you know when they say when the work overlaps the pleasure it's no longer work it's okay it's okay oh good boy oh good boy welcome back to budget burst baller the series where we take two used mountain bikes and systematically upgrade them one my bike gets the baller parts and henry's bike well it gets whatever we could find on the internet as cheap as possible now today is all about drivetrains and in my opinion one of the biggest breakthroughs in mountain bike technology in the last decade has been the invention of one by drivetrains gone are the days of those two or three rings up on the front of your bike absolutely i mean i remember the skepticism i had when the first one by 11 system came out as i logged around with my 36 train ring and 36 tooth at the back thinking a one-to-one ratio was enough but not only do these systems basically give us more range but they also give us loads and loads of chain security i mean lots of us don't even run chain devices anymore on our one by setups henry don't speak too soon we've seen a lot of new drive trains come out in the last decade and a lot of them seem to offer trickle-down technology how do you think yours is going to stack up well i'm actually really curious for this one i think from the outside when you look at drivetrains even comparing between brand to brand often seems to be something of an imitation game and i'm really curious to see how much of that tech has trickled down to the cheapest drivetrain we could find because from the outside it looks pretty good but what have you gone for i'm guessing it's pretty pretty pricey well henry as you can imagine i've done this properly today i'm going with sram's wireless gx axis drivetrain that is wireless electronic shifting and to top it all off i'm adding cane creek's e-wings titanium cranks the whole package twenty two hundred dollars actually just north of that but you know what the cassettes rainbow so i think that helps well i can imagine it does yeah now the problem though with these larger cassettes can often be weight obviously as you add bigger cogs you're adding more weight and a lot of the times it's kind of funny you're paying for almost what you don't get because the machining there they're taking away as much metal as possible and that all costs money well that's all very well and good i mean i imagine mine uses only the finest grade of pig iron i mean joking aside i'm paying 90 for the drivetrain which is absolutely fantastic and then 95 for the chainring and cranks so from from the outlay this is a really good value proposition yeah absolutely i mean your cranks say xt but they're not the xt we might know honestly i'm pretty sure as long as it says xt it's gonna be great all right well henry you've got some internal cable routing to do i've got some battery charging to do should we get into the install absolutely [Music] so i was already actually using this cassette because of the free hub standard on this hub or wheel set so this is going back on but now i can actually use all the gears on it which will be nice before i couldn't use the biggest ring or the smallest so full use that'll be a treat you get to run the same pedals now i know i think my performance is going to go through the roof they're just so like i'm used to running quite big pedals and yesterday i got my foot bounced and went outside and normally it wouldn't be a problem but i've i was like like that for a long time but they're fine they're fine every every bolt on this bike is slightly rounded you know slightly rounded not surprised henry question for you go on do we lose the chain guides yeah why not because then you know we we have narrow wide rings we we need chain guides yeah i'm quite attached to mine but um yeah why not let's do it let's do it yeah we don't eat the same jason what we're gonna do if i may yeah what are you gonna do so i'm gonna do so this basically the interface of the sram actually goes to a smaller diameter it's not 24 mil throughout so you have your drive side which is 24 mil and your non-drive side which believes 22 mil but there is a spare drive side bottom bracket going around so i'm going to take jason's and go drive side drive side for 24 mil throughout i love it there we go there we go just like that there we go ah look at that proper tool for the job nike buckets look it looks great perfect time to just clean it all out in there holy see all that in there actually doesn't feel that bad i think we got away with it i told you i knew i was doing i've been to hammertown before so now we have a new bottom bracket from king creek just beautiful press right in there you know what the best thing to fit headsets bottom brackets i know another disclaimer time this is not a how-to this is just how we do oh my god how big is this chain ring oh yeah you're gonna need that moment of truth oh look at that oh i'm gonna put that other bearing cup on there oh no not quite if we're being honest one another i often sometimes get my bike finished quicker than you i'm here cutting apart a bottom bracket seal i've got to do some internal cable routing is this gonna be the day that you're waiting for me i really hope so guys you know yeah the internal cable rooting is definitely gonna take some time but henry i'm not one to pump your tires but you are you were a mechanic by trade i was once upon a time yeah i was uh i've traded mechanics for stuff before but i've definitely never been paid to work on bikes interfaces blue then they just go they go on and they go oh yeah got another turnout beautiful matching pedals wow luxury oh there we go so taking all the photos up all the cable ties and now you should he says confidently kind of push more than you pull oh it's got the no they've got the internal dampers haven't they god damn it giant no this looks great because it keeps your bike quiet but if you try and feed it through believe the phrase is not a happy bunny in fact all right derailleur time let's do it say goodbye to the mr cable i will not be making a return oh the sweet sweet sound of zip ties coming off goodbye mr shifter and that is a dead shifter nice oh beautiful and look at that's all you need that's literally it so good oh she's in all right and then the derailleur matt you just put it on there will be some fine-tuning to do all right final touches we're going to put the pedals on before setting the derailleur up i find it a little bit easier to pedal now hopefully that didn't snap a sticky link much like pairing the dropper earlier in the season just gonna turn on the shifter turn on the derailleur oh the sound of shifting excellence i can't get over the fact that your whole setup there is 200 bucks yes like that that's awesome especially if you're coming from a bike you know maybe that like 500 hardtail and you just want a nice drivetrain well i don't know about those cranks to be honest i'm i'm only going to chirp you a little because this is probably the only time in this whole series that i'll be done before henry in terms of install the shift is actually not that bad except this uh limit screw just keeps changing where it wants to be i'll just clean up because really i have nothing else to do at this point this is why i always talk about cable routines it makes your bike look like a nicer place to be your bike looks nicer for it yeah and this bike looks fabu and it wasn't for this monstrosity but yeah pretty sure it's got to cut these cables short slightly cable ties and she's good that's done it's done ready to go ride if that is it never be yeah all right well you actually chose today's test track it's uphill yeah so it's uphill so it's a mix of kind of chunkier stuff so it's not like you know you get some things that are technical single track and they have lots of roots and little pads to clump up this is quite a gradual gradient it's very loose some baby head rocks and it's basically a moto run that has been rotted out by big old motorbikes to get up it so it's um it's doable but you have to be on your game okay so i mean i'm guessing there's gonna be some shifting involved there might be yeah okay well let's take him out to the test track i don't know if my equipment is gonna make up for my lack of skill on the climbs but we'll see so we've come here to a climbing trail just outside of squamish yeah honestly i'd never come here yeah now this tread is going to ask a lot about drive trains because it's not about what has the easiest gear but climbing a lot of times about traction it's about avoiding pedal strikes so we've got something that's loose that's lumpy and bumpy it's steep it's not crazy steep you know you should be able to get up it but it does actually demand a lot of our drive train because we also have to shift under load which isn't just a case of timing it's also a case of you know finding the right place and having enough grip to do so so when it comes to the high end eye wateringly expensive drive trains what kind of things are you looking for yeah honestly on a climb like this you know how well it performs under load like you were saying i am not a great climber so i i poorly time my shifts quite often so hopefully it masks some of that yeah also the range right like it's a huge cassette and i want to be able to if i'm really huffing and puffing spin in an easy enough gear but also have the gear for coming back down the hill and being able to put the power down when i need what about you yeah i mean i think a lot of that is totally true i mean i think that's the reasons that one one by drive train to a thing now is because they have range in the cassette it's actually we've always been able to put one changing on the front but the issues before you wouldn't be able to get up the hills now what i'm i'm looking for especially with this system because it's sort of cheaper i think the thing it needs to be able to do it might have the range it might have a lot of the high-end features but it needs to be able to shift under load because if you're slipping or you're thinking that it's gonna your change is gonna snap into two it is a horrible feeling and for me actually i mean how much you might enjoy your climbs is a personal thing but it will diminish the enjoyment of climbing for anyone because it's almost quite a stressful experience thinking you're living every shift like it could be a last [Music] you know a couple of years ago well in fact when the first tram did the first one by drive trains it was a 42 to that back and i'm using a 42 tooth outback now it doesn't feel very small they were just built stronger back then jesus it's not helped with a 36 tooth admittedly but i remember i used to have a 34 42 and it was great i just got used to just spinning yeah we're weaker now and uh like myself the 52 in the back granted i have a 32 in the front yeah i love it i i find myself in there sometimes if i'm just casually spinning up a steep hill because i don't need to get to the top that quickly yeah so i'm i'm right at home honestly [Music] wow [Music] [Music] all right henry what a great ride honestly i'm really enjoying this bike now yeah i mean you spent a lot of money on it a few thousand dollars i mean i guess there's the logic that even when polishing a turd you're always gonna get dirty fingers so i don't know if that stands up at all but i mean you have spent a lot of money you have got what is becoming that a very decked out bike yes the drive train such an important piece how did you get on uh really well honestly yeah we were climbing that steep fire road to begin with and then some single track stuff at the end and honestly flawless shifting under power even it was quick responsive there's no weird cracks or pops or anything like that yeah how about you and there were some cracks and pops mainly from my knees you know it's hard it's a tail or two halves the shift is actually really good however i would worry about chain retention there's a lot of movement coming out of derailleur and we weren't riding anything even that rat even that rough you know yeah i think with like a 30 tooth it would be pretty good even a 32 tooth at 36 my little old legs it just wasn't cutting the mustard i was finding it really hard getting up some of those hills but for the money it's outrageously good value how much was your setup in total okay so i'm looking at over 2 000 like 22 2300 depending on what chain rings and stuff you get not an insurmountable amount of money you can get a bike for that and how much do you know how much roughly just the shifting components were just the shifting so no crank set yes roughly eleven to twelve hundred dollars again there's some configuration there mine costs like what 95 bucks or something 100 bucks 95 i mean you could just rip one off and it wouldn't even well only another 100 bucks compared to if you broke you know derailleurs do break i know this has got some fancy auto correction but it's in a vulnerable place let's talk derailer shifter cassette chain sure what are you going for because this isn't a drivetrain that's going to set the world light in terms of performance but it does do an adequate job and for that price per buck it's very very very good for the drivetrain so not including the cranks what are you going to choose it is so very close in my mind because the price point there is so hard to ignore compared to the price point of my i mean literally like 10 times the difference however i think i buy bike products sometimes to mask my own inability and this drivetrain does that more than this one and for that reason i'm gonna splash out on the 1100 1200 drivetrain it's just it's just tokens who's counting them anyway my reasoning being just like i said performance shifting under load and the range the range is the big one for me yeah i think if that one had a bit more range i would i would lean that way but um i just it's such a luxury to just go into those easier cogs and spin away i never really try and set this fastest times uphill so that's where i find myself and so the other half of the giant train those gorgeous titanium cranks they are gorgeous they are gorgeous so i believe yours were about a hundred bucks for the package i think i'd go with those ingesting i think i would go with those i'd pair them with this drivetrain i would probably get a smaller front chainring but even with that one and that bit this bigger range i think would be more manageable what about you honestly i'd rather go yes i'd rather get out set those cranks take them from bike to bike these ones it might be naive of me but i've never you know worked on lots of bikes from lots of different levels even like an entry-level square taper bottom bracket gives you more confidence in these things they just feel like they're thrown together the there isn't even that much thread engaged on those little pinch bolts you know what's the worst that could happen and it just makes me nervous so for that reason i'd probably splash all right henry you're splashing out on the cranks i'm splashing out on the drivetrain we have one more upgrade to make to these bikes what is it um no i think i'm good actually i'm all set good bike it's done i'm all full up no more upgrades for me are you putting anything new on yeah unfortunately we both got a set of breaks we got a slap on and that'll be next episode on budget vs baller so make sure you subscribe so you don't miss an episode you
2022-01-21