Curtlo Cross Bike 53T 1x9 Experiment Ends

I am switching the Curtlo back to a 39 tooth chainring instead of the 53 tooth I have had the for past couple of weeks.

I am not sure what the deal is but over the past couple of days the chain has been falling off the chainring to the outside of the crankarm, at least once per ride. This was not acceptable. I could have fashioned something to keep the chain on (perhaps even just installing a front derailleur without a cable and then just adjusting the limits to put the derailleur in the proper position to keep the chain from falling off) but with around a month to go until the first cross race of the season, I was only a couple of weeks from switching it back anyway if everything had been going smoothly. I will be putting the 39 tooth on the inside of the crankarm and a chainguard on the outside. I also have a Third Eye ready to go to keep the chain from falling off on the inside, but I haven't had that problem so it will remain off, just as it has been for the past year.

I really enjoyed the 53 tooth ring up front with the mountain cassette out back. If I had been able to keep the chain on it would have been sweeter still. Should I end up actually getting a job downtown soon I would not mind building up a beater bike with something like this set up and a chain retention device of some sort. I would do this for a couple of reasons--barend shifters are cheap and I have an extra set laying around, and they are durable. I have enough parts so all I would need is a cheap frameset, and maybe a few other smaller miscelaneous parts to put something together. It could be very cheap to put something together to commute on.

Plus I still haven't found the reason for the "tick, tick.....tick, tick.....tick, tick, tick....." noise that is coming from the bottom bracket area. I figure it is either a pedal or something to do the the way I installed the spacers to get my chainring bolts to work right with the single ring set up. So perhaps when I go back to the two ring set up (39 tooth ring with the chainring guard on the outside) the noise will go away.

For now I am going to start riding my Fuji Aloha CF2 on the road again. Up until the end of April or so it had drop bars on it and I only switched to my aerobars for the purpose of the half ironman at the beginning of June. The bike has not been ridden at all since then. I put drop bars back on it and switched from an Ultegra/Dura Ace drivetrain set up to SRAM Rival in anticipation of going to SRAM Red shifters in the next month or so. Why the switch? No reason, the Rival drivetrain is off my Lapierre which is up for sale. If I end up doing the Scoggins Valley Triathlon I will probably install some aerobars on the drop bars and do it that way, rather than with the full aerobar set up I used the Vikingman half ironman distance event. The route for Scoggins Valley is fairly hilly and so aerobars will not be as advantageous. I would also like to get some long rides in this summer and it is my best bike for that purpose. I will go back to the aerobars for the Ironman California event next April. But I will obviously have to use the SRAM barend shifters if I stay with the SRAM drivetrain. I am ok with that. Fish has them on his bike and they looked pretty sexy.