The drivetrain parts are mostly the lower end mountain Shimano parts -- Acera, Avilio, and Altus. It's got paddle shifters and indexed shifting. It's got an aluminum frame and I've got the 22" version. It already came with bar ends (which I rather like) and a rear rack (which I wanted anyway) and toe clips. (which are too small for my feet and had to go)
You want to know what the most Police part of the bike is? The rear hub. It's much silent quieter than other bikes. When I got it, I was thinking that I was getting a lot of wheel noise, when I realized it was just that I WASN'T getting any rear hub noise...
It's still mostly stock, with the original tires, etc. I got a cyclecomputer, a set of lights, and a bell with the bike. The bell and cyclecomputer stayed, but the lights got exchanged after my first night ride.
I have learned my lesson about buying Performance Bike brand hardware. The front light was a ViewPoint Lazer, which has a 1 watt Luxeon Star, which is about the minimum useless light for riding down a darkened street, but the button to turn it on and off fell off so I have to insert a paperclip inside of the chasis to make it work. And the battery clips need to be bent back every few battery changes.
They replaced it (under warranty) so now I've got a new version of it. It looks like they fixed the battery clip issue. I'm going to put some gaffer's tape over the button in case they didn't fix the button issue.
It looks like, with the way that LED prices and battery prices are going, the new standard in bike headlights is going to be a fairly high output LED or two coupled with a rechargeable battery because even at a good lumens/watts ratio, enough light to make a darkened trail safe is going to suck a battery dry. But the bright side is that you don't need to spend a bunch of money on an expensive light that stores the battery in the water cage anymore.
The rear light is a FlashPoint High Intensity Taillight. I got it because it was bright and because it had an integral reflector... something I wish more light makers would do, given that the law requires both reflector and light, even though reflectors aren't nearly as useful as people would think. But it's now dead on account of the battery clip failing. And I can't bend it back. So I got a PlanetBike Blinky 7 and took the light back to the store and made them replace it.
The cyclecomputer is a Cateye Vectra Wireless. The nice part about it is that it was inexpensive and mounts to the stem, saving me handlebar room.
Copyright 2007, Ken Wronkiewicz
