What Have You Fettled Today?

[Vantage]

Fitted my Kelly's Take-Offs today.
This involved unwrapping the bars, loosening the brake Levers, clamping the take offs under the brake lever clamps, repositioning the brake levers and re wrapping the bars...again, grinding the downtube lever backplates flat which took friggin ages, bolting on the DT levers, cutting new outer cables, fitting new inner cables and adjusting the gears again. What a feckin nightmare that was.
Also fitted new brake pads and swapped out the Landcruisers for the Kojaks.

I've not ridden the bike yet but I have to say, given the finish and the fact that I had to butcher existing parts that they failed to include, these Kelly's Take-Offs are a feckin rip off at 65 quid!

Minor surface marks on them left over from polishing. Not impressed.

 

[JhnBssll]

I've not heard of Kelly's take-offs before, is it an extension to fit a downtube friction shifter to the bars? Would be interested to see a few more pictures of it

 

[JhnBssll]

You do have some seriously cool looking bikes.

Haha cheers, I'm rather partial to your GT too - great work on that by the way, I followed the build thread I've always liked the GT triple triangle frame designs but never owned one - maybe a future n+1

 

[Serge]

Haha cheers, I'm rather partial to your GT too - great work on that by the way, I followed the build thread I've always liked the GT triple triangle frame designs but never owned one - maybe a future n+1

My bar tape finally arrived yesterday so I'll be attempting to fit that tomorrow (as long as I don't have too much to drink at the Godiva Festival).

Thanks again for the link to it, it'll give the bike the finishing touch.

 

[simonali]

View attachment 427812

In that photo it looks like you have three Hope R2 lights welded together!

 

[DCLane]

A busy day:

- Finished cleaning my son's Specialized MTB before it goes on sale
- Cleaned and prepped my NeilPryde for my club's 120-mile ride tomorrow
- Began work on the Boardman AirPro frame I bought in August: 3T Aeronova bars and saddle fitted. It'll need a headset press to fit the press-fit BB adaptor I'm using, which I don't have, to fit the BB . Once finished it'll be my 'best' bike temporarily whilst my son uses my NeilPryde for racing next year. No hurry though, I've until March to finish the build.
- Worked on my 14yo's Giant TCR for the same 120-mile ride: re-fitting his normal crankset after removing the 48T he used for the NW Tour, different wheels with 11-28 cassette, new front derailleur cable

 

[JhnBssll]

In that photo it looks like you have three Hope R2 lights welded together!

Its a Gemini Titan Awesome bit of kit. I've got a Gemini Duo on my helmet too 5500 lumens on full power, it's like daylight

 

[simonali]

It looks like it from the front, too!

 

[kiwifruit]

Getting the winter bike ready. Clean and regrease headset and bottom bracket, and fitted mudguards.

 

[si_c]

Flap on the front mudguard was a bit loose and had been subsequently damaged by the tyre. Gotta love superglue.

Also tightened up the mudguard bolts - no more annoying rattle.

 

[JhnBssll]

A nice bit of mountain bike fettling this evening ahead of an outing tomorrow evening. The new brakes are working wonderfully, although I do need to sort out a small amount of drag at both ends. I'm thinking another quick bleed now theyve settled should sort it before another tweak of the caliper alignment.

I fitted a red Hope seat tube collar which for 18 quid I couldn't resist The bolt was damaged in the old one after I tried to loosen it with an old damaged allen key I could've just replaced the bolt but it's got lots of other Hope kit so this fit the bill nicely Apologies for the crap photo - those are the bars of another bike so don't spend too long trying to work out whats wrong with the geometry

The main fettle this evening was suspension tuning. I've been reading up on the Fox Float shock and Fox 34 Elite forks so I can tweak things to my liking; turns out they were miles out The forks were at ~75PSI and are now at around 105PSI. I had the compression damping up super high to compensate, this has been wound back and the rebound damping has been set to suit the new higher pressure. The story was similar at the back - the shock pressure was 190PSI and is now 240PSI, again with the damping fully adjusted to suit. It feels miles better just pootling around the close but we shall see how it behaves in the forest tomorrow. I'ts now sitting at about 20% sag front and rear which is about where it should be but I'm sure there will be some tweaking to do on the trail - I'll be taking my shock pump along in case I need to make any adjustments It seems I'd been using the compression damping to near enough lock the suspension out until now - all things considered it had been doing a pretty good job too

I'm missing the Bianchi - she's been away for several weeks now, I told the lbs it was non-critical and I hadn't got any rides planned for it and they then had their busiest month in the workshop to date. She's only just made it to the top of the queue Hopefully she'll be back by the end of the week to fill the void and I can get a few rides out on her before the weather banishes her to the garage again until spring I considered popping the mudguards back on the Roubaix but I'd like to think we're not quite there yet - I'm a glass half full kinda guy

 

[si_c]

I considered popping the mudguards back on the Roubaix but I'd like to think we're not quite there yet - I'm a glass half full kinda guy

Just put them on and leave them on year round, doesn't make much of a difference other than aesthetics - plus you can then just grab and ride a bike no matter the weather. You'll still have the Bianchi for nice weather days.

 

[si_c]

Got the new front brake caliper yesterday. By the time I'd had dinner and helped Mrs C with some housework (I made a cup of tea, and moved things round, that counts a helping right?), it was getting late and I had some work to do, so I just fitted the flat mount caliper bracket to make myself feel better.

Should be able to fit the new caliper to the front and move the existing front caliper to the rear this evening.

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Flap on the front mudguard was a bit loose and had been subsequently damaged by the tyre. Gotta love superglue.

Also tightened up the mudguard bolts - no more annoying rattle.

How coincidental!!
My rear failed last night, as I was riding home from work, there was a sudden noise, I merely thought I'd run over a plastic bottle or the flap had got caught & jammed in the mudguard
But no, it had fractured at the seat-stay bridge



The cheap (Yorkshireman, remember....) option was taken
With the wheel out, & the drivetrain covered, 6 small holes were drilled




Three 'cable-ties' were utilised to bind the two sections together, with the larger one anchoring it to the seat-stay bridge

The ends were then trimmed, & the 'guard stays' re-adjusted to compensate for the new position
Even the 'guard overlap was the correct way round, to hopefully stop water running down the external face of the mudguard

 

[si_c]

The ends were then trimmed, & the 'guard stays' re-adjusted to compensate for the new position
Even the 'guard overlap was the correct way round, to hopefully stop water running down the external face of the mudguard

Nice job. I'm thinking it could be tidier though - not a huge fan of the big zip tie. I think I'd have trimmed the mudguards back about a quarter inch or so on each side. I'd then take a large plastic milk bottle and trimmed a few sections and laminated them together with superglue for strength. You could then drill a hole through that so as to screw to the bridge.

You could then superglue the milk cartons to mudguards and use some nylon rivets to secure the fix. A bit more work perhaps and you'd probably need to take the mudguards off to do it. Plus you won't have zip ties moving around damaging the paintwork.