I'm just popping up here to express a certain frustration with changing standards and sizes... particularly in the world of bicycle parts. This is a familiar story to anyone who plays around with old bicycles.
I am currently working on restoration (to usability, not showpiece status) of a mid 80's Raleigh Touring bike (the text="kodiak/" if you're interested). The chainrings were pretty chewed up, so I intended to replace them and went into my local bike shop (LBC), to order the new ones. We both took a look and guessed it was a standard 110/74 B.C.D. arrangement and ordered based on that. Unbeknownst to us, there were stumbling blocks in the works.
I discovered on getting the new shiny chainrings home that the small one was really too small for the crankset I was intending it to adorn. I returned the next day for a second measurement and hopefully reordering. It was not to be, as we discovered upon pouring through parts catalogs, and my later internet explorations, this lovely Takagi crankset uses the now obsolete text="86" for the inner chainring (just browse around at that link to find the answers to questions you may be having like "what is B.C.D?", "what is a chainring", "just what, when you get right down to it, is this guy talking about?"), and this size is no longer available. It's not made no more.
I checked ebay and looked elsewhere around the strange and mystical world of NOS bike parts on the internet. I'd be paying more than $50 no matter where I went it seems. So, plan #2! The outer chainrings are 110, and that's lovely. I think I'm just going to find a new crankset in the nice, safe, modern 110/74 format and re-buy that 26 tooth chainring I ordered and be done with it (can't even get 26 tooth in 86 B.C.D. I'd be stuck with 28 as the smallest available size, and I'd be hard pressed to find another replacement in a hurry). This is, to some degree, kowtowing to the modern age I guess... but really, sometimes the whole thing with all these different standards and sizes just seems calculated to annoy (or rather, to get you to buy a particular company's parts rather than mixing and matching to your own contentment). Maybe it isn't always reasonable, but I sometimes wish bike and bike part makers would just get together and agree to use a single set of standards for everything so everything would interchange nicely and smoothly, and then just don't change anything... this of course does not solve the issue of all the old bikes out there sporting a wide array of parts in all shapes and, particularly, sizes.
Props to the LBS by the way. In no way is this an indictment of the service available at text=Chain Reaction.
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3 comments:
I spent my life in metal design and production. My thoughts - considering the cost of good quality aluminum alloy and the work involved to make a chainring, $50 really isn't too bad a price. Unless it comes from China, then all bets are off.
A fair point on percieved fair prices vs. actual value, which is a very skewed relationship these days (just listen to the comments one hears working at a cookware store). I have come to expect roughly a dollar per tooth for the chainrings I buy (not top of the line, but I go for at least a nice Sugino ring (still made in Japan I'm hoping)). The $50 quote was a minimum, not including shipping from a couple sources, and I'm left with another tough search if I need to replace the ring again. I'm enough of a curmudgeon to keep on using 27" wheels and scrounge for tires, but not to fuss around with the cranks and chainrings in a similar way, so I just switched to the modern mode and made a little rant about the vagaries of bits and pieces in the bicycle world.
Rant and frustration recognized.
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