Thanks, Henry, for your advocacy of triples. Triples are great and they were cooked up by riders who knew what they were doing long ago, no? And my real-life 3x story for the day is from today, riding errands on a Pacific 3000 mountain bike from back in the day, GripShift and cantis and 3x and lots of chrome and a true thrift store special, thanks, thrift stores, I still appreciate you. And what did 3x mean to me today? No thinking about shifting. I like to shift but I don't like to really think about it. I just dial up what feels good and it feels good to have a lot to dial up. And 3x7 is 21 speeds, baby, 21 speeds for speed, ain't no 1x can do that. 😀
I'm a big 3x fan. I don't need the small ring often, but when I do, it's amazing to have it. When commuting, I like being able to drop down on the front ring at a stop light and pop right back into high gear after I get going again.
I recently tried a bike with cantilever brakes and a triple front, and I was not searching for any gears. My experience is a State Bicycle All Road with 1x system and disc brakes, and the 3x canti brake bike was sooo good, I may prefer it! The bike I rode was a 90s Cannondale H300 with 38c tires, what a dream ride! Can't wait to get something equivalent to that in the future.
The color of that bike is so nice looking and slightly sloping top tube is really tough looking with the tires. That would be the only bike I needed for everything. Bike is just beautiful Mark from Maryland
I really like the build with drops, another 3x fan here my touring bike had a 3x10 set up and I have been experimenting with different chain rings to get a set up I like. I like this Bike Henry.
Very sweet looking bike there Mr W. 👍🏾😀. 3x8 fan here, I like the big shift you can get with triples, ie going up hill… drop a chainring ahhh… crest a hill and heading down, slip onto the big ring ( not so very big with mine!). Any hoo lovely bike and build.. ride on baby! ☮️ ❤️
I think for most people it's too much to think about. Disc brakes are very easy to get good stopping power and lever feel. It's taken me a lot of time tinkering with various cantilever brakes, pads and cable arrangements to finally feel like I know how to get good brake lever feel.
I've used triples for ages. Preferred chainring selection is for a front shift to be twice as wide as a rear, when in the middle of the cogset. Reliable shifts, no dropped chains, no feeling like you stepped into a hole. Re: cantis. Those ones you are using look like the original ones on my touring bike. They worked fine without a load but were inadequate with 4 bags full of junk. It will be interesting to see how they work for you when you're fully packed up.
Rocking a triple, sick brake setup and drop bars with a College and Power Glove soundtrack? YES PLEASE! These are just the kind of vibes I'm looking for in the cycling world.
I like watching the testing of different setups. I think triples are very useful and too often viewed as "old man tech" as they are very practical. As some have commented the inner ring may not be used very often but it is a god send when you need it and with loaded/unloaded touring/gravel bikes you never know quite when that will be. One thing that I'd like to see is the use of bar-end shifters as an alternative to down-tube or brifters. These open up lots of possibilities on drop bar bikes and are very convenient to hand as well as being able to shift many gears in one throw. They also, in several models, allow indexed as well as friction shifting( on rear mech only of course ). I got them on a factory made bike expecting to hate them, yet here I am using the exact same ones on a new build 25 years later. They are simple and work well.
Really love the fun direction you went with this vid! Can tell you're having fun with it. The bike looks sick and like so much fun to ride. Those exage levers look good on the cowchippers.
triple is really about tire size aswell. A 26 inch tire spins faster compared to your cadence so having more gearing options on the front crank is nicer
“Save the front derailer” life is real. I am converting my 1X dirt touring tractor from 1X to 3X next year. Parts are more affordable and less quirky than the Eagle set up. Great suggest for square taper JIS bottom bracket. And noted on the set up for caliper brakes. I had a lot of fussing and fitting with heavy dose of better YT videos before I got my set/ups dialed in. There are way too many just bad ones from mechanics that barely tolerate the brakes. Yeah Kool Stops!!
Regarding the interrupter brake levers not allowing a handlebar bag. I ran an Arkel bag with a set of small interrupters on my Rando Marinoni. The Arkel bag mounts with a couple inches from the bar.
I have a drop bar conversion of a '96 Trek 930 that"s pretty close form and function wise to your Fitz ( although not nearly so cool!,lol). I was going to run my tried and true favorite Zipp Service Course bar but at the last minute decided to go with Soma Junebugs. The Junebug is ok but I really can't seem to warm up to it. How do you like the Cowchippers? Thanks for trying to show the yung'uns that a triple is still a valid choice.
I recently tried a triple for the first time on my road bike and I don’t know why I didn’t take the plunge earlier. The gears are super intuitive and I didn’t notice any difference in Q factor despite the noise. 30 40 50 convert!
Q Factor is pretty much a non-event. Most people who have more than one bike will actually have different Q Factors and they don’t even realise - particularly if you switch between road and mtb
Lovely frame. As for thw shifting setup, I don't get it. There's bar end shifters, there's now affordable brifters for any imaginable configuration. Kudos on figuring it out, but this just seems like more work.
Such a great vid haha, the music was perfect. And those exage brake levers are surprisingly very nice looking, might pick up a set myself. Triple for life, people have forgotten that having a middle ring is way nicer than a compact or sub-compact double. Whenever I play with gear calculators and think I want to try out a compact double the gear inch range is just no good. I'm going with a 46/38/28 for my next road bike build, coupled with a 12-21 freewheel. I would like to try a half-step setup with 9 or 10 speed, however...with modern indexing all the annoyance of friction downtube halfstep is solved. Would make for a potentially lightweight drivetrain with small jumps between gears and relatively large range. Something like 44/40 in the front and 11-32 or 11/36 in the back.
Triple is old school and somewhat passe but nothing gives the the range and the smoothness of steps across the gears that a triple will give you. My first MTB had a triple on it, and it road in that middle chain ride a lot. I could find a gear to keep my cadence smooth easier. A lot of touring folks still use a triple. I am surprise that you skipped the friction shifters. I thought that is how you would make the handle bar swap easier. Nice bike set up; the swept bars are perfect IMO. I look forward to a video of a long ride on this bad boy.
Good day. I have a few questions for you. What size is that frame? What is your height, reach and inseam? How wide are those salsa woodchippers? How long a stem did you use? Thank you.
I recently installed the origin8 tiki bar on my gravel/all road/touring/ Surly Pack Rat. Isn't it great that bikes can be so individual and accommodating at the same time.
Build is so sick! What are your overall thoughts? So many questions! Ride quality? Drops vs. flat bar? How do those tires perform? What brand of brake pads are those? Looks like the fit is perfect for you. 🤘also, where did you get that bottom bracket?
You mentioned the mechanical advantage of the brake leavers being an important factor for cantis. How do you go about finding leavers that don’t pull too much cable? Are there any modern ones you’d recommend?
With a triple setup, what size are the chainrings, do you have very tall gears like a 53/11 and very short gears for loaded climbing as well? What is the range of your proposed setup?
For this build I used 46-36-26 chainrings on the front paired to an 11-34 cassette on the back. I plan to swap to an 11-36 cassette for touring. The rear derailleur can handle an even larger rear cassette, but that wold mean a longer chain. So if the 36 is not good enough I could drop to a 24 on the front. Lots of options here.
Thank you! I mounted the shifters in the 31.8mm part of the bar using dropper post lever clamps. There’s also clamps made for certain shifters that will work too.
@@scottatkins8381 Cool set up! I looked at the Paul clamps as an option too. I picked some generic clamps to save a few dollars as I work out my concept. There's a few minor issues with my set up, but I think I have a solution.
Someone needs to make flat bars that convert to drop bars on the fly, might require metal the Terminator(skinny non Arnold one) was mad of so could be a while, I guess.
Triple is a 1x with a bail out gear in each direction
That's a great description!
Bail in, bail out.
This bike screams for some Gevenalle brake lever/shifter mounts!
Enjoying watching the evolution of this bike.
Nice sound effects in the beginning of the video. trippy
Thanks, Henry, for your advocacy of triples. Triples are great and they were cooked up by riders who knew what they were doing long ago, no? And my real-life 3x story for the day is from today, riding errands on a Pacific 3000 mountain bike from back in the day, GripShift and cantis and 3x and lots of chrome and a true thrift store special, thanks, thrift stores, I still appreciate you. And what did 3x mean to me today? No thinking about shifting. I like to shift but I don't like to really think about it. I just dial up what feels good and it feels good to have a lot to dial up. And 3x7 is 21 speeds, baby, 21 speeds for speed, ain't no 1x can do that. 😀
I'm a big 3x fan. I don't need the small ring often, but when I do, it's amazing to have it. When commuting, I like being able to drop down on the front ring at a stop light and pop right back into high gear after I get going again.
I agree. I put a 44/33/22 and 11-42 on my 920.
I recently tried a bike with cantilever brakes and a triple front, and I was not searching for any gears. My experience is a State Bicycle All Road with 1x system and disc brakes, and the 3x canti brake bike was sooo good, I may prefer it! The bike I rode was a 90s Cannondale H300 with 38c tires, what a dream ride! Can't wait to get something equivalent to that in the future.
The color of that bike is so nice looking and slightly sloping top tube is really tough looking with the tires.
That would be the only bike I needed for everything.
Bike is just beautiful
Mark from Maryland
I really like the build with drops, another 3x fan here my touring bike had a 3x10 set up and I have been experimenting with different chain rings to get a set up I like.
I like this Bike Henry.
Thank you, Richard! It's nice to see some fellow triple fans! My only fear of discussing this topic is losing out on good deals for NOS triple parts.
Very sweet looking bike there Mr W. 👍🏾😀. 3x8 fan here, I like the big shift you can get with triples, ie going up hill… drop a chainring ahhh… crest a hill and heading down, slip onto the big ring ( not so very big with mine!). Any hoo lovely bike and build.. ride on baby! ☮️ ❤️
You really can get so much power out of cantis. I'm not entirely sure why the rumors developed against them. Lovin the build experiments!
I think for most people it's too much to think about. Disc brakes are very easy to get good stopping power and lever feel. It's taken me a lot of time tinkering with various cantilever brakes, pads and cable arrangements to finally feel like I know how to get good brake lever feel.
I've used triples for ages. Preferred chainring selection is for a front shift to be twice as wide as a rear, when in the middle of the cogset. Reliable shifts, no dropped chains, no feeling like you stepped into a hole.
Re: cantis. Those ones you are using look like the original ones on my touring bike. They worked fine without a load but were inadequate with 4 bags full of junk. It will be interesting to see how they work for you when you're fully packed up.
Rocking a triple, sick brake setup and drop bars with a College and Power Glove soundtrack? YES PLEASE! These are just the kind of vibes I'm looking for in the cycling world.
Before you where born hit hard 😂
Thank god - you broke my heart with those flats.
I love the editing you made with this one.
I like watching the testing of different setups. I think triples are very useful and too often viewed as "old man tech" as they are very practical. As some have commented the inner ring may not be used very often but it is a god send when you need it and with loaded/unloaded touring/gravel bikes you never know quite when that will be. One thing that I'd like to see is the use of bar-end shifters as an alternative to down-tube or brifters. These open up lots of possibilities on drop bar bikes and are very convenient to hand as well as being able to shift many gears in one throw. They also, in several models, allow indexed as well as friction shifting( on rear mech only of course ). I got them on a factory made bike expecting to hate them, yet here I am using the exact same ones on a new build 25 years later. They are simple and work well.
Awesome , tough looking, no nonsense bike. I bet it's just waiting to be taken on an adventure. Great !
So much fun watching, interesting project Henrywildeberry. Loved the flat bar, but those drops are 🔥. Make you fly, no?
Really love the fun direction you went with this vid! Can tell you're having fun with it. The bike looks sick and like so much fun to ride. Those exage levers look good on the cowchippers.
When you bring reality TV together with bikes, it's a magical combination.
Fashion suggests I should spend more money for less gears , think I'll be sticking with 3x8 .
Sick video HW...! I’m back in love with my drop bar bike. Makes things more interesting and the comfort is awesome
Thank you! I'm glad you've rediscovered the love of the drop bar bike! Keep those wheels turning.
I agree 100 percent on the brake set up 👍and the triple ⚙️
i love your videos and your audio design
Thank you!
triple is really about tire size aswell. A 26 inch tire spins faster compared to your cadence so having more gearing options on the front crank is nicer
“Save the front derailer” life is real. I am converting my 1X dirt touring tractor from 1X to 3X next year. Parts are more affordable and less quirky than the Eagle set up. Great suggest for square taper JIS bottom bracket. And noted on the set up for caliper brakes. I had a lot of fussing and fitting with heavy dose of better YT videos before I got my set/ups dialed in. There are way too many just bad ones from mechanics that barely tolerate the brakes. Yeah Kool Stops!!
Interesting fr brake cable routing. Above and around the stem. When set up correctly, those threadless cantis can work very well
Regarding the interrupter brake levers not allowing a handlebar bag. I ran an Arkel bag with a set of small interrupters on my Rando Marinoni. The Arkel bag mounts with a couple inches from the bar.
I have a drop bar conversion of a '96 Trek 930 that"s pretty close form and function wise to your Fitz ( although not nearly so cool!,lol). I was going to run my tried and true favorite Zipp Service Course bar but at the last minute decided to go with Soma Junebugs. The Junebug is ok but I really can't seem to warm up to it. How do you like the Cowchippers? Thanks for trying to show the yung'uns that a triple is still a valid choice.
Almost had some early Human League going there. I 'Dare' you ;)
I haven't check ur site out for some time....better choice on the bars :) Ur right on the three chainwheel !!!
I recently tried a triple for the first time on my road bike and I don’t know why I didn’t take the plunge earlier. The gears are super intuitive and I didn’t notice any difference in Q factor despite the noise. 30 40 50 convert!
Q Factor is pretty much a non-event. Most people who have more than one bike will actually have different Q Factors and they don’t even realise - particularly if you switch between road and mtb
Lovely frame. As for thw shifting setup, I don't get it. There's bar end shifters, there's now affordable brifters for any imaginable configuration. Kudos on figuring it out, but this just seems like more work.
Long live the triple! I have them on most of my bikes!
I have a ten year old Giant Talon that came new with 3x10. It's like a bottomless well. 😀
Such a great vid haha, the music was perfect. And those exage brake levers are surprisingly very nice looking, might pick up a set myself.
Triple for life, people have forgotten that having a middle ring is way nicer than a compact or sub-compact double. Whenever I play with gear calculators and think I want to try out a compact double the gear inch range is just no good. I'm going with a 46/38/28 for my next road bike build, coupled with a 12-21 freewheel.
I would like to try a half-step setup with 9 or 10 speed, however...with modern indexing all the annoyance of friction downtube halfstep is solved. Would make for a potentially lightweight drivetrain with small jumps between gears and relatively large range. Something like 44/40 in the front and 11-32 or 11/36 in the back.
Triple is old school and somewhat passe but nothing gives the the range and the smoothness of steps across the gears that a triple will give you. My first MTB had a triple on it, and it road in that middle chain ride a lot. I could find a gear to keep my cadence smooth easier. A lot of touring folks still use a triple. I am surprise that you skipped the friction shifters. I thought that is how you would make the handle bar swap easier. Nice bike set up; the swept bars are perfect IMO. I look forward to a video of a long ride on this bad boy.
Cool bike! Fun video!
Good day.
I have a few questions for you.
What size is that frame?
What is your height, reach and inseam?
How wide are those salsa woodchippers?
How long a stem did you use?
Thank you.
I recently installed the origin8 tiki bar on my gravel/all road/touring/ Surly Pack Rat. Isn't it great that bikes can be so individual and accommodating at the same time.
It is great! What's also great is there is no single word to describe the bike, and that makes for fun UA-cam comments.
Build is so sick! What are your overall thoughts? So many questions! Ride quality? Drops vs. flat bar? How do those tires perform? What brand of brake pads are those? Looks like the fit is perfect for you. 🤘also, where did you get that bottom bracket?
Nice bike thoughtfully set up. What does it weigh in kg?
You mentioned the mechanical advantage of the brake leavers being an important factor for cantis. How do you go about finding leavers that don’t pull too much cable? Are there any modern ones you’d recommend?
With a triple setup, what size are the chainrings, do you have very tall gears like a 53/11 and very short gears for loaded climbing as well? What is the range of your proposed setup?
For this build I used 46-36-26 chainrings on the front paired to an 11-34 cassette on the back. I plan to swap to an 11-36 cassette for touring. The rear derailleur can handle an even larger rear cassette, but that wold mean a longer chain. So if the 36 is not good enough I could drop to a 24 on the front. Lots of options here.
How did you mount the shifters to the drop bars? Did you have to buy an adapter of some kind?
Thank you! I mounted the shifters in the 31.8mm part of the bar using dropper post lever clamps. There’s also clamps made for certain shifters that will work too.
@@Henrywildeberry thanks for the feedback. I just ordered a Paul Sram shifter mount so that I can mount a Sram NX groupset on a gravel bike.
@@scottatkins8381 Cool set up! I looked at the Paul clamps as an option too. I picked some generic clamps to save a few dollars as I work out my concept. There's a few minor issues with my set up, but I think I have a solution.
Someone needs to make flat bars that convert to drop bars on the fly, might require metal the Terminator(skinny non Arnold one) was mad of so could be a while, I guess.
that looks a lot like sonoma county! specifically the russian river!
try using friction shifters!!
triples 👋👋
So what bars are those lol