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 was concerned about headlights this time around when I realized that the cheap LED lights on the Trek were far underpowered for riding at night. The front light is a ViewPoint Lazer, which I got solely because it advertised having a 1 Watt Luxeon Star and none of the other ones in the store seemed to offer the same level of light. It's actually about the minimum useful light. It's bright enough to use on a darkened street but still reasonably priced. The battery life is listed as only a few hours, so it comes with rechargable batteries and an integral trickle charger. I'm just using my LaCrosse charger for better battery life.
The battery life is about acceptible. I get a few night commutes per charge and the warning light comes on early enough that you make it all the way home, no problem.
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. It is not as bright as a Planet Bike SuperFlash.
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
