So, this might have happened... NBD - 2016 Fuji Touring workhorse

[All uphill]

Thanks @wafter as always these updates are interesting and useful to me.

I'd agree bar end shifters reward slow, methodical changes, ime. In the busy bits of town I tend to stay in one gear and let my legs spin or slog a bit more than on an indexed bike.

I'll be buying a set of the 11s jockey wheels and have a play.

 

[wafter]

Thanks chap - happy to hear that someone finds them of some value

The shifters wouldn't be so bad if I could run the RH one indexed as it would faciliate faster / more precise shifting (although would obviously still require a change of hand position to shift).

I'd also not considered making do with a less-than-ideal cadence; I suppose the indexed shifters I've become used to over the years have probably spoilt me in this regard.

Good work with with the jockey wheels - although do take on board the clearance issue I've had with the bottom one - not insurmountable but sadly not a straight swap unless you're happy for the cage to nibble a little bit out of the pulley

 

[wafter]

Stuffed some washers up the brake shoes and now they work properly, which is nice.

Need to order some more cable dust covers but every time I try I'm too overwhelmed with excitement to continue..

 

[wafter]

The Fuji largely continues to behave itself; at least relatively speaking.

It's nice to have a full set of properly working brakes again although the bite point of the levers is a bit further forward than I'd like. I suspect in future 1.0mm thick washers to space the pads out would be a better choice than the 1.6mm items recently fitted but they can stay until the pads need replacing.

This looks like a decent way of managing pad wear since there's not enough range in the barrel adjustors to accommodate this from new to worn out, meaning otherwise the cable would have to be moved in the clamp which is is a pain and just contributes to it getting chewed up.

The cable length can initially be set with new pads, no washers fitted and barrel adjustors set to their minimum, then the barrel adjustors used to maintain lever throw as the pads wear until they're nearly at the end of their range. At this point the adjustors can be backed right off, washers fitted (taking the opportunity to sand the inevitable contam from their contact faces while they're off), and the adjustors used to compensate for wear again until new pads are required and the process begins again.


During the relatively few miles covered since fitting the 11sp chain I seem to have suffered fewer shifting issues. Perhaps this is unsurprising since the chain is nearly a full 1mm narrower externally than the 9sp item (the ever excellent Bike Gremlin site suggests a mean of about 5.6mm for the 11sp v. 6.6mm for the 9sp).

As such correspondingly more RD cage displacement is required to engage the chain / there's more "free float" available to the cage between shifts; allowing for a greater margin of error in RD position before it becomes problematic if this makes sense.

There are also other factors to consider regarding clearance between the narrower chain and adjacent sprockets during a shift; although thinking about this has made my brain melt so we'll leave it there for now.

Suffice to say that while the 9sp chains will be going back on and run until worn out, current experience with the 11sp is pushing me very much towards running 11sp chains exclusively when the current ones need replacing.

 

[wafter]

Another almost inconceivibly exhilerating update..

A while ago I noticed that the spacers on the brake pads appear to be the wrong way around - I have the thinner ones on the inside of the arm and fatter on the outside. This matters as it alters the angle the arms are at relative to the wheel, and with it the angle of the pads and mechanical advantage applied by the cable.

Not sure if this is my cock-up or whether they came this way.. Will swap them around next time each end needs pads. I also need to fit some new cable dust covers but again this can wait until it all needs to be stripped as I don't like repeatedly clamping / unclamping the cables.


The 11sp chain has been rotated off having covered a few hundred trouble-free miles, replaced by the 9sp one fitted just after I got the bike. Shifting now seems markedly worse - I think predominently because it's less tolerant to imprecise lever input. This is less of a problem if you take your time and pay attention but certainly not ideal when trying to bang it up or down a few gears in a hurry.

My gut says this is because the 11sp chain is narrower so gives a greater margin for error; however the 9sp item is also a lot more worn - showing >0.5% wear on the chain checker in some areas - so this may or may not be affecting shifting also. Wear appears quite variable by location on the chain; with some areas convincingly fine, some taking a slight prod for the gauge for it to slip through and some seeing it falling in with no persuasion (the correct benchmark for dead).

I'll investigate further once the chain needs a re-wax - at which point it will have covered a shade over 4k miles. I suspect it might get written off..

Finally, last week the Fuji got two compliments

 

[wafter]

A more detailed inspection of the X9 EPT chain that was fitted revealed a few uncomfortable truths.

Testing from every link showed a huge disparity in wear – with about 50% showing as somewhat inside the 0.5% wear limit, the other half not and some of these showing a significant amount of clear daylight between the register face of the gauge and the roller it should be in contact with… some of the worst affected links confirmed as those around / when measurement includes the quick link.

Clearly I’ve dropped the ball in terms of staying on top of chain wear assessment. In my defense I’ve not previously consistently covered the distances I have in the past eight months; the bike having done around double the mileage in this time than it had in the preceding 2.5 years.

As previously mentioned there have been a few drivetrain related issues; some ongoing (ghost shifting) some more recent (chain separated at quick link whilst riding on one occasion, a periodic clicking on occasional pedal strokes). I suspect some of these might be the result of the chain’s significant elongation in some areas.

Needless to say the knackered chain has come off, replaced with the other 9sp item that came with the bike. This is currently showing as very healthy although this was immediately post-wax so I expect it to get sloppier by the time it’s due a re-wax; at which point it’ll be checked again.

In the 30-odd miles this chain’s been fitted there’s been no telltale clicking, while the shifting’s seemed decent if not perfect – probably comparable to the 11sp chain.


The situation with the old chain raises a number of questions; such as when a chain should be replaced in the event of uneven wear and how it should be checked to account for this as testing one spot in isolation really doesn’t give much of a picture.

The other big question is how long the EPT chain legitimately remained within useable limits. It’d covered a shade under 4k miles when it came off, but was clearly very worn in some areas a reasonable time before this.

While I’ve read that chain wear can apparently be very inconsistent (thanks @presta) I’ve not noticed anything as severe as this on my other bikes. The Brompton chain seemed to wear broadly-speaking in four quadrants – unsurprisingly as load on the chain varies relative to the pedal strokes and it was always fitted in approximately the same orientation relative to the crank (which always rotates so that the heavier folding pedal is at 6 O’clock, with the link always joined at around the middle of the bottom span).

On the Brompton the 100 link chain is exactly divisible by the 50 chainring teeth, meaning that while the chain does one rotation to every two revs of the crank there is no other relative movement between chain and ring – meaning that once the chain is fitted any given tooth on the ring contacts only the same two links on the chain as it all rotates.

Conversely the Fuji’s chain is 112 links and the almost-exclusively-used 36t middle ring 36t; meaning that the chain does one full rotation for every 3.11 crank revs. Looking at it another way the position of the chain retards by four links relative to the crank every three crank revs… or that the chain does one full rotation relative to the chainring every 28 chain rotations / 87ish crank rotations.

The takeaway being that the chain is constantly moving relative to the crankset so the variable cycling loading generated by the two power strokes per crank rev should be spread evenly across the chain.

Finally there’s the issue of the quick link apparently wearing faster than the rest of the chain – somewhat unsurprisingly since its removal and refitting post-wax can’t do the treatment any favours. On this latest fitment I’ve attempted to combat this by heating in the link with a lighter once fitted to re-melt the wax present; which can’t hurt.


Finally on the subject of future replacement chains, the 11sp X11 is about £20 while the 9sp X9 is £14 (prices from SJS for boggo grey 114 link items). As per my wafflings in this thread the X11 should be more wear resistant, although whether this is enough to justify its 50% greater cost over the X9 remains to be seen.

If I wanted to go for a 9sp KMC chain of apparently comparable wear resistance to the X11 it would need to be the E9, which is £33 so potentially poor value compared to the X11 as I don't see any benefit to the stronger pin setup on this ebike-adjacent chain.

I won't be going for the ostensibly more corrosion-resistant EPT variant again as they're considerably more expensive while the coating will wear off in contact areas rapidly so provide no additional wear protection, and I've had no issues with cosmetic corrosion on non-wear surfaces on the cheaper chains.

For now I'll cycle the existing X9 and X11 chains to see if there's any appreciable difference in performance / hopefully eventually get some wear data for both.

 

[wafter]

Another boring public aid-memoir...

Last night I abused the original X9 chain currently fitted to the bike with the checker - with around 15 sets of the 112 total links measured showing as over 0.5% worn; most isolated single-instances but again with a concentration around the quick link with all but one of those that included the QL showing as excessively elongated.

Pulling numbers out of my arse I'm thinking that a reasonable time to change the chain might be when more than 10% of the links show as excessively worn, so perhaps this one needs to go in the bin.

This once again raises the question as to how such a wide variation in wear from one link to another can take place (as discussed the quick link seems to be its own special case). I wonder if some is down to manufacturing tolerances - 0.5% wear on the pitch of a single link is only 0.0635mm so it's conceivable that production variations might be significant relative to this small number...

I do also have at home a load of SRAM quick links hoovered up in the great CRC corpse-picking of 2024, so might as well fit one of those as it might improve things in this and I have nothing to lose - especially if I'm going to switch to 11sp chains in future - rendering them redundant.

I'm also tempted to try a chain from another source (YBN, SRAM, Shimano..?) to see if their wear characteristics are any more even.


In other news I had a crack at measuring the remaining tread on the Schwalbe Delta Cruiser fitted to the front wheel about 4600 miles ago. This appears to be down to about 1.0mm depth measured a bit off centre to the side of the main central tread block; compared to 1.8mm on the new, un-inflated example I have sat in the cupboard.

The original fitment Vera Citywide on the back has lasted incredibly well (4600 miles on the back in my ownership and 700 on the front plus whatever distance the previous owner covered) but has to be coming to the end of its life now, so once the telltale blue puncture resistant layer reveals itself the tyre will be replaced by the Schwalbe on the front and the new one fitted in its place. Thankfully the cracks in the sidewall of the Schwalbe don't appear to have worsened so hopefully they remain only a cosmetic concern...

 

[wafter]

Last week the bike rolled beyond 7k miles in my ownership, its reward being the annual post-winter wash.

A welcome process at the time, as pretty much the only constructive thing I could manage that didn't involve attempting to use my brain, this saw the bike on the stand, wheels off, half it's mass of mud scrubbed from the insides of the guards...

Three buckets of soapy water and an assortment of brushers later it was rinsed with tap and then distilled water (free from the homestead's crap condenser drier), towelled-off and reassembled; with a bit of buggering about with the brakes.


In the past year since I moved the bike has seen an unprecedented amount of use (about 4600 miles) and taken a bit of a hammering throughout the winter. This is now my highest-mileage bike and as such provides an insight into maintenance requirements and component life.

Generally the bike's held up well, if showing some inevitable cosmetic wear and damage in places.

At a little under 5k miles of service the texture has worn off the brake hoods in places and their rear edges are a bit frilly; although I've so far managed to keep the levers and plastic bodies largely free of the scrapes and other typical damage.

Despite being a bit tatty and torn when I got the bike four-ish years and 7k miles ago, the bar tape has proven remarkably resileant and comfortable. It's also taken on a nice sheen / patina in areas of contact from the Vaseline usually present on my hands..

The front brakes have had one pair of replacement pads; Lifeline items which IIRC cost me about 70p in the great Chain Reaction corpse-picking of 2024. These have given little cause for complaint other than being a bit of a tight fit in the carriers.

Less obviously I've swapped the pairs of concave / convex washers on the pad carriers inside-to-outside, to place the deeper sets on the inside. This has put the brake arms in a more outboard, upright position; meaning the pads act in a direction more perpendicular to the rim rather than having an obvious donward component that caused a migrating contact patch on the rim and disproportionate pad wear at their top.

The more outboard position of the arms does mean the brake cable is a bit shorter than ideal but this doesn't affect operation.

The original minimal cable boot / gaitor on the front noodle has long-since died; I keep looking for replacements but they're all much of a muchness and the bike's noodles seem to have a fairly unique bayonet-shaped end that probably wouldn't play well with the boots on offer.

Maybe I'll fit new noodles and gaitor at some point.

I still hate setting up V-brakes..

The rear brakes have had similar treatment to the fronts, although I think both the spacing between the brake bosses on the frame and (replacement Sputnik) rim width differ from the front, so the setup may not work as well. The rear pads have already been replaced once with Lifeline efforts, which are now near the end of their lives at about 5k miles.

Despite the cracks that appeared in its sidewalls soon after fitment, the £17ish Schwalbe Delter Cruiser tyre on the rear has given great service. This tyre apparently wore through around half of it's 1.7mm tread depth over about 5k miles on the front, and has now covered a further 1k miles or so on the rear. I expect another 1-2k miles out of it before it needs replacing - at which time the newer example from the front will be rotated onto the rear.

In the 6k miles the tyre has covered it's had three legit punctures - apparently two thorns and a piece of glass. This compares reasonably favourably with the previous Vera Citywide original-fitment tyres, which suffered six legit punctures over a total of about 6k miles across both; although I'm not sure if this difference is significant or just the result of random luck.

Also, the Veras were of course already part worn when I got the bike and I was otherwise impressed by their longevity; even if the last one expired through catastrophic failure of the sidewall rather than treadwear.

The wheels remain mercifully true despite the appalling state of the roads around here, the bearings still buttery smooth from the last time they were stripped, cleaned and regreased - whenever I did that. Unsurprisingly the rims show a bit of wear on the braking surface, but this doesn't appear excessive currently. I probably ought to wash the bike more (esp. in the winter) however it's not fun at the best of times given my limted facilities; let alone when it's freezing outside.

After 7k miles the mudguards are looking a little battered through toe-strikes on the front and kerbs interfering with the very low mudflap, but remain presentable and continue to perform very well. While certainly not "clean" after many winter miles the bike would doubtless have been so much worse were it not for the coverage of the excellent Longboards; which SKS have now discontinued. Dickheads.

I have noticed a little corrosion around the ally rivets that retain the stay brackets to the guards themselves and have heard of these being a known failure point; so I probably ought to try and do something about this.


The pannier bags show an amount of light cosmetic damage but continue to funtion perfectly; as well as continuing to wear through the rack as I've still not sorted out any appropriate protection. The abrasion's not made it all the way through the tube wall yet; however it's doubtless only a matter of time.

The relatively recent M592 derailleur continues to give good service after about 3.5k miles, if remaining an irritatingly unnecessary expense since I found the floating jockey wheels on the original were evidently responsible for the ghost shifting.

The non-floating, ball-raced Ultegra / GRX jocket wheels fitted to the current RD in replacement for the floating ones remain perfectly smooth, the tiny amount of fouling between the edge of the cage and the lower wheel having long-since disappeared after some use allowed the cage to cut a little relief in the plastic wheel.

The cassette is still original and shows an amount of plastic deformation at the tips of the smaller sprockets consistent with chain elongation. Inevitable, but no doubt exacerbated by my previous habit of almost exclusive use of the 36t middle ring on the front. There is also some lightish surface corrosion on some non-wear surfaces of the sprockets thanks to my preference for chain wax. Maybe I'll waxoyl the whole cassette when I fit a replacement..

Moving to the front of the drivetrain - of which I have no pictures - the corrosion present on the inside of the M590 crankset's axle when I got it shows no signs of worsening after being treated with phophoric acid and waxoyl. The paint on the outer faces of both crank arms has worn through in places through repeated contact with my shoes and trousers.

The chainrings all remain original and I've made a concerted effort to use the 48t outer ring as much as possible / when appropriate to better spread the wear across this and the middle 36t ring, as well as across the sprockets on the cassette versus leaving it in the middle ring nearly all of the time as I was previously.

Now it's used like a close-ratio double with a bail-out granny gear - the gap between the top and middle rings being equivalent to about two sprockets on the rear. As such, if well-timed there's no need to shift on the rear to compensate when shifting the front - unlike typical wide-range doubles where the difference is usually more like three sprockets on the back so shifting just the front often changes the ratios more than is ideal.

I'm on a new pair of chains after the part-worn original and it's new accomplice wore out. These were both 9sp (KMC X9s) while their replacements are 11sp in the hope that their likely higher material spec will help them last longer, as well as reduced inventory.

Riding with these chains has mostly been fine but not without the odd incident - namely (over about 2k miles) three occasions where the drivetrain has locked up following a shift (usually shifting to the big ring on the front whilst on a large sprocket at the back, resulting in the chain skipping off the jockey wheel,hitting the RD's cage and locking between the two) and a few dropped chains during shifts on the front.

I can't say for certain whether this is exclusively the fault of the thinner chains since the change to these corresponded with my resolution to use the outer chainring more; resulting in a lot more shifts on the front. It's possible that some of these faults (such as the dropped chains) could be linked to the thinner chains but potentially avoidable through FD adjustment, while the other failure happened whilst attempting to run the gears in a sub-optimal combination.

So that I can differentiate between the two KMC X11 chains I'm rotating on the bike, one is silver and grey, the other all grey. The silver (nickel?) finish on the outer links of the former seems to be significantly more prone to corrosion than whatever the grey finish is (some sort of passivate?). As such I'll stick to the fully grey ones in future, but will have to find some additional way of differentiating between them.


Finally the frame requires a bit of attention - showing yet more paint wear adjacent to the tyre inside the chainstays (presumably due to mud etc caught in shear between the two). There's also an area of cable rub on the headtube to sort out, while the paint on the NDS chainstay / seatstay / fork have taken a bit of a beating from contact with bike stands; although thankfully it's not gone through the paint.

I need to touch these areas up but the paint's dried out so needs thinning; while after application it should really be flatted back so that I can apply frame tape over the top.


Hopefully now everything that needed replacing for reasons other than wear has been, and I'm down to just maintaining the bike with consumables. I have a good idea of how long bits will last and have a good stock of spares; although if things finally pan out with a more city-friendly replacement for the Fuji (and it goes into retirement at the homestead) I'm not sure how much I'll need these..