The answer to "how long does it take Graydon to bend a Blackspire chainring" turns out to be "about 80 km".
Suspicion has fallen on the spider integral to the particular Rival crank all those bending has been happening on; it's possible one of the arms isn't quite flat with respect to the others.
And certainly the guy at the LBS was nicely flummoxed, which is something.
That's *three* chainwheels you've managed to bend so far?
ReplyDeleteGoodness. I think your LBS is quite right when they look suspiciously at your crankset.
Well, technically, four, but I haven't been counting the Apex ring. SRAM Apex, SRAM Rival, Truativ steel, and Blackspire. The Apex was on its own crankset; the other three were on the Rival crankset.
ReplyDeleteAll three have gone in pretty much the same way which is either an argument for the crankset having some sub-optimal characteristic or for my having raised mashing to new heights.
Despite my history of breaking things that aren't supposed to be breakable, I'm inclined to go with the crankset.
Which means I need to figure out what to get as a replacement; there are lamentably few compact doubles with 180mm cranks out there, so I might end up with a standard road double instead.