I've set up my old Kona MTB to ride on the road with some slick tyres. However, the roads round here (Singapore) are too dangerous to be riding on, and the wife has banned me from commuting by bike! So to keep up the miles, I got a Kurt Kinetic turbo trainer and stuck my Kona on it.
But, it really needs higher gearing to be giving enough resistance, as the trainer mirrors road resistance. So, could I fit a road chainset, say the Shimano 105 triple ring version with 52t big ring (as opposed to current 44), and maybe a 9spd roadie cassete as well - to give me better gear ratios? I guess I'd need a new front mech too...will my shifters be pulling the right amount of cable to work properly? Current setup is 9spd Shimano.
Anyone with experience of this kind of setup? Hopefully the solution isn't to get a road bike....
I think you could put a 105 cassete straight on there without a problem, seems quite expensive to be changing the crankset on a bike to be used only for turbo training.
Get used to spinning the pedals at a higher cadence most people need to do this anyway.
It will not be a plain swap, your mech will not be right and the MTB shifters will not have the correct cable pull. The easiest and cheapest way to go would be to run 48/36/26 MTB rings on your chainset. Changing the cassette won't give you any higher gears as the smallest on either an MTB or road cassette would be 11 teeth, it would just give you closer ratios.
Changing my big ring sounds like the best solution, thanks. Do you think I'd get away with a 22/32/48 chainset? Closer ratios on the cassette was what I meant.
Right now my highest gear is 44/12, so I could go to 48/11, which is about 20% higher.
You could probably get away with it if you were not going to change out of the big ring very often but if you are going to be using the front mech a bit you would be better changing all the rings.
i have done something similar to you recently - i have converted an on one in-bred frame to a flat bar road bike, using mainly parts in my spares box, and below is a list of what i did:
used an xt "Trekking" chainset - 26-36-48, it is unlikely that your front mech will be able to cover a 22-48 tooth difference. i tried to use a 105 chainset, but the chainstays flare out too much, and the crank was a cigarette paper width away from clipping the chainstay - any flex during pedaling and the crank would have been whacking the chainstay every turn!
stuck a pair of cotic road rat wheels on - 700c, disc brake hubs, cartridge bearings - sturdy and fab value at £130 for the pair
i stuck a 9speed 105 cassette on the back - 11-23 - gives a top gear of 115", my road bike has a top of 126" (53-11) so not too far off.
used old lx 9speed shifters and xt front and rear mechs (two or three years old)
kmc 9spd chain (gold - too bling for me!)
got continental ultra gatorskins 25mm tyres on
other finishing bits including fsa k force flat bar, specialised carbon over ends (which i think are the best bar ends i've ever used)
disc brakes are old hope minis
all the transmission shifts lovely and no problems at all - in fact shifts better than the cobbled together stuff that was on it before. as long as the stuff is all 9 spd i see no reason why it shouldn't shift well.
the thing absolutely flies, not quite as fast as my merlin ti road bike. The on one was originally built for commuting, but the merlin hasn't been out for a few months - i'm enjoying riding the on one more at the mo'.
i have a kurt trainer too - great trainer, but i recommend that you get a conti ultratrainer tyre - i wasted a conti gp4000s real quick using it on the trainer
Thanks for all the advice. I had a first proper workout on the trainer last night. Its rock solid and works very well. Charlie, I should be picking up the Conti hometrainer tyre in the UK in a couple of weeks, I'm hoping it'll reduce the noise a bit as well as last a long time. 25 miles last night left a strip of black rubber on the roller!
XCman:
1) Back to the UK?? hahaha...no chance. I'm working on other options long term which should be good for riding, though thats not the main reason.
2) They're narrow, with 90 degree bends, slippery when wet, pepperred with bus-stops or non-existent on my route to work.
3) I'm still doing a bit of MTB, but I want to keep up a lot of miles on a bike and a trainer seems the best way. I could even get some lights to do some night-time MTBing but I'm too scared to be in the jungle in the dark all by myself. Also, I'm too big boned for badminton and don't have the coordination for ping-pong.
