What Have You Fettled Today?

[ColinJ]

I have recently fitted a Hollowtech BB and chainset to my DIY 1x6 bike. The reason for doing it was that the left crank is, or should I say WAS a power meter crank. I bought the crank on eBay, advertised as non-functional, hoping to bring it back to life with some TLC, as I have done in the past with other eBay bargains such as my phone (the problem with that was just fluff clogging the microphone grille!)...

I spent some time today trying to revive the power meter but unfortunately it is currently emulating a Norwegian Blue! Oh well, at least I now have a nice Dura Ace BB, 105 cranks, and a new chainring.

Speaking of the chainring... I usually do my local smaller climbs in a 42/15 gear. That is quite tough, but makes short rides more challenging which suits me. On last night's test ride the bike felt pretty good on those climbs. I was surprised how much easier the climbs were. Then I remembered that the new chainring is a 39 not a 42, so I was using ~7% lower gear ratio! I need to use 39/14 gear to be roughly equal to what I was riding before. I will do that this evening and see how the bike performs.

The bike has been making a few noises so I took a look at it this afternoon. I found that a locknut on the rear hub was loose, which probably didn't help. I tightened it. Or should I say overtightened it! I found that the bearings had started to rumble due to lateral pressure. I slackened the locknut off a smidge, which sorted that out.

While the wheel was out, I tightened the cassette lock ring. It wasn't exactly loose, but it didn't take gorilla strength to get a couple of clicks worth of extra lockring rotation.

I checked the chain for wear. I haven't done a huge distance on it but overgeared climbing on that bike does seem to accelerate wear on my ageing body. And the bike transmission! Oops, 0.75%! I don’t want to prematurely wear my new chainring so I put a new chain on. I have always sized chains by 'big-to-big plus a pair of links' so I did that again. Too short! I hadn't factored in that it is a 1x transmission. The technique mentioned is to ensure safety if a rider accidentally selects biggest ring and biggest sprocket, not to make that combination good to ride. The rear mech was horribly extended. On a 1x all gear ratios should work cleanly. I had to patch a length of the discarded bit of chain back in! Yes, that means 2 quick links in the chain. No, I don't believe that to be a problem - I don’t remember ever having a QL fail. For the 1x, big-to-big plus 3 pairs of links seems about right.

Enough waffling... I am going out now to do another of my lumpy local loops to test the bike. [*** SELF-JINXING WARNING!!! ***] Which will no doubt result in one of those non-problematic QLs failing!

 

[ColinJ]

Enough waffling... I am going out now to do another of my lumpy local loops to test the bike. [*** SELF-JINXING WARNING!!! ***] Which will no doubt result in one of those non-problematic QLs failing!

I had forgotten to mention that the bike uses a MTB rear mech donated to me by my cousin. It looked in really good condition when I fitted it but I noticed today that the cage wasn't quite vertical - the bottom of it looked bent slightly inwards. I reckon the donor MTB had probably been dropped or bashed on that side. I carefully bent the mech back out so the jockey wheels were vertically aligned. I also adjusted the high gear endstop which was allowing the mech to travel out slightly too far when the chain was on the smallest sprocket. It wasn't enough to drop the chain but it wasn't right so it needed doing.

The other thing that I did was to spray some GT85 on both sides of both SPD pedals. My shoes had been squeaking as I pedalled.

Result of the test ride? It went really well! The irritating noises had stopped and the new chain felt really smooth spinning round the new chainring and properly aligned jockey wheels.

I did my little climbs in the 39/14 gear this time and they were back to feeling quite tough. It is amazing how much harder the 7% increase felt (compared to using the 15 tooth sprocket)!

 

[Windle]

Adjusted the cones of the front axle on my Giant XTC4 as the front wheel 'were a bit shoogly'. Sorted now though.
A visit to Recyke ye Bike at Chester-le-Street this morning netted a nice light, aluminium bar and stem for the Trek 810 Singletrack together with a few blingy Hope headset spacers, a second bottle cage for the Bear Valley and a frame mounted pump that looked as good as new ~ all for the princely sum of £15! I love Recyke ye Bike me!

 

[DCLane]

This evening I've been playing with the fake Guerciotti / Raleigh Team and a pair of 1982 531 Raleigh forks I've acquired.

With a bit of persuasion they're in; the steerer's shorter but the original bodge-builder of this had stuck metal bits and washers onto the Tioga forks to make them fit. Oh, and I've discovered there's no ball bearings in the Stronglight headset.

I still need to source some Campag Nuevo Record brakes and a proper Campag headset, then it'll be dismantled and off for painting back to an original Raleigh Team, which is what is was back in 1982 before the bodging at some point between then and 2023.

No timeline for this but there's something in me that'd like to turn it back to original. I've not calculated how much I've spent so far, although the supplied 1950's stem and bars were sold for a decent sum, but I hope it'll be worth it in the end.

 

[KneesUp]

They say that if you learn something from doing something, then the time is not wasted.

Over the past two days off work I have tested this hypothesis.

I started with a collection of bikes and bits.

Bike 1- A Peugeot Talisman frame that has sentimental value. It’s been hanging around for years and I’ve never found a use for it. Mine is Pearl Silver (and rust).

Bike 2 - A Peugeot CX bike, as sold on here several years ago (not sold directly to me, image from when it sold here. It’s gained metal guards and slick tyres since then)

Bike 3 A Falcon Strada I bought off eBay a while back as it’s the first decent bike I owned (but mine was stolen)

Bike 4 - A Peugeot ”ladies tourer” of unknown age and model, but something like this. It has been in the cellar for years.

The purple Peugeot has been on my trainer for a while, but the Falcon used to be on it. But I thought both were too much fun to be stuck on the trainer (in the cellar) so I had the idea that I could build up the Talisman frame to go on the trainer. So the shifting matches the CX one I got some 8 speed Campy shifters off eBay for it. I also got a spare pair of Campy wheels for the CX so I can have chunky commute/touring tyres and slicks on it. In order for both size tyres to fit under the guards on the CX I planned to fit the steel guards off the “Ladies Sports“ because they are wider than the ones that were on when I bought it.

Campy 8 speed shifting has exactly the same spacing as Shimano 7 speed so the first task was to build up the Talisman with a 7 speed wheel I had in the parts shed, along with the shifters, the rear derallieur from the Peugeot CX (because that now has a triple on it and although it worked with the short cage Chorus one, I replaced it with a long cage Avanti one) a Shimano FD and the Chorus double and bb that was on the CX - I’d already replaced the bb on the CX with a longer one because of the triple.

That all took a while because the frame hasn’t had a bb for years, so I had to clean the threads, but eventually the Talisman had a bb, two derailleurs, bars and shifters. So I grabbed the wheel. And then discovered that because the frame has one of those bolt-on hangers, as shown in the catalogue above, there isn’t enough clearance for a 7 speed cassette. The smallest cog just catches on the bolt on the back of the hanger. Probably fixable with a re-dish of the wheel but that’s way beyond my pay grade. So I stripped it down again and hung it back up in the cellar. At least it now has clean threads in the bb. Still, half a day to end up with the net result of some clean threads seems a bit excessive, especially as I’m not using them.

Next I decided that as I was going to have two sets of wheels for the CX, I didn't need the Falcon as a road bike so that was going to be my trainer bike. I’m too old to ride a bike without guards anyway now, and the Falcon lacks mounting points on the rear (but not the front, weirdly) I wanted the shifting to match the CX so the main task was to swap the drivetrain for all the bits I had just fitted and then removed from the Talisman. That went ok to be fair. The Falcon already had a 105 triple front derailleur on it, but as I was fitting a double to it, it made sense to me to swap that for the Campy double derailleur on the CX, even though it was ok with the triple. So I did that, and discovered that the spring on the 105 is too stiff for the Campy shifters, so it would not hold position. So I swapped them back again.

Indexing the Falcon (8 speed campy shifter, 8 speed Campy derailleur, 7 speed Shimano wheel) went surprisingly well. The reason I have never had integrated shifters before is I could never be bothered indexing anything, but it was fine.) So, to the front derailleur. I thought that would be easy because Campagnolo fronts are not indexed, or at least they weren’t in the 8 speed era. I don’t know about now. But my next learning point was that the spacing between the crank arm and the outer ring on the Chorus chainset is too narrow for a 6 speed-era Shimano front derailleur - the outside of the cage fouls the arm so you can’t use the outer ring. Not a huge problem on the trainer, but annoying. I will just stick to the inner ring for now and let the trainer adjust the resistance. All that remained was to rewrap the bars and the Falcon was ready to go back in the cellar. I didnt bother connecting the brakes. It came out of the cellar with working brakes and 14 speed down tube shifting and returned with 7 speed integrated Campy shifting and no brakes. But at least I managed to fit the trainer tyre that had previously defeated me, by using some GT85 to slip the last bit on. Can’t contaminate the brakes if there aren’t any can you?

Finally, to the CX and the “Ladies Sports”. I don’t actually have a spare set of wheels for the CX yet, because I didn’t research properly and bought newer wheels for it, not realising that 9 speed onwards have cassette splines that are completely different from 8 speed. However front wheels are front wheels. I can have a swanky, lightweight front, I thought. So I took the road tyre off the 32 spoke rim and put it on the 22 (yeah, 22) spoke Campy Proton front wheel I got in the set off eBay. And as I fitted it, I noticed it has a small hole in the rim, it’s not on the braking surface, so no idea what caused it, but I don’t feel great about a front wheel with a small hole in the rim. Once the tyre was one I googled for a replacement rim, because the hub is lovely and smooth. And yeah, 22 hole rims aren’t exactly easy to get hold of. So I learned why the wheels were so cheap.

I ploughed on and fitted 700 x 35 “touring” tyres to the original rims, and the mudguards from the Ladies Sport, which required re-drilling one of the mount holes as well as the usual messing about that fitting guards entails. The wider guards and tyres have made the bike heavier, obviously.

So after several hours of effort over 2 days, the Talisman is still without a purpose, the Falcon has fewer working gears and no brakes, and the CX has got a lower tier (but longer cage) rear derailleur and has gained weight and rolling resistance. The Ladies Sports is a pile of bits that will be recycled. And I have a set of wheels that I‘ve discovered I can’t use either of. I‘ve not ridden any bikes at all and I’ve got no skin on three knuckles.

Thanks for reading my Ted talk. Please feel free to ask questions :-)

 

[Yearofthegoat]

Be aware that if your FD is Tiagra 9sp (FD-4403) it has a high failure rate (a little nib the spring pushes on, breaks) so I'd procure a spare FD ready for that failure.

Thanks for the warning. It's a 4503 but likely very similar. I'll take a look.

 

[Gunk]

Fitted a new mirror, grips and footrest rubbers to the Cub

 

[Spiderweb]

I’ve been minor fettling another 3 bikes for commuter duties over the last couple of weeks. I usually commute an a Specialized Tricross but thought I’d change it around a bit this year.
Specialized Crux, cleaned and polished, chain wiped and lubed, tyres pumped up.
Hewitt Chiltern, cleaned and polished, chain wiped and lubed, tyres pumped up.
Dolan Preffisio, New Charge Spoon saddle fitted and moved back 5mm, cleaned and polished, chain wiped and lubed tyres pumped up.

 

[ColinJ]

I have recently fitted a Hollowtech BB and chainset to my DIY 1x6 bike. The reason for doing it was that the left crank is, or should I say WAS a power meter crank. I bought the crank on eBay, advertised as non-functional, hoping to bring it back to life with some TLC, as I have done in the past with other eBay bargains such as my phone (the problem with that was just fluff clogging the microphone grille!)...

I spent some time today trying to revive the power meter but unfortunately it is currently emulating a Norwegian Blue! Oh well, at least I now have a nice Dura Ace BB, 105 cranks, and a new chainring.

Hmm, it seems that the power meter crank may potentially not quite yet be an ex power meter crank!

I had failed to get it to connect to my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt over Bluetooth. I had also tried getting it to connect to my old Garmin Edge 500 over Ant+ but that hadn't worked either.

But today... I was on the bike when a message suddenly popped up on the Garmin, something like 'Power meter detected - calibrate now?' I pulled over and tried to do the calibration but nothing happened. The GPS got stuck and wouldn't do anything after that. I had to switch it off.

I was cold (on June 2nd!!!) and nearly home so I gave up for today.

My suspicion that the problem is a loose connection may turn out to be true, in which case I may be able to fix it. I will take another look at it tomorrow.

 

[Ajax Bay]

But today... I was on the bike when a message suddenly popped up on the Garmin, something like 'Power meter detected - calibrate now?' I pulled over and tried to do the calibration but nothing happened. The GPS got stuck and wouldn't do anything after that. I had to switch it off.

Yes, I've had that message (on a 500) but with no power meter in plain sight. I too tried the calibration thing just for laughs, with similar success.

 

[ColinJ]

Yes, I've had that message (on a 500) but with no power meter in plain sight. I too tried the calibration thing just for laughs, with similar success.

Oh - maybe it IS pining for the fjords after all!

 

[Jameshow]

Hmm, it seems that the power meter crank may potentially not quite yet be an ex power meter crank!

I had failed to get it to connect to my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt over Bluetooth. I had also tried getting it to connect to my old Garmin Edge 500 over Ant+ but that hadn't worked either.

But today... I was on the bike when a message suddenly popped up on the Garmin, something like 'Power meter detected - calibrate now?' I pulled over and tried to do the calibration but nothing happened. The GPS got stuck and wouldn't do anything after that. I had to switch it off.

I was cold (on June 2nd!!!) and nearly home so I gave up for today.

My suspicion that the problem is a loose connection may turn out to be true, in which case I may be able to fix it. I will take another look at it tomorrow.

Power meters like menza tests and vo2 max tests are best avoided imo!!