Every so often, we receive photos from Salsa riders. They come in from all over the globe. They aren't always good, but sometimes are great. But regardless of the arguable quality of the photos themselves, they show our bikes being put to good use. You can't ask for more than that.
City Creek Canyon overnighter in Salt Lake City, Utah
Out of work...go for a tour? December tour of Washington & Oregon coast.
Tour de Africa. Four Fargo riders in Sudan. And yes, that is a deceased and rapidy dessicating camel. Don't forget to drink.
Today's post comes from Tim Krueger, Salsa product manager. -Kid
A double on the Vaya? What the $#&@?
It has been asked what we were thinking when we decided to use a double crankset as a spec on a bike intended for recreational riding and touring.
To put it simply, we were thinking! Double cranksets and modern drivetrains have come a long way since the triple was the standard for those pursuits.
Triple front cranks were intended to create a larger gear range when cassettes (or freewheels!) could only reasonably have a range of 12-28 without large jumps in ratios, or making for poor shifting. Over time, technology and engineering have allowed more gears to be placed in the same space, allowing smoother shifting over a greater range of gears. As this technology plods forward, we will eventually see less of a need for additional front chainrings.
For example, the triple used to be the standard for mountain bikes. Now we are seeing compact doubles take their place on high-end mountain bikes with the advent of SRAM XX and FSA 386 technology, when paired with large range cassettes such as SRAM's 11-36 XX cassette. These drivetrains still yield an equivalent range to a standard triple drivetrain, yet are lighter and simpler.
This is the idea with the Vaya. We took a close look at the overall ratios involved with a road-based triple drivetrain. Take our Casseroll Triple for example. With a 30-39-50 front combination, and a 12-25 rear, it has a low gear inch measurement of 32.4. For those unfamiliar with this measurement, it means that in this lowest gear, the bike will travel 32.4 inches forward with every revolution of the pedals.
On the Vaya, this measurement in the lowest gear is 29.0 inches. So while on the surface, the Vaya's double appears to have less of a climbing gear than a road triple, in practice, it actually has a slightly lower gear than a standard road triple drivetrain. Even the traditional road triple with a 12-27 on the back still only has a 30.4 inch low gear.
Now, one could argue that even though this is true, the Vaya is still not as low as a touring setup such as a Sugino XD600 crankset paired with an 11-34 rear cassette, which yields a 20.9 inch low gear. And to that, you would be correct. However, we didn't design the Vaya to be a bike solely for touring. We designed the Vaya to be more of an 'all around' bike, one good for a variety of purposes. The Vaya is our road adventure bike. If you truly want that low of gearing, consider basing your build on a Vaya frameset and choose the gearing that you prefer, or start with a Vaya complete bike and change out your crankset.
Keep your eyes open, because in the near future you will begin to see a trend in cycling towards double cranksets. Because the Vaya may be among the first, but definitely not the last to be sporting the 34-50 and 11-32 combo to give the recreational cyclist the greatest all-around experience.
Thursday October 22nd, 2009
| 1 Comments | Kid Riemer
This is a bit of a different sort of I'd Rather Be Riding Here post, as it is just a quick overview and links to a couple sites.
This past summer, Chipps Chippendale, editor of the UK's Singletrack magazine, took a riding holiday to France and Spain. He did a lightweight tour on a Salsa Fargo, climbing a lot of mountain passes, sleeping in campgrounds, and eating in cafes. Sounds like a nice trip doesn't it?
Chipps was kind enough to let us share the links to his trip so here they are. Check 'em out and then try to figure out what you are going to do to break the 'I wish it were me' feelings! -Kid
Monday, I shared a brief video of my Kokopelli Trail ride. I had an ambitious plan. Some things went well. Some did not. I had planned on heading out on Sunday, but the weather forecast wasn't great and I decided to head out on Saturday instead. I was three hours into the day, I changed my plans. Instead of riding to Moab in two days with a campout, I decided to keep going and ride it in one day.
I had crazy weather on this day. Temps were relatively mild but I had severe wind, rain, dust storms, and even some hail/snow! I was actually thankful for the little bit of rain. I would have been in trouble had it really rained. Thankfully, it was just a little bit of rain and it kept the dust down and firmed up the soil, making my ride faster.
Because I changed plans mid ride and decided to do Fruita to Moab in one day, I decided to roll the last 30 miles into town on pavement. I was crushed as I had been pedalling for 9.5 hours straight with little rest. The last 30 miles were no cakewalk either thanks to more wind and rain. Finally, the weather broke for good and I rolled into Moab.
That's a wrap folks. While I didn't do the whole Kokopelli, I did end up riding almost 120 miles in 13 hours. All in all a great test of body, mind and equipment. Just what I was looking for from this trip.
I finished the night off with a Subway feast and then rode up to the Slick Rock campgrounds in the dark to meet some friends from Nebraska, Colorado and Montana. The wind was gone and the stars came out making for a perfect evening.
What a day! I will never forget it. It was without a doubt one of my more difficult days of riding ever.
The Kokopelli Trail is a 130 or so miles long and links Fruita, Colorado and Moab, Utah. It's a beautiful mountain bike trail filled with amazing singletrack, stunning views, solace and mountains. Really, it has a bit of everything. Most folks spend several days riding this trail. I was looking for another experience. I was planning on knocking it off in two days but my plan did not go as planned.
I'll be sharing my stories over the coming days. I'm a bit worn out but pretty darn excited about the trip. Take a look at this short video and check back here for more stories and videos.
Yes that whirring sound is wind. That section in the vid is about 8-10 miles and it took me almost two hours.
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