What Have You Fettled Today?

[ColinJ]

Fitted some new brake blocks to the Winter bike, probably due after at least 12,400 miles Added its third lot of bar tape too.

Not too much life left in the old ones
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It is obvious that you don't live somewhere really hilly... I have worn blocks down more than that in a couple of weeks in a Yorkshire winter!!

 

[Willd]

36.5 feet per mile

 

[ColinJ]

36.5 feet per mile

Roughly one third of the lumpiness of most of my Yorkshire/Lancashire rides. They are nearer 100 ft/mile or 20 m/km so the downhills can require significant braking which isn't great for wear with rim brakes and heavily gritted roads!

 

[PedallingNowhereSlowly]

First TPU tube puncture repair effected, after a p*nct*re visitation on the club run. Two tiny pin holes where the sidewall would be, perpendicular to the rim and about 5 mm apart.

I'm kind of thiking pinch flat, because I can't see any evidence of anything going through the tyre's sidewall.

I'd have thought 70 PSI in a 28mm tyre (with a 74kg) rider would have been enough to stop that. I don't recall hitting any potholes at speed either, but the deflation did happen in rather a fast descent.

I guess I'll be waiting to see if it happens again.

Rubbed the front pads down a bit to remove a couple of shards scrubbed off the front rotar and greased the slide bolt whilst the wheel was off. Probably do the same to the rear slide bolt next time I swap the chain for a freshly waxed one.

 

[Jenkins]

Recently bought these new SPD type pedals for in a £10 sale (including cleats): https://www.bananaindustries.co.uk/...ts/wilier-pd-sm01-mtb-spd-pedals-ball-bearing

The bearings were set too tightly & there was a design feature that wrecked my brain for a long while*: no space for needle nose pliers or the smallest flat blade screwdriver to hold the cone in place while the locknut is adjusted by an 8mm socket.

Two points: no washers between cone/ locknut & an anti-clockwise thread on the right pedal.

All 4 sets of loose bearings were syringed with new grease, thin washers (from V-brake blocks) were fitted over the cones before replacing the lock nuts & the anticipated challenge of bearing adjustment.

What finally worked was backing the cones way out with tweezers, and with much retry, retry, retry, managing to guess where the fully tightened locknut & an ideal bearing preload could be set. The second pedal was much easier & now both have no lateral play and are spinning very freely. Soon they'll be attached to some cranks & out into the world.

Probably made by Wellgo - time will tell how durable they are. It was a rewarding test of patience.

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* I'm not gifted at all in finding the answers for problems in bike mechanics. Up north they would say: "Yer no' the shiniest spanner in the tool kit."

I've been using a pair of those on one of my bikes since the start of the year. They were a bit stiff to start with, but have loosened up with use and I've had no problems with them at all. The only thing I've noticed is that they seem to allow a bit more foot rotation (float?) for what feels like the same amount of tension than Shimano M520s.
As said, for £10 (+P&P) with cleats they are quite a bargain.