Brandane
The Costa Clyde rain magnet.
Decided to do a bit of bike fettling today in preparation for an upcoming tour. First off was to contact Spa cycles for the second time this week to find out where my new wheelset has got to , as it was ordered the middle of last week with delivery promised at the beginning of this week. After a couple of calls, it transpires that the wheels were sent out last Friday, and have been sitting in the APC depot in Kilmarnock since Monday. The driver put a card through my door as I wasn't in, apparently. Well the courier card stealing fairy must have stolen it, or more likely the driver was having a snooze in a layby somewhere, tossing cards out his window 
. APC, you are useless. I ended up having to drive to Kilmarnock, 25 miles each way, as I couldn't wait for the next possible card dropping stunt on Monday - I will be at work anyway.
Got the wheels home and decided to replace the chain, cassette and brake pads at the same time. Took me a couple of hours to get everything done, and went for a road test.... Not good, it's running rough but only on the middle chainring - the other two run fine. My guess is a worn chainring given that it's very smooth on the other two. Nothing for it but a new chainring. Onto the usual sites but it appears that Shimano Tiagra 9 speed 39 tooth chainrings are a rare specimen, and certainly won't be available within my time scale (going away Tuesday sometime). Ahhhhh, what's that I see in the parts bin, an old Sora chainset! Despite it being Sora and the existing one Tiagra, they look pretty much the same. So I dismantle the old chainset as well as the existing one and swap the middle rings over as the Sora is pretty low mileage. Only problem is its a 42 tooth rather than 39, never mind it can't be that much of a problem, can it??
Oh yes it can! The extra circumference can foul your front derailleur so that it won't move onto the big ring! Never mind, move it up the downtube a few mm, can't do any harm? After an hours fettling trying to get the front derailleur to work with my botched chainset, it isn't going to work. Dismantle again, and refit the worn 39 tooth ring! Plan Z is to take off the new chain and cassette and refit the old ones for the tour (as the old chain worked fine on the worn ring and cassette), then get a replacement 39 tooth ring when I get home. No time left to try that today, I have been working on the bike since midday
. APC, you are useless. I ended up having to drive to Kilmarnock, 25 miles each way, as I couldn't wait for the next possible card dropping stunt on Monday - I will be at work anyway.Got the wheels home and decided to replace the chain, cassette and brake pads at the same time. Took me a couple of hours to get everything done, and went for a road test.... Not good, it's running rough but only on the middle chainring - the other two run fine. My guess is a worn chainring given that it's very smooth on the other two. Nothing for it but a new chainring. Onto the usual sites but it appears that Shimano Tiagra 9 speed 39 tooth chainrings are a rare specimen, and certainly won't be available within my time scale (going away Tuesday sometime). Ahhhhh, what's that I see in the parts bin, an old Sora chainset! Despite it being Sora and the existing one Tiagra, they look pretty much the same. So I dismantle the old chainset as well as the existing one and swap the middle rings over as the Sora is pretty low mileage. Only problem is its a 42 tooth rather than 39, never mind it can't be that much of a problem, can it??
Oh yes it can! The extra circumference can foul your front derailleur so that it won't move onto the big ring! Never mind, move it up the downtube a few mm, can't do any harm? After an hours fettling trying to get the front derailleur to work with my botched chainset, it isn't going to work. Dismantle again, and refit the worn 39 tooth ring! Plan Z is to take off the new chain and cassette and refit the old ones for the tour (as the old chain worked fine on the worn ring and cassette), then get a replacement 39 tooth ring when I get home. No time left to try that today, I have been working on the bike since midday
