Today I did something to my bike thread...

Mec-a-nic

It's too cold and dark for much trails (for me anyway) so it was time for the slightly annoying redo of the sealant in my tubeless wheels. Mop, scrape, wipe, pop back on with soapy water and CO2, top-up with more Stan's and reinflate with air. All ready for spring...

Casula

Have not actually done something with my bike but planning (to get a bike shop) to do something to it over Christmas. Commuting on a single speed Giant Bowery for over 5 years now and it's in bad need of major overhaul. Hope to put new wheels and new cranks and chainset on it. Also going to replace flat handle bar and brakes with new drop handle bar and new brakes. Anyone got any recommendations on where in Dublin might be a good spot to source parts and labour for this job?

smacl

End of year home service on the bike last night and tonight. Change of chain, cassette, cables, brake pads, and bar tape. Minor improvements, going to chorus chain and cassette after veloce chain seized after not cleaning it properly following a long wet ride. Swisstop pads to replace worn campag ones.

Only the frame and BB left, and my bike will officially become a Trigger's broom.

cdaly_

Unwrapped this

straightened and admired leather wrapped handlebars...

Eamonnator

^^^^^^^^^
that's a beaut. Very shiny.
Why only one disc brake?

Paddy@CIRL

Collected it

Alek

Why only one disc brake?

Rear disc brake makes sense for a heavy loaded touring - slowing down on looong mountain descent may overheat the rim.

I have seen my rear rotor glowing red after going down 10km @ 6-7%, trying to slow down me, the bike, 30kg of luggage and a trailer with my son. Organic pads were gone too, in one go.

Alek

Collected it

Somehow I really dig this compact rear triangle on new giants. Very dynamic look

Ole Rodrigo

cdaly_ wrote: »

Unwrapped this

Nice one cdaly_. Looks lovely.

OldBean

cdaly_ wrote: »

Unwrapped this

straightened and admired leather wrapped handlebars...

She's an absolute beauty. Enjoy.

smacl

cdaly_ wrote: »

Unwrapped this

Lovely looking Thorn cdaly_, if you see a green tinge around the edge of your screen its coming from this end of the internet. The drops look seriously deep, and the third bottle holder is very spinal tap. Was it bought with audax or touring in mind?

cdaly_

Eamonnator wrote: »

Why only one disc brake?

Messrs Thorn are of the opinion that a front disc requires a much heavier, reinforced fork and that you lose the springiness and comfort that a good steel fork provides.

Alek wrote: »

Rear disc brake makes sense for a heavy loaded touring - slowing down on looong mountain descent may overheat the rim.

I have seen my rear rotor glowing red after going down 10km @ 6-7%, trying to slow down me, the bike, 30kg of luggage and a trailer with my son. Organic pads were gone too, in one go.

I've seen a recommendation for descending on a tandem to to avoid 'drag' braking and instead to freewheel and occasionally brake hard. Reduces the chance of overheating and they had some lovely figures about the energy dissipated. It seems that maintaining a steady 25-30kph on a descent dissipates far more energy (through the braking system) than running up to 50-60kph and doing some hard braking for corners.

smacl wrote: »

Lovely looking Thorn cdaly_, if you see a green tinge around the edge of your screen its coming from this end of the internet. The drops look seriously deep, and the third bottle holder is very spinal tap. Was it bought with audax or touring in mind?

Both really. I'm aiming for PBP in 2015 and have this notion of doing a bit of camping also. Who knows how it will turn out.

Inaugural spin will be my annual 'burn the hangover' Stephen's Day spin...

Lumen

cdaly_ wrote: »

I've seen a recommendation for descending on a tandem to to avoid 'drag' braking and instead to freewheel and occasionally brake hard. Reduces the chance of overheating and they had some lovely figures about the energy dissipated. It seems that maintaining a steady 25-30kph on a descent dissipates far more energy (through the braking system) than running up to 50-60kph and doing some hard braking for corners.

The total energy dissipated is simply mass (kg) x altitude (metres) x 10 (ish), and is not affected by technique.

Going faster between the corners means more of that energy is dissipated as aero drag, which leaves less to be dissipated through the brakes.

Braking hard means that whilst the rotors are briefly hotter, they dissipate heat more effectively since the rate of heat loss of a body is proportional to the temperature difference to ambient. You just need to make sure you don't brake so hard that you glaze the pads/boil the fluid or whatever. That would be bad.

The inter-corner speed also provides more air flow to cool the brakes.

ford2600

Lovely bike @cdaly, best of luck with it.

Where your dynamo wheel?

Lovely audax machine, might see it in the flesh over the year.

cdaly_

Pedals went on today and a quick 300m test spin.

I have dyno wheel, lights and bar bag to fit yet. Have to hunt out a speedo also. Jan sales methinks...

Borderfox

New saddle and a set of Zondas :-) to replace my 4za stratos wheels

ROK ON

cDaly

Nice bike - well wear.
Question: why did you not route the gear cables through the via the tops of the handlebars?

rollingscone

cdaly_ wrote: »

Pedals went on today and a quick 300m test spin.

I have dyno wheel, lights and bar bag to fit yet. Have to hunt out a speedo also. Jan sales methinks...

For a moment I thought you said 'a quick 300km test ride'

OldBean

ROK ON wrote: »

cDaly

Nice bike - well wear.
Question: why did you not route the gear cables through the via the tops of the handlebars?

Friction! The less curves and more freedom the cable has, the smoother shifting is/feels.

cdaly_

rollingscone wrote: »

For a moment I thought you said 'a quick 300km test ride'

Yah, that was it. I really need a new eyboard...

route66

To address a creak in the bb area of my 1-year old Felt Z6, I decided to replace the bottom bracket.

I decided to remove the pedals first (not necessary) and this was my first mistake. I knew the thread was reversed on one side and made the assumption that this side was the same as the side the thread on my square-taper BB is reversed - the drive side. Mistake. I now know that the non-drive pedal has a reverse thread. But this was only after super-human attempts to loosen, eh, tighten it first. Once I discovered my mistake (thanks YouTube), there was no getting it off. Oh, and to add insult, I mangled the pedal in the process.



I dropped the crank arm - with pedal stubbornly attached - down to Fitzcycles in Stillorgan and they sorted it out for me - without mangling the crank arm. The guy there actually apologised for having to charge me €15. I told him he should have charged me more as punishment for my stupidity! I recommend this place. The guys there are friendly and knowledgeable and even when they knew I was just a cowboy - and should have entrusted the work to them in the first instance - they offered advice on how to go about the next stage: getting the BB out.

With the crank arms and the pedals removed, the BB actually came out easily enough. I gave it a quick clean to see if the spec was printed somewhere. It was, but it didn't give the spindle length which I measured with callipers to be 103mm. I was still unsure about exactly what I needed but luckily Boards came to the rescue and I got help in this thread: link. The old BB felt very rough but I had nothing to compare it against until the replacement came in. It costs the bones of €50 (I could have got the original for less than half that) but even before fitting it, I knew it was money well spent: it was a joy just to hold and look at and the bearings were ultra smooth in comparison to the old RPM unit. It also weighed in at 221g instead of 286g and has a hollow axle - this means I can use a skewer to secure the BB removal tool next time if required.



So last night, I started to put it all back together. On the way, I'd also purchased a new saddle in a Ribble sale, so my list of work looked like this:
Clean BB threads:

Grease BB threads & BB
Install BB
Grease Crank bolts & Install cranks
Install new pedals (SHIMANO A530)
Minimise the tension on both pedals.
Remove both jockey wheels, clean, lubricate and replace.
Remove & clean seat post, install new saddle.

Clean Ultegra CN-6701 chain, and reinstall it with KMC 10Spd Chainlinks (Pictures to horrific to show here - dirty job!).
Put wheels back on & clean bike.

I finished very late & the weather was bad so there was no opportunity to test it out

Before I do head out, I first need to put some proper lube on the chain (I just used some silicon spray for a final clean) and pump the tyres and it's good to go. I may also have to do some adjustment on the front derailleur, although the new BB looked exactly aligned with the old.

crosstownk

route66 wrote: »

To quote Seán Kelly - "is the floor level?"

iwillhtfu

crosstownk wrote: »

To quote Seán Kelly - "is the floor level?"

Feck the level all I saw was beer and roses

Borderfox

Removed the spurious crankset with a Dura Ace 7800 model that I got of godtabh, it's a 53-39 chainring so bye bye compact. I have some other nice shiny dura ace bits too so they will be going on at some stage.

route66

iwillhtfu wrote: »

Feck the level all I saw was beer and roses

Don't mind all that. The truly observant will have seen that my IRD Bottom Bracket comes in 2 types:Quad (mine, aka Square Taper) and ISIS :eek:

smacl

route66 wrote: »

Don't mind all that. The truly observant will have seen that my IRD Bottom Bracket comes in 2 types:Quad (mine, aka Square Taper) and ISIS :eek:

I was looking at that, and wondered what the square taper spindle was doing with the ISIS threaded socket. Did you get a splined spindle as well? Am replacing my own ISIS BB, and have been poring over technical documents the last couple of days getting the right dimensions. Ordered off CRC yesterday, and got a notification from an Post today that the package will be here this afternoon! And that's with standard delivery :pac:

route66

smacl wrote: »

I was looking at that, and wondered what the square taper spindle was doing with the ISIS threaded socket. Did you get a splined spindle as well? Am replacing my own ISIS BB, and have been poring over technical documents the last couple of days getting the right dimensions. Ordered off CRC yesterday, and got a notification from an Post today that the package will be here this afternoon! And that's with standard delivery :pac:

I think they just use the same box for both types - mine is square taper, JIS-format, which is the most common (& Japanese) type. Mine has a very short 103mm length and the CRC Shimano ones don't come that small. I was disappointed that my one didn't even last a year - I thought this BB type should last for 10s of thousands of Ks?

Anyway, hope CRC deliver for you today! I'm going back to my Roses and beer now

Cee-Jay-Cee

Fitted a set of Zondas to my winter bike as the aksiums I had on both need truing. I had to fit a new freehub on the zondas as there was a 10spd only freehub on them originally and would only take deeper spline 10spd ultegra or dura ace cassettes (what a stupid idea that was and thankfully has been done away with) The tyres are Michelin Krylion carbons. Took it for a short 5km spin yesterday evening and there is a noticeable difference over the aksiums. They spin so so much freer and easier and maybe it's the tyres but the bike feels more comfortable now, it seems to
Soak up bumps and rough surface better. They're 2 way fit zondas but I've fitted tubes due to the very limited selection of tubeless tyres available.

The shifter/hoods aren't actually that high, it's the angle the pic was taken at.

smacl

Fitted a new ISIS BB today, reckon the last one must have had a good 10-15 years in it. Getting the old one off was a bit of a bast@rd, spanner and hammer job. Just waiting on a new middle ring and the bike will have had a long deserved full drive train refresh. First time changing a BB so quite chuffed, not least in managing to buy the right one!

route66

smacl wrote: »

Fitted a new ISIS BB today, reckon the last one must have had a good 10-15 years in it. Getting the old one off was a bit of a bast@rd, spanner and hammer job. Just waiting on a new middle ring and the bike will have had a long deserved full drive train refresh. First time changing a BB so quite chuffed, not least in managing to buy the right one!

Not sure about ISIS, but on the square taper BB there is a trick where you can use a fine thread M8 bolt - along with some washers - to secure the removal tool against the splined inner circumference of the BB. You can then use a long spanner and/or pole to remove a stubborn BB.

My BB was only my new bike for 11 months but even then it was tricky enough to remove. Hopefully it won't be coming out again!

And yes, despite all the pain, it's strangely satisfying