What Have You Fettled Today?

[Ming the Merciless]

Same here, never heard of them but then again why would I as never ridden a recumbent.
Power idler sounds like something on my ride on mower!

You will find idlers in such machines as well as cars, lathes etc. All over the place in things that use belts or chains.

You must have heard the term when a car engine is idling.

 

[Binky]

You will find idlers in such machines as well as cars, lathes etc. All over the place in things that use belts or chains.

You must have heard the term when a car engine is idling.

Yes but not on a push bike.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Yes but not on a push bike.

That is why they have different names, as they are not push bikes 🤣

 

[DCLane]

That is why they have different names, as they are not push bikes 🤣

Given some of the bikes I ride, they are.

 

[Binky]

That is why they have different names, as they are not push bikes 🤣

Meh. Generic name for range of bicycle.

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

Just over a week ago: Fitted a new Sunrace M90 rear derailleur on the knockabout bike. I'd been having shifting problems with the old rear derailleur and having stripped and regreased it and changed the gear cables I was still getting the odd ghost shift so it looked like it was just simply worn out. The new one seems pretty good quality for quite a bit less money than the Shimano equivalent and first impressions are that the gear shifts are now as good as on my two better bikes.

 

[All uphill]

Just over a week ago: Fitted a new Sunrace M90 rear derailleur on the knockabout bike. I'd been having shifting problems with the old rear derailleur and having stripped and regreased it and changed the gear cables I was still getting the odd ghost shift so it looked like it was just simply worn out. The new one seems pretty good quality for quite a bit less money than the Shimano equivalent and first impressions are that the gear shifts are now as good as on my two better bikes.

Thanks for that Phil.

I can't quite get the shifts right on my Spa. I've checked the hanger alignment, replaced cables and outers but it's still not quite right. Chain and cassette are low mileage. Your message reminded me that I am using a 25 year old Shimano Deore rd.

I've put Sunrace RDS on bikes before and found them functional, so I'll order another today.

 

[N0bodyOfTheGoat]

Finally got around to fitting the Mahle SP1 battery entender to my ebike.

The cage would position the extender 2-3cm lower if I used the seat tube mounts, but I thought using the down tube mounts would better balance the ebike, because the ebike as supplied is quite rear heavy due to the rear hub motor. But I wasn't sure the cable to link the extender to the ebike charge port would reach, if I used the down tube mount.

Cable reached fine, happy days, so go to put bottle back in the seat tube bottle cage...

It won't ****** fit, the SP1 blocks the way for the bottle to sit in its proper ride position, didn't see that coming at all!

So only place I can see as practical bottle cage mount is underside of top tube, which positions the bottle awfully horizontal while riding and surely liable to jump out when I catch any bumps on the road?!

Edit: Thought I'd come up with a solution to make seat tube bottle cage useable, by mounting the SP1 cage higher with the various cage bolt holes it has. But mounting the SP1 cage high enough to use the seat tube bottle cage leaves the SP1 cable/plug ~1cm from the ebike charge socket.

Edit2: Decided to try fitting SP1 cage to seatube instead, where there is the obstacle of the front mech band affecting how the lower part of the cage mounts. Annoyingly, the highest set of cage bolt holes don't allow the lower bolt to screw into the thread, which would eliminate contact between the cage and the front mech band! The second highest bolt holes screw in, but I'm not terribly happy that the very bottom of the SP1 cage touch the front mech band and probably affects how the torx lower cage screw engages with the seat tube compared to the upper torx cage screw.

But at least I can now use the down tube bottle cage for a bottle!

What an absolute faff for simply mounting a cage to the bike, over an hour, on what has become a surprisingly nice day outside worthy of a ride!

 

[Paulus]

Today I fitted a new gear cable onto my Brompton, the shifting was pretty sluggish, and getting 3rd was almost impossible. Now, once the adjustment was made, all 3 gears engage.
Then I switched my attention to the cantilever brakes on my tourer which needed some work. All working fine now.

 

[sevenfourate]

Got the bike in(side) tonight; ready for a really early ride tomorrow…....and remembered the rear brake [Cable disc] sounded ‘dry’ or felt slightly graunchy on Sundays ride. So layed the bike down, diagnosed and lubed the pretty new and good quality cable. *A regular ‘washing’ with wet Winter rides, doing it no good I suspect…..

I then remembered one or two very very subtle noises (?) from the crank / BB area on that same Sunday ride. And that last time I heard this - it was the bolts holding the crank arms on. I also remember the LBS tightened them with a 18” long torque-wrench. And the force to tighten them being quite ‘considerable’. So out to the garage for an Allen key to suit I go - and as the Allen key is pretty short / stubby: I literally tighten absolutely as firmly as I can manage by hand. Which does get both tightened by 1/8 to 1/4 turn’ish. One side particularly feeling easy to get some movement on. If nothing else it’s kept the crank arms firm until I’m next passing the LBS……

 

[Shearwater Missile]

I took the forks off to investigate the headset bearings and the rusty marks. The bearing are just plain old bearings in a cage, so cleaned up and ordered new, at least the bike is still rideable. The forks came off without removing the brake callipers but in putting them back I managed to get the RD cable on the wrong side of the head tube. It would have been easier with a workshop bike stand, a case of needing 3 hands !

 

[Shearwater Missile]

Got the bike in(side) tonight; ready for a really early ride tomorrow…....and remembered the rear brake [Cable disc] sounded ‘dry’ or felt slightly graunchy on Sundays ride. So layed the bike down, diagnosed and lubed the pretty new and good quality cable. *A regular ‘washing’ with wet Winter rides, doing it no good I suspect…..

I then remembered one or two very very subtle noises (?) from the crank / BB area on that same Sunday ride. And that last time I heard this - it was the bolts holding the crank arms on. I also remember the LBS tightened them with a 18” long torque-wrench. And the force to tighten them being quite ‘considerable’. So out to the garage for an Allen key to suit I go - and as the Allen key is pretty short / stubby: I literally tighten absolutely as firmly as I can manage by hand. Which does get both tightened by 1/8 to 1/4 turn’ish. One side particularly feeling easy to get some movement on. If nothing else it’s kept the crank arms firm until I’m next passing the LBS……

View attachment 801543

That looks a nice comfy bike to ride, if they only stayed that clean.

 

[sevenfourate]

That looks a nice comfy bike to ride, if they only stayed that clean.

I’ve got plenty that are more uncomfortable 🤣

**Dirtier than it looks. Not cleaned after Sundays 50km damp-road ride……😁

 

[Shearwater Missile]

I’ve got plenty that are more uncomfortable 🤣

**Dirtier than it looks. Not cleaned after Sundays 50km damp-road ride……😁

Looks are deceiving then.

 

[VinSumRox]

Set up a pair of wheels with new discs, cassette and gp5000 AS 32mm tyres so can swap them round with the wheels with big gravel tyres on the new bike.
Also put the recently rebuild Ridley on the turbo trainer so I can get rid of the very old Ridgeback to the local cycle charity.