Wednesday, October 28, 2015

Rainy Day Fiddlin'

Once I get this plugged in, then it's on!
With hurricane Patricia's remains about to drench us, I had no alternative but to high tail it home, even though I had a bit of spare time on my hands in the afternoon. So, I started fiddlin' with this new Raleigh Roker LTD that was sent over for test/review on RidingGravel.com.

I bought some Teravail Cannonball tires to check out, and the Roker LTD has tubeless ready American Classic Argent disc wheels on it, so......why not? I got the front one done quite easily, but the back one? That will have to wait until tomorrow. Why? Because I have to plug the bike in. 

Yep. This is a Di2 equipped rig, and the battery is completely dead. It came out of the box stuck in its lowest gear in the back, so until I can get that rear derailleur shifted out of the way, the back tire remains tubed. Yeah.......I could get the wheel out, but I figure I'll wait till I get the battery charged first. So......why don't I have it charged yet? Well, you see, I didn't get the charger, which is specific to this set up, with the bike. I mistakenly thought we had all we needed at the shop, but apparently this new stuff takes a different charger. Well........of course it does. No worries. A new charger should be here today and I'll get that battery charged up, ride the bike a bit, then swap out that tire tomorrow, most likely.

Batteries, chargers, and bicycles? I never thought I'd be saying those three words in the same sentence, but that's the way things have gone now. I hear great things about the Di2 stuff, so now I will get to try it and judge it for myself. Stay tuned......

3 comments:

Daniel said...

I just spent the weekend with a Di2 equipped rig. It worked fine. Its weird hearing the servos moving the front derailleur; its really loud. The one thing I really didn't like were the shifter buttons. They're terrible. I was constantly hitting the wrong one because I couldn't feel the difference between the two.
I am curious as to what you think of those wheels. I've looked into them before but I don't have any experience with them.

Guitar Ted said...

@Daniel Lemke: Interesting that you should bring up the button's similarities. I have already found that to be a nit just from working on Di2 bikes in the work stand. I have heard that some Pros have taped bits of grippy "sandpaper" to one of the buttons on each lever to help with that issue. Any tactile difference would be appreciated, I suppose. I may do something along those lines to test that theory out as I get things underway here.

I have not run the Argents before, but I have spent a little time on the Hurricane Disc wheels from Am Classic and liked those well enough. We shall see.....

youcancallmeAl said...

They have become everything bicycles were supposed to free us from! UGH!