What Have You Fettled Today?

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biggs682

Touch it up and ride it
Location
Northamptonshire
Cabled up the calipers on the Dave Russell and fitted some pedals then treated myself to a test ride ^_^
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
Painting is now finished. Went through 3.5 tins of primer, 2.5 tins of pearlescent and a tin of lacquer. Just letting it all harden for a week or two before re-assembly and parts arriving. Spare paint will be in case there is ever any damage !

Given the weather, I had a fan heater on in the garage, and the paint was kept in the house, and returned into the warmth after each coat. Copious use of a hair dryer was also needed.

I'm currently awaiting delivery of the 'Ribble' transfers and the 653 stickers from H Lloyds. Tyres, cables, bar tape and bottle cages are coming from Planet X, new aero seat post from SJS cycles (original fluted seat post is a bit tatty) and a Charge Spoon from Leisure Lakes (like rocking horse poop to obtain).

The old San Marco Regal is a bit tatty (well it's not that bad but the rails are pitted and one of the 'rivets' was replaced with a plastic one some years ago). No point having anything tatty on it as the rest has come up well. Also ordered some PTFE gear liner to line the cable guides on the bottom bracket (they are part of the BB shell rather than a plastic guide - this will also protect the paint).
 

Gunk

Guru
Location
Oxford
Packed up a bike this afternoon

567722
 

Gunk

Guru
Location
Oxford
I had a tyre swaporama this afternoon, I replaced the 23c GP 4000's off my Van Nicholas for new 28c GP 5000's. They just fit under the mudguards, but they will be much better for town riding with panniers. If needed I can run them at 85psi which will make riding a bit more comfortable.

568295


I recycled the slightly worn 4000's on to my Ribble EM2 Turbo bike, I've also today bought a spare Campag rear wheel off eBay just for the turbo, so I can then quickly swap rear wheels and use the Ribble on the road this summer. Plus it will be useful as a spare road bike, if we ever have guests again!

568296


So that was my fart arsing around this afternoon!
 
I’ll be doing the same @Gunk when my new tyres arrive. Continental speed contact tyres going on the new wheelset and the Bontranger R3 tyres going on my spare wheelset to get rid of the cheapo kenda tyres. Now just need a cheapo rear wheel to put the kenda tyre on for the turbo.
 

Gunk

Guru
Location
Oxford
I’ll be doing the same @Gunk when my new tyres arrive. Continental speed contact tyres going on the new wheelset and the Bontranger R3 tyres going on my spare wheelset to get rid of the cheapo kenda tyres. Now just need a cheapo rear wheel to put the kenda tyre on for the turbo.

The problem is with Campagnolo is that there is no such thing as a cheap decent spare rear wheel. However I picked up a brand new Mavic CXP rim with a Campy hub, so with a used identical Chorus cassette I’m all in for just over £100, if it had been Shimano I could have bought everything for about half the price.

All this Agro because I had a Eurus wheelset I wanted to use. I should have sold them and just bought a decent used Mavic Aksium wheelset, you live and learn!
 
I had a tyre swaporama this afternoon, I replaced the 23c GP 4000's off my Van Nicholas for new 28c GP 5000's. They just fit under the mudguards, but they will be much better for town riding with panniers. If needed I can run them at 85psi which will make riding a bit more comfortable.

View attachment 568295

I recycled the slightly worn 4000's on to my Ribble EM2 Turbo bike, I've also today bought a spare Campag rear wheel off eBay just for the turbo, so I can then quickly swap rear wheels and use the Ribble on the road this summer. Plus it will be useful as a spare road bike, if we ever have guests again!

View attachment 568296

So that was my fart arsing around this afternoon!

I had a similar time putting studded tyres on my commuter. It turns out they are heavy: When I'd fitted he studded tyre on the back I took the front out and the upside down bike tipped backwards.
 

Tom B

Guru
Location
Lancashire
I was annoyed a few days ago that both my Lezyne rear lights packed up at the same time. Having had issues with poor build quality and parts choices on Lezyne stuff in the past I had put them to one side for a closer look. Neither would charge.

The Zecto drive was about 2 years and 2 months old and the stripdrive about 3. Lezyne's website said for warranty lengths in UK ask your retailer. Tredz very curtly and slightly rudely said "on yer bike". So I didn't order a replacement from them.

Took the strip drive to bits, or rather just pulled the gubbins out, the fault appears to be an IC chip that when plugged into the charger just gets stupidly hot. Googling the numbers on the chip gives no suggestion of what it does but I'll hazard a guess it's the charge controller. So tossed that aside as I doubt I'd be able to physically replace the chip anyway.

Took the Zecto drive apart. As soon as I had the PCB out it worked as it should. Fiddling around showed the fault was with the micro usb connector. I remembered I had some of them from when I replaced on in a phone years ago so dug them out. Managed to free the old connector from the PCB but my soldering iron was far to big to reattach. Tried a bit of copper wire in the iron which failed but then hit on using a sewing needle from the missus seeing kit. Bingo.
When I came to reassemble it I noticed that two of the holes in the red plastic lens which form part of the front were broken. Managed to get them back together with araldite and then strengthen them. Left it to cure before I reassemble.

For a brand that sings about their design quality I'm unimpressed with lots of aspects. The fact the thing is held together by 1mm or so of brittle lens plastic on the vulnerable corners. The really poor seal and ingress protection on both the Zecto drive and the stripdrive. I can't help wondering if they've both suffered ingress which has caused the problem. Newer stripdrives have a different charging arrangement, but are still poor. If I bought it again tomorrow I think I'd seal it up with Epoxy.

The bike desperately needs a new crank, chain and cassette. Being deep in mingy salty weather I'm loathed to change it. It all needs doing so it's not like anything is lost by leaving it. But the drive chain does go really rusty really quickly. Leaves me pondering if old really worn chains rust faster.

Anyway washed it clean and relubed.
 
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Tom B

Guru
Location
Lancashire
Crowed too soon about not changing anything on my worn-out chainset. Over last two days it wouldn't stay in the middle ring and there was so much wear side to side in the chain it would take three clicks to change on the RD. Leaving me with just the middle of the block. It seems all that rusty gunk was stiffening up the chain.

Ive slapped a chain on it for now and we'll have a laugh at how hideously skatey it is later
 

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