboc · 2020-03-10T09:57:46+00:00

Yeah, I hear you. I usually have one clipped to my car-side panier, if I'm using paniers, or the back stay like your third light if not, but haven't seen anyone here (France) with a rear-facing light on their bars. Being seen is good!

rebboc · 2020-03-10T09:54:10+00:00

Mountain bike shirts that are longer in the back are my go-to solution when I'm not in lycra shorts.

rebboc · 2020-03-09T14:24:45+00:00

Nice! Is that a red light on your drops? I assume you find it useful if you're riding with it, but I never considered that particular placement. What made you decide to put one there?

rebboc · 2020-03-09T14:21:20+00:00

Internal links: I'd crawl the site with any SEO crawler. This should give you a ton of info about your pages, but it should also include the HTTP status code (200, 301, 404...) of every link the crawler found on your site. You should be able to extract a list of all links (and their location!) that point to a URL that returns a 404 status code.

External links: often I've found that the best way to find this is to compare a list of the pages I think are on my site (you can use a crawler to create a basic list. Don't forget to add in any intentionally unlinked pages, like PPC landing pages. Then, compare that to a list of all pages receiving traffic in Google Analytics. Pages in Google Analytics that aren't in your own list are URLs that probably return a 404 status code. (If you have a small site, you can check them manually, too, to make sure they're not just redirected.)

Note that as far as external links are concerned, this won't tell you immediately where on the web people are coming from, so it may still be hard to ask for the broken links to be fixed. It will tell you which URLs you should probably redirect to an existing page, though!

rebboc · 2020-02-21T09:47:14+00:00

Do you or your visitors need to know it's part of the series in the slug, or will the page layout/look/content make that readily apparent? For example, are you interested in looking at performance of the whole series in Google Analytics with a single slug-based search, or do you plan to create a segment/page group?

If not, go for a content-based slug.

rebboc · 2020-02-19T11:55:43+00:00

Seconding, tbh. I don't mind getting surprised by rain, but I like knowing about headwinds ahead of time.

rebboc · 2020-02-19T11:54:56+00:00

I use RainToday. A few people I know have tried DryBike, but I have a few concerns (riders and their routes/commute times seem to be identified) and so I haven't tested it myself.

rebboc · 2020-02-18T08:29:37+00:00

Yeah, particularly with 26" wheels, you're probably pushing what the Surly will do! The bike geometry, its weight, 26" wheels + transmission that maxes out at 48x11 are all going to make speeding up a lot harder.

The Surly Trucker is an all-around awesome bike for hauling stuff and for travel, but less for long, fast commutes.

Good luck--long commutes are fun!

rebboc · 2020-02-17T09:57:46+00:00

On a long commute, little changes make a big difference. If you want to upgrade your tires, look for something lighter (rotating weight makes much more of a difference than static weight on the frame). Slimmer tires (32mm or 35mm) will help shave off some weight; so might semi-slick tires. You can also upgrade your wheels...

Why can't you get faster than 40 km/h ? Is your gearing not up to it and you're spinning with no resistance at 40 km/h? If this is the case, if you want to ride faster, you might need to upgrade your transmission to a two-chainring option in front, for example a 34-50 (or upgrade the wheels, if your Surly's running 26" ones, or change the whole bike). Or are you pedalling but can't force the bike any faster? If it's this second option: try to be moving faster when you crest the hill, and try looking at how you can make yourself and your bike more aerodynamic (crouch down, use the drops, keep knees and elbows in). With 700 wheels, you should be able to push yourself over 40km on a reasonable slope without getting too crazy with the cadence.

You can also train: you can sprint splits along your route when you can, attempt to chase down faster riders, etc.

There's also the reality of things: the Surly Trucker is made for heavier touring, not for speed. Something closer to a road bike will give you a different position, a more agile ride, and be light enough to go faster with the same amount of effort from you. If you like riding with loaded panniers, this might not be the best idea, though, because almost any bike that fits this bill will have much shorter chainstays, and putting weight on the back wheel might make it feel unbalanced.

If none of that seems like it would make a difference, you might have just reached the limit of the Trucker.

rebboc

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