What Have You Fettled Today?

[fossyant]

Serviced the rear hub on the MTB - just a case of re-greasing the cartridge bearings and cleaning the pawls on the freehub - It's a formula hub and quite easy to work on. Hardest part is popping the 'end cap' off.

Re-greased the jockey wheels too (SRAM sealed bearings, but they must be re-greased regularly as it's easy for them to run dry and seize)

 

[tom73]

Went and pick up this up this today just given it a good clean and added a bit of new bling.
The N+1 count has begun

Next job will be some new tyres maybe upgrade the wheels but all in all it's good to go.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

*Question at the end of post. Help needed.

Replaced and rewired all the electrical connections on my dynamo lighting set up on the Audax bike. Not surprised to find frayed and soon-to-break wiring on the rear and earth connection. Glad to have done that.

Also completely swapped out the gear and brake inner and outer cables. Again the rear derailleur cable was about to snap in the shifter. Bit of a pig to pick out all the little frayed tendrils of wire hiding all over the place. The rear indexed like a dream.

*Having a bit of a mare with the Shimano 105 triple. The lower and upper limit screws are set correctly and it changes well UP the chain rings. Unfortunately it’s not the same story changing DOWN the chain rings. From the largest cog it makes a big jump straight down to the granny ring. I have fiddled for an age and just can’t get the balance between up and down changes right. Any ideas?

 

[Racing roadkill]

I got round to sorting out the rear brake on the 720AF today. It’s all working perfectly now.

 

[Racing roadkill]

*Question at the end of post. Help needed.

Replaced and rewired all the electrical connections on my dynamo lighting set up on the Audax bike. Not surprised to find frayed and soon-to-break wiring on the rear and earth connection. Glad to have done that.

Also completely swapped out the gear and brake inner and outer cables. Again the rear derailleur cable was about to snap in the shifter. Bit of a pig to pick out all the little frayed tendrils of wire hiding all over the place. The rear indexed like a dream.

*Having a bit of a mare with the Shimano 105 triple. The lower and upper limit screws are set correctly and it changes well UP the chain rings. Unfortunately it’s not the same story changing DOWN the chain rings. From the largest cog it makes a big jump straight down to the granny ring. I have fiddled for an age and just can’t get the balance between up and down changes right. Any ideas?

A kink in the cable might cause it.

 

[Reynard]

Can't get the pedals off, so a trip to the LBS is in order shortly. A combination of being royally stuck and "this is wrong tool"

Have given the bike a clean and swapped the saddle, as the one that came with the bike is painful just sitting on it. Have replaced it with the no-name saddle that used to be on my MTB and that I thought was really comfortable. But after more than two years of riding on a Charge Ladle, it's almost as bad as the one I took off...

So a Charge Ladle has just been ordered.

 

[Smokin Joe]

I got round to sorting out the rear brake on the 720AF today. It’s all working perfectly now.

View attachment 460162

Assuming you've got the caliper bolted to the stays at the bottom bracket, a setup like that looks a royal pain in the arse to me. A mate had one and it was always covered in crap and sometimes sticking.

 

[ColinJ]

I took a file to one side of the RH pedal on my cyclocross bike...

I have been getting an incredibly annoying squeaky sound from that side when riding the bike. I did a 100 km ride on it a couple of weeks ago and the noise was there for over 6 hours, doing my head in!

I have SPD pedals on all of my bikes. The ones on the other bikes are the cheap, simple and totally reliable Shimano M520s. The ones on the CX bike are M530s, which have a small platform area round the SPD mechanism. It gives a bit more support to the foot. The trouble is, it does that by having the tread of the shoe making contact with it all of the time. My feet rotate slightly through the pedal stroke; I hadn't realised how much until I rode a few miles with my feet fixed in place on another type of pedal - it felt quite uncomfortable and I yearned for the missing 'float'.

Anyway, I am pretty sure that the movement of the tread against the platform is what is making the noise. (I tried adjusting things and lubing them but it didn't help for long.) The tops of the platforms have started to wear from the constant movement of the tread against them so I decided to help the process along and file down the remaining high points. I have done it on just one side for now so I can test my hypothesis by clipping in on the filed side or the unfiled side. If the bodge has worked then I will file the other 3 sides too.

Other 'fettling' was to replace a tube on the back wheel of my best bike. I had pumped it up before a ride a couple of days ago but the knurled nut on the end of the valve sheared off when I tried to retighten it. Air pressure held the valve shut for the duration of the ride but it was only a matter of time before I had problems with it so I thought I'd sort it in comfort at home rather than ending up doing it at the roadside one day. After removing the tube, I tried reinflating it and what I was expecting to happen did - without the knurled nut to hold the core of the valve in place, the core got blasted into the tube and was lost. As soon as I removed the pump, the tube instantly deflated.

 

[Reynard]

I gave up on the old MTB saddle as well and replaced it with the original Wiggins one that came with my road bike. I'd forgotten how uncomfortable that one is for anything more than short distances, but it's the best of the three options I currently have.

Went for a test ride and had to stop to tweak saddle height a few times.

A little bit more fettling still needed on the bike, but it's a promising steed.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

New bar tape wrapped. My favourite: Widget.

Titanium bike.

Bright orange bar tape.

Drool. You have full permission.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I took a file to one side of the RH pedal on my cyclocross bike...

I have been getting an incredibly annoying squeaky sound from that side when riding the bike. I did a 100 km ride on it a couple of weeks ago and the noise was there for over 6 hours, doing my head in!

I have SPD pedals on all of my bikes. The ones on the other bikes are the cheap, simple and totally reliable Shimano M520s. The ones on the CX bike are M530s, which have a small platform area round the SPD mechanism. It gives a bit more support to the foot. The trouble is, it does that by having the tread of the shoe making contact with it all of the time. My feet rotate slightly through the pedal stroke; I hadn't realised how much until I rode a few miles with my feet fixed in place on another type of pedal - it felt quite uncomfortable and I yearned for the missing 'float'.

Anyway, I am pretty sure that the movement of the tread against the platform is what is making the noise. (I tried adjusting things and lubing them but it didn't help for long.) The tops of the platforms have started to wear from the constant movement of the tread against them so I decided to help the process along and file down the remaining high points. I have done it on just one side for now so I can test my hypothesis by clipping in on the filed side or the unfiled side. If the bodge has worked then I will file the other 3 sides too.

Other 'fettling' was to replace a tube on the back wheel of my best bike. I had pumped it up before a ride a couple of days ago but the knurled nut on the end of the valve sheared off when I tried to retighten it. Air pressure held the valve shut for the duration of the ride but it was only a matter of time before I had problems with it so I thought I'd sort it in comfort at home rather than ending up doing it at the roadside one day. After removing the tube, I tried reinflating it and what I was expecting to happen did - without the knurled nut to hold the core of the valve in place, the core got blasted into the tube and was lost. As soon as I removed the pump, the tube instantly deflated.

I brought a new pair of cycle shoes Xmas time, shimano two bolt SPD ones, I couldn't stop them creaking whilst I was clipped in, if I managed to silence them the creak would be back in less than a couple of hours, the pedals are single sided shimano click R's, if I swapped to the flat side silence. They have been replaced by a pair of cheap Decathlon ones and I'm riding clipped in, in silence again.

 

[JhnBssll]

Whipped the front wheel off the Stumpjumper, it was the last one containing the rubbish finishline sealant. Tyre off, cleaned up, filled with new latex based sealant and tyre reseated. I also swapped out the valve to match the rear wheel. Jobs a goodun, the remains of the bottle of finishline is now in the bin.

 

[IBarrett]

I bought a secondhand ‘summer’ bike over winter and though it had decent Ksyrium wheels I prefer my Hunt Aero
Tonight I was doing a timed flat run and the cassette on the Ksyrium is 11-28 so I thought I’d swap out my 12-28
The 11-28 was filthy so I shoved it in the parts washer and when I peeled, scrubbed and scraped all the crap off it was surprised to find it was the type with interchangeable cogs.

It was refitted shiney and looking new but then I didn’t like the noise the chain was making so I fitted a new chain too.
Then I had to re-index the gears.

So much for a 5 minute cassette change, but it was lovely on the speed run tonight and I averaged 21mph over a flatfish 27 miles - with traffic and hitting every traffic light on the route at red.

 

[De Sisti]

Applied some wd40 to the r/h shifter of my 2006 Campag ergo levers. Still silky-smooth shifting.

 

[Reynard]

Cleaned and oiled the drivetrain of Wiggy #2, the Chartres as I had a few sticky gear shifts on my test ride yesterday.

Chain was bone dry, jockey wheels were gummed up, and there were bits of plastic bag tangled in the rear derailleur. The latter was neatly taken care of with a pair of tweezers.

On closer inspection, the big chain ring is a little worn. It will probably see me through the summer before it'll want replacing. Given the fund I had for my N+1, it's no biggie, as there's ample budget for bits.