Ekar Users Thread

[Baron Blubba]

Originally Posted by makoti

Would you have a link to the route?

I'll make you the perfect Fort Valley gravel route later today or early next week. Where are you located? I can give you an ideal starting point.
I'd also be very happy to ride it with you. Shoot me an email if you're interested. Mike@b3bikes.com .

[fignon's barber]

Originally Posted by Steve in SLO

My only current challenge is drivetrain noise that sounds like I am slightly off-line between my jockey wheels and the rear cassette cogs. I’ve tried adjusting the RD back-and-forth during rides, but it still tends to make some noise. It seems like some of that noise is coming from the chainring/chain interface.

Check the tightness of the cassette lockring. Campagnolo made a "secret" rolling update to Ekar. The lockring would come loose because the cassette is machined in just two pieces and combined with the torque and less surface area for the 9 tooth cog didn't give sufficient grip to hold the lockring tight. The fix was to add an additional thin washer to the lockring and liberally grease the freehub.
I had this issue, and received a personal visit from the Campy Mobile to fix it. I've since put around 2500 miles on it and shifting is perfect and silent.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by Baron Blubba

I'll make you the perfect Fort Valley gravel route later today or early next week. Where are you located? I can give you an ideal starting point.
I'd also be very happy to ride it with you. Shoot me an email if you're interested. Mike@b3bikes.com .

I'm up in Beautiful Springfield, so I have no idea where I'd start from. Where ever you suggested, most likely. ;-)
Thanks. I'll be in touch!

[Steve in SLO]

Originally Posted by fignon's barber

Check the tightness of the cassette lockring. Campagnolo made a "secret" rolling update to Ekar. The lockring would come loose because the cassette is machined in just two pieces and combined with the torque and less surface area for the 9 tooth cog didn't give sufficient grip to hold the lockring tight. The fix was to add an additional thin washer to the lockring and liberally grease the freehub.
I had this issue, and received a personal visit from the Campy Mobile to fix it. I've since put around 2500 miles on it and shifting is perfect and silent.

Thanks! It’s on my to-do list

[Baron Blubba]

Originally Posted by makoti

I'm up in Beautiful Springfield, so I have no idea where I'd start from. Where ever you suggested, most likely. ;-)
Thanks. I'll be in touch!

Here you go! Posting this publicly rather than sending via pm just in case anyone else is interested in a sublime all-road experience in the Shenandoah Valley.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/42223829

Ridewithgps says that it's 39 miles of paved and 20 miles of dirt, but it's more like 30 miles paved, 30 miles of dirt. The first and last 7 miles are pure pavement, but after that it's primarily pure unpaved splendor. I included the first/last 7 miles because they take you through a stunning corner of George Washington National Forest, and trust me, you'd much rather be riding through that landscape than driving over it.

If you want an added challenge and one of my favorite climbs, continue up and over Woodstock Tower road at mile 11.5, instead of bearing left. Descend very carefully (the switchbacks are paved, thank goodness, but it's tight and diligent speed-control is mandatory), then turn around after you cross the bridge at the bottom. Proceed back the way you came, and swivel right where you were 'supposed' to go left the first time around. I highly recommend this if you are comfortable on dirt and relish a good climb (1.8 miles, around 1200ft, gradients consistently in the 8-10% range. Doable on 32's no problem as long as you have the gearing and legs not to need to stand up).

Enjoy! (And let me know if you'd like to meet up and ride it together. If I'm in town, I'll be there!)

[bicycletricycle]

Well I don’t have ekar but I’ll tell you all about it ……..

[makoti]

Originally Posted by Baron Blubba

Here you go! Posting this publicly rather than sending via pm just in case anyone else is interested in a sublime all-road experience in the Shenandoah Valley.
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/42223829

Ridewithgps says that it's 39 miles of paved and 20 miles of dirt, but it's more like 30 miles paved, 30 miles of dirt. The first and last 7 miles are pure pavement, but after that it's primarily pure unpaved splendor. I included the first/last 7 miles because they take you through a stunning corner of George Washington National Forest, and trust me, you'd much rather be riding through that landscape than driving over it.

If you want an added challenge and one of my favorite climbs, continue up and over Woodstock Tower road at mile 11.5, instead of bearing left. Descend very carefully (the switchbacks are paved, thank goodness, but it's tight and diligent speed-control is mandatory), then turn around after you cross the bridge at the bottom. Proceed back the way you came, and swivel right where you were 'supposed' to go left the first time around. I highly recommend this if you are comfortable on dirt and relish a good climb (1.8 miles, around 1200ft, gradients consistently in the 8-10% range. Doable on 32's no problem as long as you have the gearing and legs not to need to stand up).

Enjoy! (And let me know if you'd like to meet up and ride it together. If I'm in town, I'll be there!)

I was just going to email you about this. Where is it starting from? Is there a parking lot or someplace that I can put into Waze to get me there? Anything, store wise, around the starting point? How are refuel areas? Any locals stores we should look out for?
I will let you know if we make it out there, and if you don't mind s-l-o-w riding, we'll do it.
And thank you for doing this

[Baron Blubba]

Originally Posted by makoti

I was just going to email you about this. Where is it starting from? Is there a parking lot or someplace that I can put into Waze to get me there? Anything, store wise, around the starting point? How are refuel areas? Any locals stores we should look out for?

There are several small gravel lots (room for 2-3 vehicles, no official markings) on the left side of the road that you can park in. Or drive a little further, say a mile or so, into the national forest and find a large trailhead lot.
Put 'Fort Valley and Mountain Road' into your Waze and you'll find it.

Refuel areas are virtually nil. The only place is the Fort Valley General Store. It's never very far, but the route only actually passes it at around mile 14.5, at the intersection of Woodstock Tower Road and Fort Valley Road (you'll hit it after descending Woodstock Tower and making a left). But if you look at the route, it's an easy detour to get back to from mile 43 - 46 --just descend a bit back down to Fort Valley, hit up the general store, then climb back up the paved side of Woodstock Tower to rejoin the route. It's a 3-4 mile, 300-400 feet of climbing detour, approximately.
It's an *awesome* general store, very friendly toward cyclists, with lots of good real fresh made food (holy smokes, their sandwiches!) as well as packaged food and energy bars/sports drinks.

If I've got nothing else to do that day, slow is fine. I don't mind riding with s-l-o-w folks. It's the bonked 'oh, you mean I should be eating and drinking even though I'm trying to lose weight?' slow folks that I mind

[cgolvin]

Originally Posted by Steve in SLO

I have an Ekar groupset on an Allied Alfa Allroad. I’m using this 95% as a road bike, with some rare connections on dirt.

Immediately upon reading this my mental image was the piece of dirt connecting Prefumo and See Canyons. My how I enjoyed that ride, thanks again for the route suggestion.

[Steve in SLO]

Originally Posted by cgolvin

Immediately upon reading this my mental image was the piece of dirt connecting Prefumo and See Canyons. My how I enjoyed that ride, thanks again for the route suggestion.

That’s exactly the kind of connection I mean, and you are welcome for that suggestion.👍

[Metz]

Late in posting this but I have Ekar on a Ridley Kanzo Fast and just built up a Ridley Noah Fast Disc with Ekar (road only). I pretty much love everything about Ekar but would really like to see a wireless version that is more focused on weight or just a higher end crankset and cassette. When I say higher end I mean Ultegra level and wireless because it's a PITA to install on fully integrated front end builds. I think the potential for a weight weenies dream group exists because Ekar is 100% viable on the road, does away with a FD, a second chainring, and one shift paddle/hardware. I may be crazy but I've got several weight weenie buddies who are 1x roadies (one is a Cat 1 and does all races 1x - including "climbing" courses) and I think there's a market for it. Is it a big market? No. Is it smaller than the market for a $5,000 wireless SR group? Probably not. If Campy could manage it for around $2500 I'd buy it today.

Now that I've lost most sane people here's the response to a 1x road question someone asked on my Noah build post in Production Bikes:

I think 1x13 was the tipping point for me. I had researched SRAM 1x12 and just never found the right combo of gearing compared to a mid-compact setup. I also had a 3T Exploro with 1x11 and that was pretty god-awful on the road as far as gearing (and also too stiff).

Here's the ratios when comparing 52/36 x 11-30:

44x9 = 4.89
52x11 = 4.73

44x36 = 1.22
36x30 = 1.20

44x9 is actually a little bigger than 53x11 and is quite a bit bigger than 50x11 so no problem spinning out. I could probably get by with a 42 chainring just fine since I'm a spinner versus a masher.

I haven't done the local hammerfest on 1x13 yet and I think that will tell me if there are any gaps. When you're at or near the limit and can't find the right gear it ain't fun. I think the other test will be on long rides with lots of climbing where the same might be true - we all know that climbing and/or spinning at mile 30 is a lot different than at mile 85 when you're tired and just need that perfect gear. As I mentioned in another thread, Gerald Vroomen said in a 3T blog post that they designed the original Strada around 1x13 and that they thought Campy would come out with it sooner than they did.

[Blue Jays]

Thanks kindly for the real-world / real-gearing insights.

I tend to be a masher and have agonized over 40-tooth or 42-tooth up front.
My sense is the 9-42 cassette should be plenty since I won't be heavily loaded and/or be taking this future gravel bike on truly gnarly singletrack trails.

If a rider can climb nearly anything with a 39x29 on the road he or she should expect to be fine with 42x42 on a gravel road with similar grades?

Or have fellow Paceliners purchased a 42-tooth Ekar and then really wished they selected the smaller 40-tooth option?
Choices, choices, choices!

[martl]

Originally Posted by Blue Jays

Thanks kindly for the real-world / real-gearing insights.

I tend to be a masher and have agonized over 40-tooth or 42-tooth up front.
My sense is the 9-42 cassette should be plenty since I won't be heavily loaded and/or be taking this future gravel bike on truly gnarly singletrack trails.

If a rider can climb nearly anything with a 39x29 on the road he or she should expect to be fine with 42x42 on a gravel road with similar grades?

Or have fellow Paceliners purchased a 42-tooth Ekar and then really wished they selected the smaller 40-tooth option?
Choices, choices, choices!

i got the 42 as it was the only one available at the time.
With a 9-42 rear that means if you maintain a cadence of ~85 and stay under 30km/h/18.5mph -which is on the high side of reasonable for me riding solo on gravel tires- that leaves me with half the rear cluster as everything smaller than the 14 is way too high and i can not benefit from the small 1-tooth spacing at all.

https://www.j-berkemeier.de/Ritzelre...false+rt=false

switching to a 38 front tooth cushions that a bit and also gives me a berable cadence on the 42 when climbing something really steep at speeds way below 10km/h.

Imo, Campagnolo was *very* ambitious when designing that groups gearing and it would be better suited for those of us riding for fun if more "smaller" options were available

[Blue Jays]

Thank you for the helpful and insightful post, martl.
I especially like the way chart is configured in link you shared.

This will absolutely have me thinking long and hard about using a 40-tooth or even a 38-tooth when making my selection.

I suppose the primary concern is a gravel rider does not wish to be way out in the country (on an unfamiliar and undeveloped road) and find they are way too overgeared for the prevailing conditions.

The only realistic downside to being (somewhat) undergeared is minor reduced speed if hills are not as steep/prolonged as expected. Thanks again, you have given me scenarios to ponder.

[herb5998]

We use the 38t/9-42 combo for our region, very rarely are we on flat gravel in our area, it's either up or down. Ultimately your local conditions may inform the best gearing combo.