Tire Test: Panaracer Gravelking 32

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I am inclined to think that Panaracer is making the best bike tires on the market today. So much for objectivity, eh.

Let me back this up with an important fact: in the last two years, I have ridden over 25 different pairs of tires. I am a tire fetishist. Well, I mean that figuratively.

I am always searching for THE TIRE. Generally, my favorite do everything tire is the Panaracer Pasela PT. It’s a great compromise between puncture resistance and rolling resistance. On a wide rim, they’ll even fill out to the listed width. If I have one complaint about the Pasela, it has a tendency to plow in soft surfaces. The Gravel King, with it’s squared tread section looked like it might be the Holy Grail: good ride, light weight, and a cross-section that reduces plowing in soft surfaces.

The tires mounted easily on my standard gravel wheelset, Velocity Aileron rims laced to an SP Dynamo hub front, and a Formula hub rear, and presented themselves as nicely square, and slightly over-wide at 33 mm at 60 psi.

A quick spin on pavement confirmed that they ride nice, and thrum as you would expect from a tread pattern that has more in common with textile design than what you would normally consider tire technology. With that, I decided to use these tires during my run at the State Games of America Cycling – Gravel Grinder event.

So, how did that turn out? Let me just say that in use, they ride quite well. Before a broken saddle forced my riding partner, and myself out of the race, they handled 55 miles of gravel and minimum maintenance road pretty well. However the amount of dirt, dust and gravel that they send skyward is a serious problem for myself, and riders with me. The dirty legs are from a dry day. I was covered in a crust of sunscreen and grit, my bottles were covered in dirt, so badly that I couldn’t drink from them without wiping them on my clothing first, and anyone on my wheel was showered from a rooster tail of road surface.

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In total, I put about 100 miles on these tires, both on a wet’ish day, and a dry one. They are some of the messiest tires I have ever used.

Verdict: Fail

Weight Training Program

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I need to HTFU in a big way, since I registered for the Open Men’s Single Speed category in the Gravel Race at the 2015 State Games of America, so I’ve added weight training to the mix. 

The Trap Bar Dead Lift is a favorite of strength coaches: it combines most of the benefits of the Squat and Dead Lift, avoids most of the pitfalls and injury tendencies of both, and allows you to lift heavier, more safely. 

  

The Trap Bar Progrssion I’m using is the T Nation 100 Rep Trap Bar Workout 

Trap-Bar Progression (pick a weight that allows you to complete the work sets)

  • Week 1: 6 x 8 
  • Week 2: 6 x 10 (same as wk 1)
  • Week 3: 7 x 8 (+ 10 lbs)
  • Week 4: 7 x 10 (same as wk 3)
  • Week 5: 8 x 8 (+ 10 lbs)
  • Week 6: 8 x 10 (same as wk 5)
  • Week 7: 9 x 8 (+ 10 lbs)
  • Week 8: 9 x 10 (same as wk 7)
  • Week 9: 10 x 8 (+ 10 lbs)
  • Week 10: 10 x 10: (same as wk 9)

Soma ES Build

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No shit, I idealized, and then built this bike around a vintage Campagnolo Chorus Aero seatpost. Sorta like that faucet commercial: “Build a house around this.”

Soma ES Frame, it’s my second Soma. Soma did a great job with this frame: it’s light, smooth, and takes fat rubber for a caliper road bike. I put a blingy Chris King headset on it, so I’d be taken seriously. 

Soma Highway One bars, Soma stem, and Fizik VSX saddle, cause I need the peepee groove. 

Campagnolo Record Ultrashift 10 sp drivetrain, long cage rear, Chorus front mech, Record UT compact crank with Rotor 50/34 rings. KMC X10 chain. It has a chainkeeper on the downtube, because sometimes shit happens on bumpy gravel roads. 

Velo Orange Grand Cru long reach caliper brakeset. I generally think caliper brakes are a joke, but it’s because I’d never used anything like these before. Uh-maze-ing. 

HED Belgium C2 hoops, laced to Hope hubs. They sound like a swarm of angry bees. I wrapped 32mm Panaracer Pasela PT tires around them. These things roll well on pavement, broken pavement, gravel, evrything. There’s room in this frame for even bigger rubber. I’m running a 12-30 cassette, because I’m fat, and it’s hilly in this part of the state. 

I’m very happy with it, it came in at 9.8kg, 10kg was my target. Campy brifters shift like a rifle bolt, there’s almost unlimited front mech trim in them, The completed bike is light’ish (I’m 100kg, so light is relative), it rides nice, shifts well, I love it. 

Campagnolo Record Crank cleanup

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I don’t recommend ordering used cranks, especially used cranks that take $300 chainrings. But, if the price is right, (like $189 for Campy Record CT crankset), and you’re planning on replacing the rings anyway, (like with Rotor Q Rings), go for it. 

Before: 


After new rings, bearings, seals, and cups:

New Rotor Q Rings, ordered from Deutschland, $190 instead of $280 domestic. The Dollar is strong right now. 

Total cost:

  • Used Record CT Ultra Torque Crank $189
  • Rotor Q Rings 50/34 110/113 BCD $189
  • New Campy ceramic CULT bearings $35
  • New UT BB Cups $26

Total: $439 for a Campy Record crank with new rings and BB. I’m happy. 

Full-length internal cable housing, critical lessons learned

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I learned several critical things during this bike build, that are worth sharing, even if only to keep them in my mind for the next one.

There’s a definite order to routing internal brake cable housing, it’s cable, housing, cable in order to get it right:

  1. Cut the head off of an old brake cable, and thread this through the plastic guide tube provided in your frame. Don’t put it through the brake levers, just through the frame. You use the cable as the guide for the housing.
  2. Remove the plastic guide tube from the old brake cable. Now you should have only the brake cable routed through the frame.
  3. Use the brake cable as a guide to route the brake cable housing through the frame. Be certain to have plenty of housing for this, this will need to go all the way from your caliper, through the frame, to your brake lever, and it will need enough extra for movement of the handlebars.
  4. Remove the old brake cable, cut the housing to fit, and route the new brake cable through the lever, the housing, and into the caliper. If this is a road lever, splice an inline cable tensioner into the housing so you can adjust your brakes.

Flyxii FR-216 Monstercross gravel-killer 29er build

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This is my first experiment purchasing a bicycle frame directly from China. This is a Flyxii FR-216 29er frame with matching fork. I purchased this frame directly from Flyxii via Aliexpress with the intent of building a drop-bar monstercross  29er rig for really rough gravel events, such as Gold Rush in South Dakota. Complete, the build weighs in at 23.5 lbs, easily 3 lbs lighter than my 700c Soma Double Cross Disc gravel bike.

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Level-set time: this is the first carbon-fiber bicycle I’ve ever built, and the first I’ve ever owned. All of my previous rides have been steel. I learned a lot during this build, in no particular order:

  • Tubeless tire casings ooze a lot of sealant. Really.
  • Setting up tubeless doesn’t work when you keep overinflating the tires. Don’t exceed 40 psi.
  • Full-length brake housing is required on frames like this. They don’t come with instructions, so you have to work that out for yourself.
  • All threads need to be chased, so you need a bottom bracket thread and facing tool, as well as 10mm and 4mm taps. Be really careful, all of these threads are aluminum!
  • Use a torque wrench everywhere, torque keys are cheap and easy to find, and the pre-set 5Nm ones are brain-dead easy to use.

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The bike is SRAM X7, with Apex shifters, BB7R brakes, and an X9 front derailleur. A Salsa Promoto stem and Salsa Woodchipper bars, along with a Flyxii carbon seatpost, Salsa Lip-lock,  a Fizik Aliante VSX saddle, and Shimano XT SPD pedals form the cockpit. Of particular note, I installed 40/27 Rotor Q rings on SRAM X7 crank. I think they are much kinder on my knees than round rings are. Wheels are WTB i23 rims, Deore XT 6-bolt disc hubs with 160mm rotors and WTB Nano TCS tires setup tubeless. It took two layers of Stan’s tape, and 3 oz of sealant to get the setup to work, they’ve held air now for 3 weeks.

On this particular frame, the seat tube is 34.9mm, the seatpost is 31.6mm, and it takes an IS type headset and BSA bottom bracket.

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It’s cold as fuck here right now, so a full test ride will have to wait for temps warmer than 15F.