34x32 Low Gears and 3 Climbs - 1

Modified my bike this past Sunday in preparation for this comings Saturday's +9,000 foot Sea to Stars ascent of Mauna Kea.

I had to do a lot of work to get my 11x32 XT mtb cassette to work which included scavaging the XT mtb deraillure off of my Gary Fisher mtb to accomadate the extra chain slack and large cassette. Since I didn't want ot break the chain, I also had to take off the pulleys to remove and replace the rear deraillure. I also had to install my old 9 speed shifter on the right side. With this cassette and my compact crankset, I now have a low gear of 34x32 for almost a 1:1 ratio. Kind of reminds me of the gearset from my old Suzuki GSF400.

To test out my new gearset, I rode late Sunday afternoon and did 3 of the steeper climbs on Oahu all while trying to simulate the effort for Mauna kea, hence I tempo climbed all 3 without trying to push too hard.