Bye Bye Sora

In Japanese the word sora means to fly away or fly high or something like tat it seems. And no better description for my bike parts which are about to fly (literally) across the ocean to its new owner in Labuan.

I sold my bike's Shimano groupset to a nice gentleman. Im upgrading. Haha. but still looking for my parts. So before i can buy anything, i better get some cash in hand first.

Anyway for u ordinary folks out there who dont knw wats a groupset look like, heres a short education on it with pic.


Clockwise from top left :

1. Right hand brake lever/STI Shifter
2. Left hand brake/STI Shifter
3. Rear brake calipers
4. Front brake calipers
5. Cranks - chain ring arm
6. Crank left arm
7. Rear deraileur
8. Cassette
9. Front deraileur

No 1 & 2 are the brakes n shifters incorporated into one unit. This was pioneered by Shimano and made it popular coz shifting n braking can be done with out moving ur arms. Just push the levers inwards and u will shift. Pull it backwards and u brake.

No 3 & 4 the brake calipers. NO explanation what they do here. They just BRAKE!

N0 5 is the crank chainring. Its called so coz it a big ring and the chain goes around it. DUH! Road bikes use a typical 52 teeth for the big ring and 39 for the smaller rings. And typical setup is just 2 rings to save weight. There are 3 rings if u wana do hills, but we rather stick to 2 and train our legs. We road bikes want light bikes n parts. ^^

No 6 is the opposite crank arm for the left side of the bike.

No 7 is the deraileur. Many ppl mistake by calling it gears. It the component tat shifts your chain up and down the cassette or chain ring. This is the rear one so it shifts for the cassette.

No 8 is the cassette or some refer as sprockets. This also is wrongly addressed as gears. Todays modern and new designs have a 10 speed rear cassette. Which means u have 10 gears to select behind. That is alot. My old set uses 8 only. So what difference does it make? Alot in terms of gear choice and gear ratio. So between these 8/9/10 speed cassettes, the teeth count is between 11T - 25T. Mine uses 11T - 23T.

No 9 is the front deraileur to shift the chain on the chain rings.

This is a racing bike groupset and its the lowest model of the Shimano tree. U cannot put this on a mountain bike. Retails around RM600-RM800. The highest end (Dura Ace) will set u back RM3900. Why so expensive? Simple. Pay for technology and material.

So this whole bunch of parts will go to its new owner soon. Will courier it to him. And now i will wait for my 9 speed groupset *patiently*. hope it comes fast coz i cant ride now. Haha.

God Bless me wit a new groupset! Amen.