Now the question is do I get her new modern Altus or old second hand Deore? I can’t work out what a thief would rather. In my head it would be Deore or XT. My experience with road bikes has always been that thief’s look out for 105 or above logos.
If I recall Diamond Back Ascents were made from double butted Chromo tubing. This can be spread with a simple homemade tool to 135 as it is steel and not aluminum, which will crack if you try to spread the drops. I don’t think 7 speeds were 135, depends, mine was’t. High quality tubing is hard to spread and then the drops need to be aligned with another simple homemade tool. Then you should check frame alignment with another homemade tool. Do you have the original wheels? If so, are they in good shape and does the rear have thread on cassette? If you have a thread on then I would work with that. If it’s thread on then I would put on a wide ratio 7 speed Mega Range cog set with 11 to 34 gears. I don’t think these come as a free hub. She will have plenty of gears and that would be the easiest and most frugal way to make it more road worthy for her. You need a new rear derailleur anyway so a longer cage one could be used with a new chain that is a little longer. You need to replace the chain when you replace a cog set anyway. The big gear jump down to low is a bit annoying, but this type of gearing is still used on new bikes today. Actually these old Diamond Backs were good bicycles. You can get road style tires for 26 inch rims in 1.5 inches. This setup would be good for road, commuting and gravel. Here is a bike that I didn want to spread so I used a thread on 8 speed mega range cog set. You can see the big jump to the lowest gear. It has triple chainrings and I can ride it pretty much everywhere. These are 38 mm tires, which are the same width as 26 x 1.5 tires. Thiefves will take anything, you can’t prevent that. I once had a 24 inch orange rusty road frame that came from an abandoned mine. It had a white 700 c bent front fork and went down the road crooked. The wheels were so bent that the brake calipers had to be loose so the blocks would follow the rims. Mismatched pedals, bent crank and pieces of hose for grips. Everything was bent crooked and rusty and it was still stolen, three times. It was easy to spot so I just pinched it back. The rusty frame finally snapped.
Mrs Jimo's bike has a more modern 7-speed rapid fire shifter (might well be Altus or something, looks to be a "non-series" shifter maybe, it just says "Shimano") with a DX rear mech, and a single ring up front on some old CPI cranks from a Kona, which happen to be 104BCD
Bent? Or shorter? Or both? Some Shimano middle rings had shorter teeth sections and Ramps and hooks to aid shifting up/down to the middle ring. So it might well be normal
Stick a pic up.
Bent? Or shorter? Or both? Some Shimano middle rings had shorter teeth sections and Ramps and hooks to aid shifting up/down to the middle ring. So it might well be normal
Stick a pic up.
