First ride on the turbo - some questions

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Hi I just finished my first ride on my wheel off turbo trainer.

It came with an 11 speed cassette already installed (same 105 cassette I have on the bike)

The shifting is not as smooth as it is when I'm out on the road and it's slightly more noisy than expected.

2 questions:

- do I need to tweak the gears indexing?
- do I need to put lube on the turbo trainer cassette?

Hopefully I won't have to index the gears every time.....
 

Sharky

Guru
Location
Kent
A couple of thoughts:
- The two cassettes you have could be at a different wear phases and (chain/cassette) old/new or new/old combinations could be causing issues. Whereas on your bike, an old/old would be working smoothly together.
- On the turbo, is there an extra spacer present or missing, causing the cassette to be smidge out of line compared to the bike set up?

You may have to accept that you need to re-index each time you switch between the two. But if you make a note of how many turns on the adjuster you need to make, it should become routine.

Always the N+1 option for a dedicated turbo bike.

Good luck
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
You are likely to have to adjust the indexing. Not all 'wheel hubs' are the same and may be a mm or so different. Just get used to 'two clicks clockwise' for the turbo.
 

Tenkaykev

Guru
Location
Poole
If I could ask a related question? We’ve been using a “ Wheel on “ trainer ( Elite Nova ) since lockdown started. We've been using one of Mrs Tenkaykev's road bikes which is a Specialised Sirrus. The rear derailleur says " Shimano 105 ", the gear changer on the handlebars says " shimano 9 speed" and it has 3 chainwheels on the front crank giving 27 gears in total.
We have just ordered a Direct Drive trainer, a " Jet Black Volt. It comes with a 11 speed cassette fitted. Will I just need to purchase an 11 speed chain and swap it for the existing chain, or is there anything else I should be aware of or doing? Is there a particular brand of chain for example.
Forgive my ignorance, I've got a brommie and have learned how to look after that, but I've never had, or worked on a "proper" road bike. Mrs Tenkaykev is the one with the road bikes but apart from fixing punctures she always used the LBS for any transmission or similar problems.
Thanks in advance for any pointers / advice.
 

Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
If I could ask a related question? We’ve been using a “ Wheel on “ trainer ( Elite Nova ) since lockdown started. We've been using one of Mrs Tenkaykev's road bikes which is a Specialised Sirrus. The rear derailleur says " Shimano 105 ", the gear changer on the handlebars says " shimano 9 speed" and it has 3 chainwheels on the front crank giving 27 gears in total.
We have just ordered a Direct Drive trainer, a " Jet Black Volt. It comes with a 11 speed cassette fitted. Will I just need to purchase an 11 speed chain and swap it for the existing chain, or is there anything else I should be aware of or doing? Is there a particular brand of chain for example.
Forgive my ignorance, I've got a brommie and have learned how to look after that, but I've never had, or worked on a "proper" road bike. Mrs Tenkaykev is the one with the road bikes but apart from fixing punctures she always used the LBS for any transmission or similar problems.
Thanks in advance for any pointers / advice.
I think that what you'll need to do is fit a 9 speed cassette to the trainer.

If you try to use the bike with the 11sp casssette the gear changing won't work, because the gear changer is 9 speed, so will position the derailleur where it "thinks" the sprockets of a 9sp cassette are. So for your gears to work you have to install a 9sp cassette.

To do this, you will need to install a spacer. The instructions for your trainer say:

Before attaching a 9-speed or 10-speed cassette, you need to first install the 1.8mm cassette washer onto the cassette body, and then secure the cassette tightly on the VOLT™ cassette body.

https://www.jetblackcycling.com/instructions/the-volt-trainer-information-set-up/
 

Tenkaykev

Guru
Location
Poole
I think that what you'll need to do is fit a 9 speed cassette to the trainer.

If you try to use the bike with the 11sp cassette the gear changing won't work, because the gear changer is 9 speed, so will position the derailleur where it "thinks" the sprockets of a 9sp cassette are. So for your gears to work you have to install a 9sp cassette.

To do this, you will need to install a spacer. The instructions for your trainer say:

Before attaching a 9-speed or 10-speed cassette, you need to first install the 1.8mm cassette washer onto the cassette body, and then secure the cassette tightly on the VOLT™ cassette body.

https://www.jetblackcycling.com/instructions/the-volt-trainer-information-set-up/
Many thanks for that. We haven't received the turbo trainer yet so I never thought about looking for the installation instructions online 👍
I've found an inexpensive 9 speed cassette in stock at our local Decathlon:
Versatile 11x32 9-speed cassette for all gradients and compatible with all 9-speed derailleurs and chains: Shimano, SRAM, MicroSHIFT, Btwin and KMC.
I don't have a chain whip or cassette tool so I'll have to improvise something.
 
Last edited:

CXRAndy

Guru
Location
Lincs
Could have a different level of wear, maybe?
Correct, sometimes parts that are worn together work better together
 
maybe different levels of wear. Although my bike is 3 months old and only has 500km on it. Who knows, I cleaned the drivetrain and lubed up the chain real nice, let's see how the situation develops. Maybe some of the lube will go onto the cassette and will make the turbo a bit less noisy.
 

TiffAching

Regular
Location
Wiltshire
Umm... not having this problem though I bought a new cassette for the bike (Ultegra 11 speed) & put the 105 grade cassette from the bike on the trainner...
 

jpj84

Veteran
Don't lube cassettes folks - it won't achieve anything other than making the drive train mucky.

I think you'll need to tweak the indexing op, but this will then have the effect of making the indexing wrong when you ride on the road
 
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