What Have You Fettled Today?

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Windle

Über Member
Location
Burnthouses
Fitted my 'new' Ultegra brifters to my Cannondale Synapse the other night and after a bit of faffing about and YouTube-ery put the gear cables in them yesterday evening (it's not obvious where they go in just by looking). The concealed outer cables running under the bars look so much better than the washing-lines-out-the-sides look. The rear mech cable is now connected up and working perfectly. The only downside I can see is having to lose the in-line barrel adjusters for on the fly tweaks but I don't imagine that'll be a problem with the amount of miles I do on this bike.
 

chriswoody

Legendary Member
Location
Northern Germany
I do feel a tad frustrated at how manufacturers chase profit over sustainability when it would be such a simple matter to let owners repair and keep things going longer. A good case in point is SRAM road double tap shifters, inside each, no matter their level, is a small cable spool that the cable attaches to. SRAM have decided to keep costs low and manufacture this out of plastic, sadly this wears over time and will need replacing. The problem is, that despite it costing peanuts to manufacture and SRAM producing millions of these, they refuse to sell these to the public and people who have tried just get told by SRAM to buy a new shifter. Luckily though, there is a company in the English Lake District who have decided to produce a range of spares and upgrades that the manufacturer refuses to provide.

Ratio Technology produce not only a replacement spool, but it's also made out of Aluminium which should prove more durable in the long term. Fitting it requires some open heart surgery on the shifter, so after removing it from the bars, I left the hydraulic hose attached and removed the side cover. The old cable spool is red and the new one can be seen at the front.

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As well as the cable spool the kit also contains a M2.5 bolt to facilitate the removal of the axle holding all the shift gubbins together. Soon we had a pile of shifter parts disassembled on the bench.

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You can see in the image below the old and new cable spools, the hole that the cable nipple sits in is clearly elongated on the old red plastic spool.

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So after cleaning everything, re-assembly is a simple reversal of the disassembly and everything went back together really easily. Try doing this with Shimano products! So thanks to Ratio the shifter is now ready for many more years of use.
 
Probably a fettle in the first instance that I never to make. Someone spotted the other day that my rear tyre was rotating the wrong way on my road bike, but I needed to top up my gravel bike tyre with sealant so whilst I was at it I rotated the road bike tyre it come off the rim quite easily and refitted quick. It took 5 goes with the air tank before it seated, with everything spotless it seated first time last time. I was about to give up and use CO2 if the 5th go with the tank didn't work but it did. After that I topped up the sealant in the gravel bike that was much more simple.
 

Windle

Über Member
Location
Burnthouses
Fitted brake cables to the 'new' brifters that I put on my Cannondale the other day, so time for a short test ride down the lane, sans bar tape for now. Everything's working properly, although it's obvious the old style rim brakes are not as good as modern discs. I'd set the gears up the other night on the stand and they shift perfectly apart from maybe being a tiny bit stiffer than the old versions, probably due to the hidden cable routing. I also put the old Schwalbe Ultremo R1 Tyres back on as when I had the bike on the stand I noticed the rear of the cheapo 32 mm ones I had on was just touching the frame. I'd forgotten how quick this bike feels, especially with light 23 mm tyres on. I fancy getting some 28 mm tyres for it next, which should fit well enough. The Ultremos are getting on a bit and I wouldn't trust them to go far.
The bars are the original flat topped versions which I put back on too, I'd had plain round profile bars on from years ago when I had aero bars fitted for club 10's.
Slightly neater looking cockpit without the washing line gear cables. Just need some nice black bar tape now to finish it off.

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fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
New headset bearings for the Colnago CX bike. Took the opportunity to make sure the additional seals in the races were clean, added extra marine grease to the new cartridge bearings and re-assembled. Been meaning to do it for a while, bought the bearings but have waited until after a mucky bike packing trip in September. Lower race had started to go stiff again, so replaced both.

Bought the bike used 18 months ago, and the bearings weren't perfect, but I regreased them. Taken 18 months for them to need replacing though.
 
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DCLane

Found in the Yorkshire hills ...
Cleaned the Viner Mitus and Merida Cyclo-Cross after a few days of use.

Also, the seatpost on my Holdsworth Roi de Velo track bike keeps slipping down, which isn't good when racing. That's come out, then I cleaned inside the frame and the post, finally using carbon paste to (hopefully) stop it slipping.

A new LH BOA dial and cable onto my Lake winter SPD boots, which have been sitting needing this doing properly for quite some time.

Finally I've decided I can't do anymore on the Carlton Franco Italia. Front derailleur is now happy, rear derailleur re-set and adjusted as best I can, head badge on. It probably needs a replacement rear derailleur but that won't be by me. It now gets 6 out of 10 gears rather than 2-3 and it'll do for a 70 year-old bike imho.

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Punkawallah

Über Member
Yet another rear, drive side spoke replaced on the Galaxy. Sheesh! It’s only 40 years old!
 

DCLane

Found in the Yorkshire hills ...
My last job for today wasn't bike related. My parents had a Mangar patient lifting unit for my Mum which my Dad's wanted to sell after she died late last year and donate the proceeds to charity. I've had it for a while and have been in contact with the company as it wasn't working. From a few communications the conclusion was that it needed a replacement internal battery, which I bought.

Over the weekend I've fitted the new battery for the unit and it now lifts properly. As a result it'll go on sale later today and the proceeds will be donated to a charity of his choosing.

For the un-initated it's one of these, which lifts a patient up from floor level if they've had a fall:

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Which now does this:

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It did occur to me that this might be quite useful if you were drunk and couldn't get up. But you would probably fall off the lifting cushion anyway.
 
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