Yea, two posts in one day. Seems I’ve got a lot to talk about this morning.<\/p>\n
The wheels are starting to turn on an Air 9 Carbon build. Once again, I need some help from the studio audience. This is going to be my primary race machine. While I plan on racing singlespeed whenever it’s either a)offered as a women’s category or b)not offered, but not a disadvantage, either (example of a “good” singlespeed course: Syllamo; example of a course where it’s a disadvantage against geared riders: Shenandoah 100)<\/p>\n
Bottom line- there are going to be times when I want gears.<\/p>\n
Enter the SRAM EP (employee purchase) program. I can get an XX group (including the fork and brakes I need for my SS build) for less than retail price (the first rule of EP is that you don’t mention the actual cost of EP). My original plan was to utilize the XX crank and hunt down a SS ring to convert it much like I have the Noir crank that I use on my One9. However, I found this memo from Niner:<\/p>\n
There appears to be a compatibility issue with the GXP version of the SRAM XX crank and our CYA system.\u00c3\u201a The GXP design has 4mm of float built into the system.\u00c3\u201a This can in some cases allow the CYA cup to push out of the frame 4mm and cause the chainring to rub the Ti guard.\u00c3\u201a \u00c3\u201a If a customer wants to use the XX crank on the AIR9 Carbon it should be in the BB30 style crank set.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n So… this throws a proverbial wrench into my plans since the Niner EBB isn’t made for a BB30 crank. Sure, I could just have two cranks (a SS one and a BB30 XX one) and two BB inserts (the EBB and the BB30), but that would mean spending more money and time when I want to jump to gears and back. I’ve been researching and sorting through options, and this is what I’ve come up with so far:<\/p>\n