Today I did something to my bike thread...

You are correct, water is a solvent but not great at disolving grease, oils or dirt; hence why we add soap to wash our hands with water.

The older type of chemical cleaners have high volatile organic compounds, you know that kind of chemical smell. Lots have low boiling points and flash off / evaporate at lower temps than water. You hear of people getting headaches using them for long periods of time so should use a respirator for prolonged exposure and extraction. Vapours can gather and be a potential for fire / expolsion if ignited. They also dry out skin etc so you can see teh reason industry is trying to get rid of them.

Quick sambo now and hoefully a brief update.

So new cassette on rear, think I'm losing the 16T cog so probably not that big a deal. New 53 chainring on.

New jockey wheels fitted, lower one was well and truly passed its best before. All cables run but struggling with rear brake. Suspect that it may have originally had an outer shield all the way through the top tube but that got changed to guides at some point. Rear exit one is stuck and no joy fishing it yet as it's a tiny hole in it. Tried a pull with a pliers but no movement. It's a Planet X Nanolight 920g frame in case anyone knows anything interesting.

Left it at that for the day so I can think about it. I might drill through it so i can crush it down and pull it out but open to suggestions. Next job after the cable challenge is to torque all bolts to spec and set up mechs and brakes. Another few hours in n it.

Few pics. Old and new 53T chainring. **** bearing in lower jockey wheel and crack and the offending metal ferrule thingy and one I found online.

Great stuff, love to see the work other people are doing on here

All back together but still not 100%, only 95. Shifts are much smoother and drivetrain is a lot quieter which is great. The problem however is that it won't hold on the large cog on the rear cassette. It shifts in perfect but pops back out. I think the issue is the ratchet in the shifter. Had a look from the side and it goes in but just won't latch and hold. It may have been working before as the cables and mech were sticky with dirt etc so the rear mech spring wasn't able to load the ratchet mechanism as much.

That aside, shifting is much smoother and braking is night and day. Levers are so much lighter. Looking at them as much as you can they were very black and dirty so would have been a lot of drag.

Plan is to knock up some miles now, have a look for a spare lever to use as a donar for when I pull the dicky one apart.

So thoughts on the job. Not that difficult, little fiddly in places but it is time consuming. I suppose it took me around 7 hours in total. No idea what a shop would have charged but I now know the bike intimately which can't be a bad thing.

I'll double check part but I think it was around 120 and then my time. I have access to a lot of tools so that makes things easier for me.

Anyway here it is ready for road, so if you pass a fat bloke on that bike say hello as you fly by!

Pretty positive that's fine, it pops on perfect and the ratchet engages. It will sit and spin on that cog nice an quiet but once I release the shift lever the ratchet doesn't lock in and it drops back one.

I've never had a bike like this so I just weighed it on the luggage scales and it's 8.1kg which I think is fairly light.

Barrel adjuster was completely seized. Got it apart after a bit of finagling, will clean the threads, regrease and reassemble later, then pop it back on the bike on Monday

replaced the lower pivot bearings on my full suss mountain bike. was going to leave them to shop but I left it too late before the carrick enduro. And I've done it before, this was a bit easier as all the bearings are into an aluminium link.

Can't find pictures of the extractor but it basically consisted of a sleeve anchor / expanding bolt.

Took my time making up the press, wanted something foolproof and reusable. used an old bearing plus a nut which locates centre of the bearing.

Satisfying job over a few evenings. Will probably need to do it yearly even just to allow proper cleaning of what is a proper dirt trap.

Upper link next but not as urgent, feels fine and doesnt get same amount of mud attack.

Just fitted the raceblades to my bike. They are surprisingly neat and unobtrusive

Yeah, they really are ideal for the puropses of this bike

Just took a quick one there before I left the classroom. Dunno how clear it is...

Looks great. Nice clean chainset too

I bought the raceblade long, and it has a short piece that clip on just behind the seat tube

Speaking of things chainset, I've been contemplating getting a cheap chainring guard for this bike, too.

I wear shorts in work from April to September (well, April, May and September), but I'm in tracksuits/jeans the rest of the year. Currently my solution is to tuck the leg of my trousers into my sock, but if anyone has recommendations for a chainring guard, let me know