Today I did something to my bike thread...

iwillhtfu

magicbastarder wrote: »

i do, but it's a wood lathe. i could make you a solid elm seatpost?

That'd be something neat alright

cletus

I actually do have access to a metal lathe. PM me if you want to see what we can do

iwillhtfu

cletus wrote: »

I actually do have access to a metal lathe. PM me if you want to see what we can do

Cool, I'm going to see how much material is on the side walls. It was quickly put back in the box so I didn't try and jam it in there

cletus

Speaking of which, I needed to make some spacers to take up the slack from the two chain rings I removed.

magicbastarder

you're setting the bar too high now. i'm soon only going to be impressed if you make your own frame from melted down coke cans.

cletus

Inspired by Rogue-Trooper's photos, I went and bought some orange bar tape.

Made a start at it, but got called away to do another job. Hopefully finish it tomorrow

It's like it was meant to be. Big improvement.

brownian

Some days you should just leave it alone.

I had a few squeaks out of the bike. So I greased the pedals, the cleats, cleaned out the head tube (why and how does it get so manky?), greased the headset, crown race, put a dab on the drop-outs. Took out the crankset (not too dirty, oddly), gave it a good wipe down, grease, back together again. Took off the saddle, greased the seatpost, saddle rails, tightened up the little bolts around the saddle.

Sure enough, most of the creaks went away...except the saddle. So...

went to take the saddle off the other bike, to see if it was saddle or seatpost that creaked. Sheared the hex hole in the seatpost collar. Faffed about, eventually got the saddle off. Bolt from seatpost fell on floor - into bag of rubbish. Empty bag of rubbish - no bolt. Go through it again - no bolt. One more time - cut finger on broken glass in rubbish. Drip blood all over. No bolt.

Should have just left the bike alone, and had a beer....

Rogue-Trooper

cletus wrote: »

Inspired by Rogue-Trooper's photos, I went and bought some orange bar tape.

Made a start at it, but got called away to do another job. Hopefully finish it tomorrow

Yassssss!! Viva la revolución naranja!:pac:

cletus

Surprisingly, wrapping handlebars is quite low down on the "Things to be done in the house" list.

Regardless, managed to get the second side done

Tony04

Nice- but please do yourself the favour and get rid of that dork dish behind the cassette and then your bike would be up to the pro mechanic standard

cletus

Tony04 wrote: »

Nice- but please do yourself the favour and get rid of that dork dish behind the cassette and then your bike would be up to the pro mechanic standard

I was actually thinking of taking it off, but is having it there the sort of thing that would irk other cyclists?

Tony04

It does nothing but pick up dirt, it's there because of product safety standards, bit like reflectors to prevent the chain getting caught up in the wheel if the derailleur isnt probably adjusted which wouldnt be the case with you and anyway I've heard of circumstances where people have over shifted and it hasn't made a difference.

cletus

Oh I know what it's for, but I generally feel that if I'm being told I should do a thing, that my preferred course of action is to not do it

Tony04

I'm not telling you do it, I'm just saying you would be doing yourself a favour as youd only see dork discs on neglected bikes and from what I've seen on here your bikes are the opposite of neglected.

cletus

Tony04 wrote: »

I'm not telling you do it, I'm just saying you would be doing yourself a favour as youd only see dork discs on neglected bikes and from what I've seen on here your bikes are the opposite of neglected.

I know, only messing really. I enjoy joking around on this forum about the Velominati, wearing the wrong socks etc.

Alanstrainor

Had a go at replacing my rear derailleur cable yesterday. I had been having some terrible gear skipping when climbing and went about indexing my gears, only to discover that the cable was completely frayed, and was getting caught up in the plastic tube/casing causing the gears to not engage. I watched a few videos and managed to complete the job decently quickly, followed by indexing and now the bike is like new. I couldn't believe the difference in the gear changes, precise and quick, whereas before gear changes felt sluggish. I've ordered a full cable set now so I can do the front derailleur next to get it all done. Happy days.

coddlesangers

So where do I start. Thought I'd do a simple enough thing, change my smaller chainring to an absolute black 34 tooth oval to see how it felt, seemed to be the only possible upgrade short of changing out my entire setup to get me some more gearing for the hills (plenty of long 10% plus climbs hereabouts, and while I have already pretty max gearing of 34-32, it still sometimes not quite enough to prevent a low cadence horror show. So, that went relatively well and in fact, I love what thats done. It feels great going up the steeper hills, a lot easier to work out of the saddle and I'm actually going a lot faster for the same effort (which is melting my brain but ok). However, after a few spins, it became clear my shifting wasn't working quite right in the smaller oval ring - on inspection, I realized that my chain was shot - so I got in a new chain. On installing the new chain I realized my cassette was shot. So tomorrow I go about new cassette installation...side note, I also ballsed up my reinstallation of the crank, to such a fabulous extent that i managed to pedal it off the bike...so thats also elicited the purchase of a torque wrench....at this stage i feel I should have just set the bike on fire, it'd have been cheaper.

LollipopJimmy

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Had a go at replacing my rear derailleur cable yesterday. I had been having some terrible gear skipping when climbing and went about indexing my gears, only to discover that the cable was completely frayed, and was getting caught up in the plastic tube/casing causing the gears to not engage. I watched a few videos and managed to complete the job decently quickly, followed by indexing and now the bike is like new. I couldn't believe the difference in the gear changes, precise and quick, whereas before gear changes felt sluggish. I've ordered a full cable set now so I can do the front derailleur next to get it all done. Happy days.

I have done pretty much every job there is to do on my bikes, serviced wheels, freehub, BB, headset replacement etc etc... The one thing I can never get right is the front drailleur, it's my kryptonite

cletus

It's a well known fact that front derailleurs are only *****. If there was an award for biggest **** in Ireland, they'd come second, because they're only *****.

Last time I indexed a front derailleur, I actually had to leave it and come back the next day, because there was a better than average chance that I was going to take the bike off the stand and throw it in a ditch

magicbastarder

phew, there's a support group for people like us.

rodneyTrotter.

Actually 1by on the road isn’t too bad if you get the ratio right . I hate front mechs also, bar using di2 synchro which is pretty good

It's funny 1x it's all right hand and 3x if your a lazy so and so like me last time I rode a triple was all left hand. 2x keeps both hands busy

Alanstrainor

LollipopJimmy wrote: »

I have done pretty much every job there is to do on my bikes, serviced wheels, freehub, BB, headset replacement etc etc... The one thing I can never get right is the front drailleur, it's my kryptonite

cletus wrote: »

It's a well known fact that front derailleurs are only *****. If there was an award for biggest **** in Ireland, they'd come second, because they're only *****.

Last time I indexed a front derailleur, I actually had to leave it and come back the next day, because there was a better than average chance that I was going to take the bike off the stand and throw it in a ditch

Ah don't be saying that! There was me taking it should be a piece of cake, I was always afraid to touch the rear, and after getting through that I thought I was sorted!

cletus

So, I stripped the rear axle so I could readjust where the cones sat, in order to try and centre the wheel in the dropouts.




So now here's the question. With the wheel in situ, there's a 26mm gap between the rim and the drive side seat stay, and a 19mm gap on the non drive side. Is this differential too big?

Tony04

You should dish it... if you dont have a spoke key I'd reccomend picking up one in your lbs as they do come in handy, that's all you need to dish a wheel.

https://youtu.be/4g11lhs5l4k

This video shows you how you could dish a wheel without any dishing tool

If you haven't trued wheels already spoke nipples tighten clockwise from the tyre side tightening them adds tension to the spoke pulling the rim towards the side of the spoke, just remember that and keep calm and you should be able to dish it no problem

iwillhtfu

Finally got around to fitting the boards permanently



Decided to run a rear brake but which lever to use, thoughts? I'm leaning towards the right one.



If I do run the right one what am I missing here? No doubt it'll be a bastard of a part to find.

Found it

Also stripped the frame I picked up the other day from a boardsie now to decide what the plan is I'm thinking neo retro build.

iwillhtfu

I decided to strip another frame and sweet baby jebus I wish I hadn't, everything was seized or rounded including the bottle cage bolts which I ended up having to cut off and grab with a mole grips.



I had to walk away when I snapped the stem trying to hammer it out of the fork.



I got the fork out though

cletus

Just for you, Tony04...

brownian

cletus wrote: »

It's a well known fact that front derailleurs are only *****. If there was an award for biggest **** in Ireland, they'd come second, because they're only *****.

Last time I indexed a front derailleur, I actually had to leave it and come back the next day, because there was a better than average chance that I was going to take the bike off the stand and throw it in a ditch

I hope to post to this thread in the coming days that I have fitted an inline barrel adjuster to my FD cable...and that this has changed my life. Why are they not standard?

It'd be nice if they wrote H and L beside the screws on the FD, too...this malarky of having to guess which is which wrecks my head. Got so frustrated with it all last week, that I just rode the first 100k of a 150 spin on the small chainring (big ring kept dropping the chain). Eventually had another random try, which sorted it out for now....