Working all night on the Qball

Actually, I spent a good six hours working on the Qball in the Man-Cave last Friday night. Ironically, no tunes were blasting and the PBR was still chillin in the Beerfridge. I was busy as a beaver. I was trying to get the Qball ready for a practise run for the Tour De Roxbury, which is a 50 mile Gravel Grinder with 7,000 feet of climbing. I figured the best way to do that, with the parts I have on hand was to turn the Qball into a 1x9. Then, I hope to learn the route and try to keep up with the CAT1 racers who put this race on and come back later and ride it fixed.

I tried three sets of bars before going back to my Ritchey flat bars. I probably should have stayed with the mustache bars but I felt that I wouldn't get enough leverage with them. The bar end diameter on the Origin 8 Gary bars was too narrow for the barcons that I got. I swung by Goodie shop in Bethel and got some three speed bars, when turned upside down turn into flared drops but they were too narrow. Then I tired the FUBars, which looked pretty good but the rearwards sweep and the high angled stem shunk my cockpit too much, so I went back to flats. That mean using some old Avid Levers and a trigger shifter. So my Monster Crosser just morphed back into a mountain bike.

I then hooked up a Deore Shifter and a 9 speed cassette only to find out that with the integrated hanger (below the horizontal drops) the rear derailleur doesn't get low enough to put the chain onto lowest cog. In fact I was having so many problems with the 9 speed cassette that I went to the 8 speed cassette, but since I couldn't get into the lowest cog, it meant I had a 1x7.

On a test ride in the driveway, in the dead of night, I did a little test drive only to find that my FSA cranks were indeed SS cranks and were incompatible with all my chains. I tride the Crankset that I got for the Dillinger only to find that spindle and BB were the wrong size. On Sunday, I found bars that will work but haven't had a chance to put them on yet, however, I am still screwed because I don't have a geared crankset at this point. I have two weeks to find a solution.