Changing gearing on my Vado 5

[Stefan Mikes]

This may vary a bit bike to bike, but I'd have to say that the 52t ring does not fit the Vado 5, 2020 frame...

No worries!

 

[Jeffmc306]

Indeed, God rest his soul. I had the pleasure to talk to Sheldon many years ago. He put together a custom cassette (Century Special or something like that). At the time I had a Trek carbon road bike with a double crank. His custom cassette was added a 32T cog and in between gears to make up for the missing small third ring. It made enough difference that I didn’t miss the triple anymore. He was a special person...

 

[Sierratim]

Got the new cassette installed, hung the modified long cage derailleur and cabled it up, then threaded in the new chain.

The original 11-42t cassette...

Comparing the original and new cassettes...

New cassette mounted. I left the plastic spoke guard on, though it really won't help much if the chain should happen to jump over the largest cog. I do like the black color...

Finished product ready for adjustments and a test ride!

 

[Saratoga Dave]

Well, that oughta climb!

(By the way, I believe Alaskan has a 51 tooth on the back... but you know him, he ain’t foolin around!)

 

[Sierratim]

So, I was struggling with adjustments to the new setup. I could not get the derailleur to shift smoothly. I finally admitted defeat and called in my consultant, the mech eng son that designs bike parts. He dropped in later in the afternoon for what I'm sure he thought was going to be a quick lesson for dear old dad in the finer points of derailleur setup.

He went though the same steps I had, twice. He got the same results, skipping cogs randomly, rough shifting sometimes, etc. Being a mech eng, he wanted to measure the new chain against the old. The new chain was 0.037 inches wider. Hmmm. He checked the chain part number (that he had ordered for me, btw). We'd been struggling trying to adjust an 11 speed derailleur fitted with a 9 speed chain...

I didn't have another 11 speed chain that was long enough so we spliced some links from one chain onto a shorter new chain and went with that. It adjusted as we expected. A short test ride tweaked it in with the barrell adjuster. My wife and I are taking both ebikes out in the beautiful fall weather in the AM.

EDIT - So I looked at the emailed statement for the chain my son had ordered for me. Yep, it said 9 speed chain. Like son, like father... But now I have another spare chain for our 9 speed bio/mech bikes!

 

[Sierratim]

Had a beautiful 23 mile loop ride on the back roads around the nearby town of Grass Valley and back; 2100' of climbing including a stop at the hardware store and a bit of grocery shopping on the way home. The gearing setup was very close but had to tighten the shift cable a couple of times enroute with the barrell adjuster. Didn't need to use the granny 50t gear, but did use the next lowest 42t cog at a stop sign on a grade that I had walked across on earlier rides. More confidence perhaps?

I'm liking this change alot, but it's only been 1 ride so far...

 

[reed scott]

Had a beautiful 23 mile loop ride on the back roads around the nearby town of Grass Valley and back; 2100' of climbing including a stop at the hardware store and a bit of grocery shopping on the way home. The gearing setup was very close but had to tighten the shift cable a couple of times enroute with the barrell adjuster. Didn't need to use the granny 50t gear, but did use the next lowest 42t cog at a stop sign on a grade that I had walked across on earlier rides. More confidence perhaps?

I'm liking this change alot, but it's only been 1 ride so far...

Hey Tim, Hopefully not starting a hijack but what is the town of Grass Valley doing about forest fire mitigation? Watching some of Bolton ebikes videos I see it is pretty heavily forested.

 

[Sierratim]

Hey Tim, Hopefully not starting a hijack but what is the town of Grass Valley doing about forest fire mitigation? Watching some of Bolton ebikes videos I see it is pretty heavily forested.

Since gold mining stopped during WWll, this entire area has again become heavily forested in evergreens. Wildfire protection has become a very 'hot' topic (pun intended). There's actually a thread that more or less is about this HERE.

The nearby town of Grass Valley is facing the issue head on with the construction of a fire break at the most likely fire advance routes. They have more to do, but our smaller town of Nevada City has done zero, zip, squat to prepare, except to protest diseased tree removal by the loacl utility, HERE. My family is concerned that our future looks a lot like that of Berry Creek, CA

I'm surprised anyone noticed. Thank you.

 

[reed scott]

Since gold mining stopped during WWll, this entire area has again become heavily forested in evergreens. Wildfire protection has become a very 'hot' topic (pun intended). There's actually a thread that more or less is about this HERE.

The nearby town of Grass Valley is facing the issue head on with the construction of a fire break at the most likely fire advance routes. They have more to do, but our smaller town of Nevada City has done zero, zip, squat to prepare, except to protest diseased tree removal by the loacl utility, HERE. My family is concerned that our future looks a lot like that of Berry Creek, CA

I'm surprised anyone noticed. Thank you.

Thank you for getting back to me. I have to admit my mostly selfish interest as Bolton is my bike supplier. I spent many years living in Cali 25 years ago before things kinda went to pot. And decades earlier lived near Healdsburg N of Cotati. I have hiked around the redwoods E of Bakersville and even got back there on a adventure bike trek 13 years go. We spent a night in the Cali State Forest S of Kings Canyon, Mountain Home, on the headwaters of the Tule River. I was appalled at the depth of the forest litter piling up everywhere. Don't know if you've ever been there but go if you have a chance. Magical.

 

[Sierratim]

Thank you for getting back to me. I have to admit my mostly selfish interest as Bolton is my bike supplier. I spent many years living in Cali 25 years ago before things kinda went to pot. And decades earlier lived near Healdsburg N of Cotati. I have hiked around the redwoods E of Bakersville and even got back there on a adventure bike trek 13 years go. We spent a night in the Cali State Forest S of Kings Canyon, Mountain Home, on the headwaters of the Tule River. I was appalled at the depth of the forest litter piling up everywhere. Don't know if you've ever been there but go if you have a chance. Magical.

Cali...kinda went to pot... Hard to be more accurate, on so many levels, and I and all my children were born here.

We know Healdsberg and Mt Home. It's still hard to hike anywhere off trail with all the forest debris. We'll either clean this up, or the fires will do it for us.

Ride On!...

Edit - Forgot to mention that not only I and all of my children were born in CA, but all of my grandchildren as well.

 

[Sierratim]

Well, remember that 9 speed x 126L chain nonsense? Both my son and I have a number of good experiences spacing chains together. This one hasn't worked out so well;

After about 50 miles I was getting an intermittent click from what felt like the cranks. This is what I found the next morning after I went out to the shop to check it out. An outer plate on the shorter spliced section had popped loose. Not good, but I didn't have to walk home! I thought this might actually be the plate where we made the splice so I took this 1/2 link out and replaced it with another master link.

Didn't work. Another outer plate came lose on the very next ride, also from the spliced in section of chain. Hmmm.

The spliced in section had come from a brand name ebike compatible 11-speed chain with ~500 miles on it. There is probably some extra stress shifting through the 11-50 cassette vs the original 11-42 but this seems awfully sensitive.

The LBS had an 11 speed 126L ebike chain instock so I installed that as a solution. We'll see...

 

[FlatSix911]

Well, remember that 9 speed x 126L chain nonsense? Both my son and I have a number of good experiences spacing chains together. This one hasn't worked out so well;
View attachment 70631
After about 50 miles I was getting an intermittent click from what felt like the cranks. This is what I found the next morning after I went out to the shop to check it out. An outer plate on the shorter spliced section had popped loose. Not good, but I didn't have to walk home! I thought this might actually be the plate where we made the splice so I took this 1/2 link out and replaced it with another master link.

Didn't work. Another outer plate came lose on the very next ride, also from the spliced in section of chain. Hmmm.

The spliced in section had come from a brand name ebike compatible 11-speed chain with ~500 miles on it. There is probably some extra stress shifting through the 11-50 cassette vs the original 11-42 but this seems awfully sensitive.

The LBS had an 11 speed 126L ebike chain instock so I installed that as a solution. We'll see...

Good catch! you avoided the walk of shame.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

@Sierratim, as much as you might be concerned, Shimano have released the Deore CS-M5100-11 cassette (11-51t, 11-speed). Perhaps that's the way to go?

P.S. Several users on these Fora claim they can clear improbable inclines on their e-bikes. I can only talk for myself; my legs have not been strong since Autumn 2015. I can clear a 13.5% grade on my Vado at 48-46T gearing in Turbo mode max. I have already cleared a 17.9% climb with 36-51T on my Trance.

 

[Sierratim]

Good catch!

...and no walk of shame, so far..

 

[Sierratim]

@Sierratim, as much as you might be concerned, Shimano have released the Deore CS-M5100-11 cassette (11-51t, 11-speed). Perhaps that's the way to go?

P.S. Several users on these Fora claim they can clear improbable inclines on their e-bikes. I can only talk for myself; my legs have not been strong since Autumn 2015. I can clear a 13.5% grade on my Vado at 48-46T gearing in Turbo mode max. I have already cleared a 17.9% climb with 36-51T on my Trance.

I went with the Box Two 11 Speed 11-50t cassette based primarily on my son's recommendations. The fact that it was in stock from one of his wholesale suppliers also helped...

Regardless of manufacturer there are 8 more teeth in the biggest cogb than my original cassette. These are distributed in larger jumps in tooth count changes over the largest 4-5 cogs. Making the chain move over these larger changes does produce more noise and probably more stress. My working theory is that this has caused the two outer plate failures on the used chain section we'd spliced in.

We'll see...

 

[Marcela]

It'll be interesting to see how the chains hold up. You will be a good test bed for different chain brands.

Another thing for the high speed fanatics. If you can go to a larger front chain ring, you can use a larger cog ring count, which moves the chain away from the centerline of the axle at the rear, giving more leverage, and maybe easier to sustain the 28 mph limit. Would be like adding 4 teeth to the front and then adding 4 teeth to the 11t cog and the rest of the cassette cogs, so you'd have a cassette from 15 to 41 or similar. And of course the supporting parts exchange.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Let me tell you something. After the chain in my Vado was replaced, and the 11-13 cogs were replaced by my brother as well, I noticed the chain skipping continued on the 11-13 pair. Since my Vado is at the LBS for brake pad replacement, I also asked the mechanic to diagnose the drive-train... What could have gone wrong?

 

[Marcela]

I looked up the ratios for my suggestion above, going to a 52 from a 48 only gives you one tooth at the rear. Kind of a letdown but sounded good.

 

[Marcela]

Let me tell you something. After the chain in my Vado was replaced, and the 11-13 cogs were replaced by my brother as well, I noticed the chain skipping continued on the 11-13 pair. Since my Vado is at the LBS for brake pad replacement, I also asked the mechanic to diagnose the drive-train... What could have gone wrong?

Let me tell you something. After the chain in my Vado was replaced, and the 11-13 cogs were replaced by my brother as well, I noticed the chain skipping continued on the 11-13 pair. Since my Vado is at the LBS for brake pad replacement, I also asked the mechanic to diagnose the drive-train... What could have gone wrong?

Make sure your derailleur is adjusted correctly. Like changing gears but not really so it skips, like being confused.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Make sure your derailleur is adjusted correctly. Like changing gears but not really so it skips, like being confused.

Thank you, Marcela. That's why I asked the mechanic to inspect that. My brother is a good mechanic but with too little of experience on derailleur setup