Trading Parts (WARNING - Contains Copious Bike Geekery)

As I mentioned in the post about building up the Rock Combo, I used a Deore crankset and front and rear Deore derailleurs which I had gotten from Brad.  Today, I cleaned up the parts I am giving to him in trade.

The crank is an M730 XT, with a UN-72 bottom bracket and XT pedals (if he wants them).  Front and rear derailleurs are M735 XT.  The front derailleur has a 1-1/4" clamp, and I'm not sure it will fit Brad's bike, so I have a Deer Head XT and a Deore front derailleur in the bag, just in case.

If you enlarge the picture, you can see that the XT front derailleur has an interesting clamp.  Rather than the normal hinged style, it has an internal clamp much like those on road bike brake levers.  I would shim it up and use it, if it didn't fit, just because I think that the clamp is cool.  But, that is Brad's call  on his bike.

I disassembled the chainrings from the crankarms and cleaned everything up before lubing the bolt threads and re-assembling the crank.  I almost left the rings loose, because Brad may want to polish the arms.  They are pantagraphed with a simple "SHIMANO", so they could be polished without erasing any logos. 

I also pulled the back plate and pulleys off of the rear derailleur and cleaned everything up.  The front derailleurs don't come apart, so I just used a lot of Clean Streak and threaded the rag though them to get to the dirt.

While I was at it, I pulled the Randonneur bar off of the RockCombo.  I am going to swap it for Brad's silver Gary Bar and see how it works out.  I have ridden the bike back and forth to work all week with the Rando bar, and the position is not bad.  But, I don't know that I'd want to do one of my 100-mile rides on it.

So, when Brad told me he wasn't having any luck getting the Gary to work for him, I suggested that we trade.  I like the Gary on the XO, and Brad had a Rando on one of his past bikes and liked it.  Should work out, for both of us.  (Maybe I can even use the Specialized stem I wanted to use, rather than the less-extended generic one I ended up with.)

As an aside, I really like the RockCombo as a fair-weather commuter.  Even with the low bars, it has a nice lively ride like that of the XO-2, and the big tires make me more confident riding in the dark on Denver's war-zone streets (not a lot of resurfacing money in the budget, lately).   I think that, with the Gary Bar on it, it will be in a tie with the XO-2 for "go-to" status on a daily basis.

The XO will likely remain the choice for paved 100-milers, though, just because the skinnier tires make more sense for that.  And, it will likely see more weekend riding than the RC, simply because I don't always want to be lugging panniers around (and my bags are a PITA to remove and re-install).

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