Little Springs

[AlBaker]

Had a weird thing happen last night. Riding down the road and it began to feel like a tire was very soft causing rolling resistance. I stopped to check things out and found nothing. So I had to ride it home in a low gear all the way. If I stopped pedaling, the bike would soon stop. On getting it home I lifted it up by the saddle and spun the back wheel. It was a bit stiff, yet the brakes weren't binding. I released the V brake to make sure there was no binding but the wheel still resisted turning. I turned the bike upside-down and removed the wheel. The axle turned easily. I put the wheel back in and it was fine. So I don't know what caused the problem. I didn't find anything lodged in the frame.

Now my question is: Why are there small conical springs on the skewer? If they were removed, would it create a problem?

 

[midlife]

Springs on skewers help align the two sides and stop them binding in the dropout as it goes in. Never used them in my TT bike to save weight as there was no point in changing a wheel fast.

I used to follow road races ready to change wheels ant speed and all had the springs .

 

[Sharky]

Could be that the axle's cone nuts were overtightened when the QR's were originally tightened. Removing the wheel and refitting could have fixed the problem.

 

[AlBaker]

Could be that the axle's cone nuts were overtightened when the QR's were originally tightened. Removing the wheel and refitting could have fixed the problem.

The bike is just over two years old, and I've changed the freewheel a few times. Never had any problems until last night. I know not to overtighten the QRs. It's been several weeks since I last changed the freewheel, and the bike has worked perfectly. What surprised me was that it was fine for weeks, then suddenly the wheel stiffens up. It's a bit of a mystery. I went out there, again, this morning, to check it out in the daylight. No signs of the tire being scuffed by anything.

A few months ago I believe someone entered my shed when it was unlocked during the day, perhaps to steal a bike. Both bikes have heavy locking cables securing them to heavy objects. It seems that they were thwarted from stealing it so I suspect they messed with the trigger shifter barrel adjuster which was right in front of them. When I got it out and started riding, the gears were messed up so I tried turning the barrel adjuster on the fly. No good. So I rode it home and it had been completely undone. That was in my mind when things went bad, last night. If they can't steal it, they'll mess something up.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

When did you last service the wheel bearings?

 

[silva]

Maybe a bump in the road made the wheel mount move a tad.
Maybe on top of maybe the wheels rim touched a brake pad at one side only under load.
One thing is sure: a change has a cause so ignoring them is a recipe for spending bucks, bones upto life.
I have had the rim of my rear wheel broken. First a cracking path that followed the spoke holes, then a crack started also on the outer wall. It manifested itself only under load as the noise of rubber against a fender / whatever. Step off, plenty clearance everywhere.
On top of that, it manifested itself only sometimes. Periods of the noise, periods of not.
Hard to think of an explanation, until I added some air in the tyre, coinciding with the start of a new noisy period. That added a piece to the puzzle.
And when I discovered the crack due to visible on the outer wall, the puzzle came together.
And indeed, it was discovered that the inner wall had split all around, weakening its structure so that deformations during load cycles allowed the 62 mm tyre to bridge the 15 mm clearance.

So another bump may bring that sudden resistence back.
Of course, experience will then save time.
I

 

[Punkawallah]

Like lots of things involved with bicycles, those little springs are there to have one more thing to lose on the workshop floor :-)

 

[AlBaker]

One thing is sure: a change has a cause so ignoring them is a recipe for spending bucks, bones upto life.

I would never let a sudden change go unattended. I had removed the wheel ball bearings, cleaned and regreased them simply because I didn't know what condition they were in from the factory. I knew the cone nuts were not too tight as to cause rolling resistance. When I service things like wheel bearings, I pick the bike up by the saddle, and step on a pedal to make the wheel spin. No problem there. I've had two identical bikes with way too tight cone nuts. The first one caused the ball bearings to fail at 600 miles. Because of that, when I got the second bike, I decided to check the bearings just after buying it. Same thing, way too tight. Since then, no more problems.

The Izip bike is actually a good bike and came from a reputable bike shop. Not even a tiny problem with it until this rolling resistance happened. I listened for a rubbing tire but it was quiet. At home I checked for signs of tire rubbing. Nothing. I checked the V brake to see if a pad was rubbing the rim. It wasn't. Removing the wheel and putting it back in, cured the problem. The mystery is why it happened. I even suspected a pie plate problem. I had bought a different freewheel configuration and installed it. When I tried to turn the pedals backward, the freewheel wouldn't turn. That turned out to be that the new freewheel had a small, integral spoke protector which pressed up against the pie plate. I removed the pie plate and it was fine. So it wasn't a pie plate problem. I guess I'll never know what caused the rolling resistance issue.

 

[AlBaker]

When did you last service the wheel bearings?

About three months ago. They looked fine but I cleaned the grease off the ball bearings and races, and regreased them with Lithium 12 Hydroxy Stearate (Moly Graph). I've used graphite grease for years on car wheel bearings with no problems, so I see no problems with using it on bikes. This issue happened on my Izip bike more than two years after I bought it.

I also serviced the wheel bearings on my Electra 7D cruiser soon after buying it. That was because I'd had a previous Electra in which the bearings failed at 600 miles, like they were crunching. Barely a tiny dab of grease in them, and cone nuts way too tight. During that 600 miles I didn't notice anything wrong with the wheel bearings until I wheeled the bike out. Then I felt the crunching and the resistance.

Two identical bikes four or five years apart with the same bearings issue. Electras are made by, or imported by Trek. So I tend to take good care of bearings, including the head sets. Oddly enough, the Electra headset was decently greased. I guess the headset greaser wasn't the same one who almost greased the wheel bearings.