Roadeo! Lovely bike.

[Patrick Moore]

I just got back from a very nice, moderately hilly, and quite windy 20 miler. I’ve long since codified my preferred setup, but the first 100 miles always involves many stops, decreasing in frequency as the miles increase, for fine tuning saddle height and tilt and bar tilt. By mile 16 I had it all refined pretty much to perfection, and it is all very comfortable indeed. I averaged 11.6 mph clock running from the very many stops to adjust and re-adjust things, mostly saddle height and tilt, which involved futzing with the saddle bag.

I replaced the Conti Gatorskin 28s and heavy-ish butyl tubes with Stampede Pass EL 32s and TPU tubes, each tube holding ~2 fl oz of OS regular; replaced the 100 mm 90* stem with a 90 mm 15* (?) stem, also a Ritchey — So glad I stashed a couple of Ritcheys away; added an original edition Flite from my collection (I decided to use a tried and true benchmark of 30 years in order to avoid more mid-ride fine tuning than did occur; see below. I also greased and installed my second pair of Dura Ace  7410 (mountain SPD) pedals with pedal washers.

The cranks — again, Ultegra 11 speed R8100 — are the post-warranty, improved model; the seller was very clear about that. The Q is about 145; just right. But those arms are thick!

I don’t so much mind the black color, tho’ I do think that forged and polished aluminum looks much better, as I do the susceptibility of the anodizing to scratching and scuffing. I put a wrap of helicopter tape around the base of the seatpost to protect it from the saddlebag strap, and installed double pedal washers so ensure that my feet clear the crank arms, particularly the right, that has a bunion.

The 11 speed Ultegra drivetrain behaved impeccably; business as usual. I’d not used indexing (in fact, I’d not used a stock drivetrain) since, IME, problematical 7 speed XT, and 11 speed has it down just right. Indexing is truly mature technology.

My own preference is to pedal through a range of cadences and torque levels before shifting — I like to stand and climb, and I usually give up early and coast on downhills (tho’ when I shift, I want just the right gear, not an approximation, especially in the 60” to 80” cruising range), so the ease of shifting is largely lost on me; I hope this convenience does not make me fall into the sin of shifting every time the wind shifts or the incline varies by 1/2 a degree.

It has been — what, 15 years? — since I owned a derailleur road bike; the last one was the blue Ram with first 7 speed and then 9 speed doubles. I’d forgotten how much easier it is to ride such bikes in any conditions other than flat and still, with gears for any wind or hill, and effortless coasting downhill, compared to riding fixed, even with 2 or 3 fixed gears to choose from, and even compared to 3 relatively closely spaced freewheel gears as with a SA AM hub.

The outer ring is a 50, and I think that the inner is a 34. The cassette is an 11-32; tho’ why anyone besides a pro or top-level amateur racer wants a 124” gear is a question I can’t answer. I’m happy with a mid 90s top gear, this on a gofast road bike. 

I can live with the 18 to 20 t drop, 76” to 68”, but what is unforgivable is the jump from 18 to 16, 76” to 85”. That’s just too damned big in the fast cruising (tailwind) range.

But at least the main cruising gear, 50X18, 76”, is just to the left/NDS of a straight line, and with modern chains and 44 cm stays (c bb to c dropout) this particular obsession is really only of academic interest.

But, I am no longer used to crossover drivetrains; all the derailleur bikes I’ve owned in the last 20+ years have been 1xs or 1xs + granny, with the big ring centered on the cassette. One of the biggest annoyances of modern cranks is that you can’t swap bb spindle lengths or laterally adjust them to center the big ring on the center of the cassette.

The left shows the stock and current gearing, the right shows more reasonable gearing:

27.3" wheel					27.3" wheel
	50	34				50	34
11	124				14	98
12	114				15	91
13	105				16	85
14	98				17	80
16	85				18	76
18	76				19	72
20	68	46			21	65	44
22	62	42			23	59	40
25	55	37			25	55	37
28	49	33			28	49	33
32	43	29			32	43	29

I still have new bike smell in my imagination, but it seemed that the Stampede Pass ELs with TPU and 2 fl oz OS reg are as easy to pedal as the ineffably nice Elk Passes, also TPUs and OS, on the t999 fixed custom, this by the usual metric of ease of turning over given gears in given conditions on routes ridden thousands of times over the decades. The SPs measure 31.6 mm — will probably stretch a bit more — on the Rich-built wheels using 23 mm OW Velocity rims.

The Roadeo is definitely nimbler than the Ram was, even when the Ram was shod with ~31 mm Challenge Paris Roubaix tires. Delightful, and it is very close to the nimble yet stable handling of my 26” wheel road customs.

The tall wheels cut sharpness of small abrupt bumps; 28 55-60 vs 32 50-55; roughly 2” taller than 559 wheels of similar width. As cush as 559 X 52 at 35-40.

The original owner was my size and I only had to slam the Flite all the way back on the no-offset Thompson post, raise it by ~5 mm, and play with the tilt. But with an Asian build, albeit on a 5’11” scale, the bar was too far away on the 10 cm stem and too low at 90*. The 9 at +15* puts the bar at clamp about 1: — 1.25" below saddle, just a bit higher than my other, fixed/fxed IGH, road bikes. 

The 42 cm bar a bit too wide but I can live with it; a 40 or even a 38 (those on my other road bikes are 38) would be better. The very long ramps on the STI levers just about exactly make up for the micro reach on the modern “anatomical' bar, so all is spot-on with saddle-to-bar and saddle-to—hood lengths. But I dislike "anatomical” bars; the hooks are less comfortable, especially for my very sensitive left palm. If I keep the STI shifters I’ll have to look for a “round” curve drop bar with almost no reach.

The CF cages save 1.36 kg compared to common and contemptible stainless steel cages, and make me decidedly faster up hills.

Total weight ready to ride with pedals and cages is 20.6 lb. With seat bag and extensive kit (incl 4 fl oz bottle of OS) total weight is 22.2 lb.

Lastly, RH agreed to warranty the 559 TPU tube with the bad valve-to-tube interface; thank you, RH! I’ve ordered a total of 24 TPU tubes this year, I think, and 18 in the last month, for 559 X 28 and 559 X 42 and 622 X 32 tires on 3 bikes. Work perfectly with OS regular.

Even more lastly, the one photo taken during the ride shows that recent rains have made the Rio Grande flow again. It’s still shallow far below normal but it’s much better than the 5-mile total dry-up that happened a couple of months ago.

You can be assured that more, oh much more, is to come.

--

Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

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When thou didst not, savage, know thine own meaning,

But wouldst gabble like a thing most brutish,

I endowed thy purposes with words that made them known.

[Patrick Moore]

Correction: The bar higher and closer puts the ends of the much longer hoods at the same distance from saddle nose (as to the much shorter, Shimano aero non STI hoods on the other road bikes) but puts the flat of the bar close to the saddle, which, for the purpose I have for this bike, is exactly what I want: a closer-in, thus more upright, sit up and beg bar flat position on a bar that still allows the all-comfortable benchmark hoods position.

[Patrick Moore]

I forgot to ask: with a 50/34 compact double and an 11 speed chain and 130 mm OL rear wheel on 44 cm stays, how far up the cassette can one use the big ring? I imagine all is good for Big + cogs 6, 7, 8, and 9?  And I daresay that one can use the 34 with cogs as small as #6 or even #7? This gives a good crossover overlap in the higher climbing gears.

[Patrick Moore]

More: The Riv-supplied Tektros didn’t retard strongly, as other dual-pivots I’ve used; perhaps ossified pads? But I much prefer the look of cold-forged single pivots and, with salmons — or, might try Riv’s e-bike pads — they stop quite well enough; certainly better than the Tektro pads. Also, they’re more streamlined.

Must recable the brakes to match front to right lever, and anyway, with the higher bar, the front needs a longer cable. And ought to re-tape the bar or at least replace the end-holding adhesive tape.

Inevitably, I’ll want a bigger saddle bag, one that can carry a six pack (used for illustration of volume only), as so many recreational rides end up at a grocery store, and so many grocery rides use one of my gofasts. I have a very nice green Carradice Barley; will anyone consider trading for a similar bag in red or gray or black? Look me up. Thanks.

On Mon, Oct 20, 2025 at 6:41 PM Patrick Moore <bert...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Patrick Moore]

Forget forged square taper. These are Duprat hollow-arm steel cottered cranks from 1934. Achingly elegant.

[Patrick Moore]

One more and I’ll shut up for the night.

The Roadeo ready to ride but not furnished — pedals and cages but no luggage — weighs 20.6 digital lbs. Add the seat bag with rather full kit and it’s up to 22.3 lb.

Curious what riders on both lists find their comparably weighed carbon fiber bikes to weight. Again, pedals, saddle, bottle cages, but no luggage, frame pump, lighting, fenders, racks, baskets, figureheads, and so forth. 

[Dan]

Thanks for the lovely review Patrick. Seems like it's exactly what you were after in your long search for a bike! And welcome back to the world of indexed shifting, ha.

For what it's worth, though not carbon fibre my 57cm Roadini with MKS flat pedals, 32H Quill rims and 38mm Rene Herse Extralights (tubeless), two bottle cages and a 2x10 drivetrain is ~11.7kg, with fenders. Without fenders I estimate that to be 11.2kg, or about 24.7 pounds. That's fine for me.

[Ryan Fleming]

Nice,Patrick...glad the bike is mostly working out for you...I agree that silver cold-forged aluminum is more to my taste...but I don't dislike the black; it's striking in its own way. It would be hard to shittify such a lovely frame, IMO. And its previous owner evidently took good care of it

[Garth]

You can ride as many cogs per given ring as long as you comfortable with it, it might be rather noisey in the big/big. Pro road racers will ride big/big because they've ridden it enough to know it's rideable, and they're paid to ride and race the bike, not baby it. If the gear is there they use it. Most pros prefer riding the big ring as much as possible anyways as there is less friction in the drivetrain. 

Do swap put the brake pads for some Kool-Stops, Tektro stock pads are among the worst ever, like using sanding blocks.

[John Dewey]

Gorgeous bike, Patrick! 

I’d be actively hunting one down…but I’m married to Dura Ace 9-speed down-tube levers and for some reason GP decided to discard that option. 

And I suppose my Ram is close enough. Been in my care going back to twenty oh four and it’s a keeper. 

Ah, the goofy things we fuss over 🤪

Jock

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[Patrick Moore]

Thanks, Dan and Ryan and John.

I should add here in the light of my comments about the 11 t small cog that the seller is a retired pro or near-pro racer and doubtless would have used it on mountainous downhills.

[Patrick Moore]

You are right, those are R8000s; the 8100 is the newer 12 speed model. I’m still trying to get clear on the 7400 series …

And the FD is a SRAM as it worked better for the previous owner. I do have the Ultegra, though.

On Mon, Oct 20, 2025 at 7:35 PM Chris Cullum <yvrand...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, Oct 20, 2025, 17:41 Patrick Moore <bert...@gmail.com> wrote:

I just got back from a very nice, moderately hilly, and quite windy 20 miler. I’ve long since codified my preferred setup, but the first 100 miles always involves many stops, decreasing in frequency as the miles increase, for fine tuning saddle height and tilt and bar tilt. By mile 16 I had it all refined pretty much to perfection, and it is all very comfortable indeed. I averaged 11.6 mph clock running from the very many stops to adjust and re-adjust things, mostly saddle height and tilt, which involved futzing with the saddle bag.

I replaced the Conti Gatorskin 28s and heavy-ish butyl tubes with Stampede Pass EL 32s and TPU tubes, each tube holding ~2 fl oz of OS regular; replaced the 100 mm 90* stem with a 90 mm 15* (?) stem, also a Ritchey — So glad I stashed a couple of Ritcheys away; added an original edition Flite from my collection (I decided to use a tried and true benchmark of 30 years in order to avoid more mid-ride fine tuning than did occur; see below. I also greased and installed my second pair of Dura Ace  7410 (mountain SPD) (road SPD sic) pedals with pedal washers.

The cranks — again, Ultegra 11 speed R8100 — are the post-warranty, improved model; the seller was very clear about that.

Nope. Those are R8000 cranks. The R8100 is more square-ish looking. They might be late gen R8000 when they allegedly fixed the bonding issue. Check the serial number. Or they may have been checked as "OK" in the LBS inspection. But they are definitely in the suspect group.

The Q is about 145; just right. But those arms are thick!

I don’t so much mind the black color, tho’ I do think that forged and polished aluminum looks much better, as I do the susceptibility of the anodizing to scratching and scuffing. I put a wrap of helicopter tape around the base of the seatpost to protect it from the saddlebag strap, and installed double pedal washers so ensure that my feet clear the crank arms, particularly the right, that has a bunion.

The 11 speed Ultegra drivetrain behaved impeccably; business as usual. I’d not used indexing (in fact, I’d not used a stock drivetrain) since, IME, problematical 7 speed XT, and 11 speed has it down just right. Indexing is truly mature technology.

The front derailleur is not the same generation as the shifters so might not be optimal. If you have issues maybe consider matching it to the same generation.

They will stretch for sure.

The Roadeo is definitely nimbler than the Ram was, even when the Ram was shod with ~31 mm Challenge Paris Roubaix tires. Delightful, and it is very close to the nimble yet stable handling of my 26” wheel road customs.

The tall wheels cut sharpness of small abrupt bumps; 28 55-60 vs 32 50-55; roughly 2” taller than 559 wheels of similar width. As cush as 559 X 52 at 35-40.

The original owner was my size and I only had to slam the Flite all the way back on the no-offset Thompson post, raise it by ~5 mm, and play with the tilt.

Maybe an offset post is a better idea than having the saddle jammed all the way back on the rails.

But with an Asian build, albeit on a 5’11” scale, the bar was too far away on the 10 cm stem and too low at 90*. The 9 at +15* puts the bar at clamp about 1: — 1.25" below saddle, just a bit higher than my other, fixed/fxed IGH, road bikes. 

The 42 cm bar a bit too wide but I can live with it; a 40 or even a 38 (those on my other road bikes are 38) would be better. The very long ramps on the STI levers just about exactly make up for the micro reach on the modern “anatomical' bar, so all is spot-on with saddle-to-bar and saddle-to—hood lengths. But I dislike "anatomical” bars; the hooks are less comfortable, especially for my very sensitive left palm. If I keep the STI shifters I’ll have to look for a “round” curve drop bar with almost no reach.

Ritchey Classic bend is round and short reach, as is Soma HWY 1. I actually like the new parabolic drops. For me it's more ergonomic but this is a personal thing.

The CF cages save 1.36 kg compared to common and contemptible stainless steel cages, and make me decidedly faster up hills.

This is true. Removing the metal cages and 2 x 650ml full bottles, and replacing with CF cages will save ~1.36 kg.

Total weight ready to ride with pedals and cages is 20.6 lb. With seat bag and extensive kit (incl 4 fl oz bottle of OS) total weight is 22.2 lb.

Lastly, RH agreed to warranty the 559 TPU tube with the bad valve-to-tube interface; thank you, RH! I’ve ordered a total of 24 TPU tubes this year, I think, and 18 in the last month, for 559 X 28 and 559 X 42 and 622 X 32 tires on 3 bikes. Work perfectly with OS regular.

Even more lastly, the one photo taken during the ride shows that recent rains have made the Rio Grande flow again. It’s still shallow far below normal but it’s much better than the 5-mile total dry-up that happened a couple of months ago.

You can be assured that more, oh much more, is to come.

Nice ride. Enjoy!

--

Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, letters, and other writing services

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When thou didst not, savage, know thine own meaning,

But wouldst gabble like a thing most brutish,

I endowed thy purposes with words that made them known.

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[Piaw Na]

On Monday, October 20, 2025 at 8:08:36 PM UTC-7 Patrick Moore wrote:

Curious what riders on both lists find their comparably weighed carbon fiber bikes to weight. Again, pedals, saddle, bottle cages, but no luggage, frame pump, lighting, fenders, racks, baskets, figureheads, and so forth. 

Not CF (except for the fork), but my 2003 Fuji Team SL with FSA CF cranks, American Classic wheels, came in at 16 pounds. Of course, those wheels were scary light (when you pumped up the tires you could see the rim sidewalls bulge a bit!). The CF seatpost on that bike died after only a year of riding (fortunately we caught it before it broke), and the ISIS BB died also within 2 years. The frame was aluminum, and the fork died last year when my brother (to whom I'd gifted the bike) collided with a baby deer. (Baby deer was unhurt but my brother got lots of road rash and no broken bones)