Saturday, May 8, 2010

Tuggnut, by Surly + 7900 Index

I've been having this issue lately with the Casseroll. It has horizontal, forward-facing dropouts, and whenever I stand to pedal or really activate my chain stretchers, the wheel slips in the dropout. Another issue I've had is shifting related. I've been using friction downtube shifters, which isn't a terribly great idea for 10-speed drivetrains because the spacing is just too narrow. During a power burst, if the shifting isn't dead on (rarely happens), then the chain hops around. Beyond frustrating.

2 solutions. First, the Tuggnut by Surly Bikes. It's a beautiful device intended to keep wheels in place on rear-facing fork frames. Since Salsa & Surly are good friends, the Tuggnut works fantastic on the Casseroll dropouts as seen here:



I had to relocate my fender mount (SKS Chromoplastic) to circumnavigate the ubiquitous bottle opener that is designed into the Tuggnut. Also, I removed the axle stop from this dropout. As a result, the wheel absolutely does not slide in the dropouts

On to solution #2. I replaced my Rivendell downtube friction shifters with the only currently available indexed 10-speed downtube shifters: Dura-Ace 7900. Who'da thought? Here's a pic:



Installation was quick and easy, and I have a solid drivetrain setup. No slipping has made me very happy. When riding is fun, riding happens more often.

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