What Have You Fettled Today?

[DCBassman]

Needed to at least try to stop the cacophony that using the front brakes on the tandem brings, before going up (and more pertinently, down) the Swiss alps on it next week.

Trip to bike shop to buy new blocks and discuss the necromancy of squeal silencing. Then endless farking about with the front cantis on the tandem which are a total PITA to set up.

Suddenly remembered half way through that I needed to replace a brake bulb on the car, so abandoned tandem unfinished. Endless farking about, racing to spare parts shops on bike before they closed, swearing, finding the rear lights weren't working either, more swearing, swapping around bulbs and bulb holders, more swearing, eventually car with 6/8 working rear bulbs and all brake lights working. Need new bulb holders now. Back to the tandem...

Set up cantis, decide blocks too close to tyres, re set up, repeat 4x. Eventually all is well AND THE SQUEAL HAS STOPPED!!

Praise be. Hilly ride planned early tomorrow before the heat hits. Let's see if the cacophony returns.

I feel your pain. I also really don't like cantis (those were not the words I was thinking of using). V-brake conversion it is, then.

 

[Andy in Germany]

That's a smart bike that. I can't see many kids / teens here riding around with a rack.

Bikes tend to be used as a way to get to school at that age, so racks are common. Also to be road legal it needs dynamo lighting, and hub dynamos are pretty common these days.

 

[GeekDadZoid]

Cleaned the Brompton drive train once it got to a more reasonable temperature, well it still reasonable isn't but it's better than it was.

Using dry lube which I only use very irregular as I live in Manchester so it rains a bit. But I guess it will be very dusty out there tomorrow so let's keep it cleaner.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Halfway along the Rhine cycleway yesterday I noticed the gears on my touring bike were not changing well. This couldn't be due to the chain and gears as they were replaced last week. Closer inspection revealed this:

Not what you want to see when 20km from your apartment, but as the ride was largely flat I reckoned I could get back mostly using the top gear, and thus avoid putting the cable under too much tension.

Today I nursed the bike to work and when things had calmed down, hoiked it into the stand and put in a fresh cable and outer. As the chain still felt a bit rough I shortened it by two links. My goodness but the bike felt better after that...

 

[buzz22]

A rainy day at home and I turned this:

Into this:

In an attempt to reduce my fleet of bikes some parts had been taken off the Europa for my other bikes.
Seeing the nice old Tecnotrat frame sitting there today and knowing how much I'm liking a 1 x set up on my Giant CFR 3 I thought I'd resurrect it using spare parts I had.
A nice set of Araya rims went on, with an old Exage rear derailleur doing the shifting on the 28-12 7 speed cassette.

Shifting the derailleur is a Shimano Altus shifter from an old mountain bike.

The crankset is Shimano RSX off my Repco (previously on another bike) converted to a single 42 teeth set up.

Bars, grips and brake levers came off my old Apollo IV flat bar conversion, with braking provided by an old set of single pivot 105 I had spare.

A quick spin around the garage showed everything works, now I just need a nice day to hit the road.

 

[fossyant]

New Pannier rack was fitted yesterday. Still a Tortec, but the Expedition version (previous was the Tour version). Much thicker tubing and the Ortliebs are held much more securely. Loads less rattling down the canal - yay.

 

[Juan Kog]

Decided it was a good day to wax the Carradice collection. No need to pre warm the wax or use a hair dryer after waxing. Just let the sun do it all.
Yes I know I have too many bags and that’s just the cotton duck ones.

 

[geocycle]

Great collection of carradice! I’m only on four bags, so far.. But I wish I had taken advantage of the heat to proofhide the Brooks.

 

[Fredo76]

New handlebars:

Nitto B825AA butterfly bars

I followed the suggestion to spray some water into the rubber grip tubes to aid in installation, as a lubricant. After 40 minutes, on and off, of wrestling with the top left grip to get it into place, I added soap to the water for the other three, and they went on in seconds!

 

[HLaB]

The bike shop done the main fettling today and replaced the springs in my gravel bike's freehub. I just put the wheel back in the frame and undertook the tricky task of inserting the Thruaxle

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Nowt, some needs doing, but tooooo hooot.

 

[T4tomo]

New chain and cassette time....

 

[Andy in Germany]

Just found six H*lm*ts in the bike workshop store, all of unknown vintage, which means they could all have been in an accident, dropped or suffered similar invisible damage, and then "donated" to our charity. As I'm responsible if I sell them and they fail in a future accident, I''m not taking the risk; they were introduced to Mr. Hammer.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Removed old seat mesh and foam cushion and replaced with new. Just awaiting new front disc rotor which should arrive tomorrow. Once new rotor fitted, bike in final state for London Edinburgh London audax on 7th August.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

bike in final state for London Edinburgh London audax on 7th August.

Chapeau. We are not worthy!