Nice afternoon. Sunny, dry and fairly mild. Ideal conditions for testing the gear cable on the X, I thought.
I fitted a new shroud to the right shifter before I set off. It’s a perfect fit as you’d expect, but it doesn’t quite match the left one. The left one has a checked surface for extra grip.
Unsurprisingly, I had to make an adjustment to the new gear cable tension shortly after setting off. I couldn’t get into the biggest three cogs at the back at all. But I made a couple of stops over the first five minutes to fiddle with the adjuster, and all was well after that. Or at least it was changing up and down, slick as you like, exactly like it used to.
But here’s the weird thing. I kept an eye on the rear cassette during the ride to make sure all was well, and I spotted that every time I shifted up or down, it was shifting two cogs at a time! The thing is – I’m convinced it’s always been like that; I’ve just never noticed. And certainly I don’t see how a new gear cable could cause that. It’s an 11 speed cassette and it’s perfectly usable, but that’s a bit of a mystery. I bought the bike direct from Planet X so it must have been set up that way by one of their mechanics.
Anyway – I didn’t go far. Through Coleorton to the top of Top Brand, across to Belton and back along Ashby Road. Nice run out in the sunshine, albeit brief. Didn’t have much time.
Annoyingly I nudged the bike computer into “pause” mode during one of the thumbwheel adjuster stops and only noticed about a mile later. But I’ve adjusted the distance for the spreadsheet.
17.04 miles, 266 this month. More tomorrow I think, then Sunday. Sunday looks glorious weather-wise but I’ll be on call. I may try to find a victim to cover that tomorrow.