Gear growlings

About 6 weeks ago, I found that my chain had stretched quite a bit (I check this kind of thing once every 5 years whether it's needed or not). I replaced it, which led to the realization that the chainrings and sprockets were all worn. Finding replacement chainrings didn't work out, so that meant new crank, which meant new bottom bracket. 8 speed cassettes are getting to be a bit rare, so I ended up with a SRAM cassette.

All together, the setup worked ok except the chain skipped on the 3rd cassette gear any time I cranked hard on it. Ok, just avoid that gear. After a few weeks, 4th gear started doing the same thing. This was getting ridiculous. Last night I gave up on the SRAM, even though as an old fat and slow guy I liked the 32T granny gear. At the second shop I visited, Swiss American(?), 44th Ave & Bell, I found an 8 speed 11x30 Shimano. They were holding a bike maintenance (bent wheel bad, straight wheel good) class, so I had to step around some of the attendees to get to the parts counter. All in all, it seems like a good shop, and off I went with my new cassette.

Now that its all dialed in and working well, I'm just waiting for the Octolink BB to fail like the ones Sean's been going through. If it fails, I'll dig around for some new chainrings and go back to the past with square taper that's served me well for the last 50 years.