What Have You Fettled Today?

[Moksha]

Today, did a complete degrease of my bike's drivetrain using the Citrus degreaser my old school friend who works in the LBS in town recommended. Also cleaned the major parts of the bike (frame, wheels,mudguards & reflectors - new clipless pedals means one less big surface to clean!) then relubed parts needing attention and checked for wear. Decided also to sit down and try to fix the hesitant downshifting on my rear derailleur which has been driving me nuts on the longer rides. Twiddled with the barrel adjuster and made a good enough effort - it's better but there's still a little stickiness. Also got the tyres back to pressure and probably will do the AirZound at some point.

Only thing bugging me now is the creaky seatpost/saddle of doom - at my wit's end for that fault!

 

[compo]

Decided also to sit down and try to fix the hesitant downshifting on my rear derailleur which has been driving me nuts on the longer rides. Twiddled with the barrel adjuster and made a good enough effort - it's better but there's still a little stickiness.

Could well be worth changing the cable outer that makes the final loop round to the derailleur. This seems to be a fairly common cause of poor downshifting.

 

[compo]

I have just changed the door lock on my Skoda Felicia. Hell of a job, three ball joints to snap undone with very poor access! Hardest bit was doing them up again on reassembly.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

I just completed my 1st ever full front & rear derailleur cable replacement and then adjustment . I learned a few things doing it, such as:

• how to clamp the front derailleur cable so it doesn't get crimped when you shift to the small ring, plus the importance of not clamping it too tight, thus causing fraying; and
• the difference a minor adjustment to cable tension makes to shifting.

While learning this, I ruined 2 shifter cables, but I think it's a small price to pay. I ended up having to use a fine triangular file to file the groove in the front derailleur where the shifter cable sits, because I found it was looking pretty rough, and when I clamped the cables, they would almost straight away start fraying, snapping wires.

Both derailleurs now smoothly shift between all the rings/cogs (which I double-checked with a short ride up & down my street), and I'm very happy, because now I'm convinced I'll only need to visit a bike shop again for something major. I can now service (i.e. disassemble, clean, grease, reassemble) and/or replace the following myself:

• brake and shift cables;
• front & rear derailleurs (except the replacement);
• rear hub and freehub body;
• cassette;
• chain;
• front chain rings;
• cranks; and
• bottom bracket.

Not a complete list of what I can do on my bikes, but just being able to do the above means I won't have to visit bike shops very often any more . The Park Tools PCS-10 work stand proved to be extremely useful during this replacement and adjustment. A very nice tool, that.

 

[Cyclopathic]

9.am and I've already reconditioned the bearings on a cheapy old mtb wheel. Not a massively satisfying job as the bearing surface in the hub itself wasn't up to much but it's still a lot better than it was and has a few more miles of life.

 

[Garyh09]

Changed my cassette over onto a new wheelset and put new wheels on my bike

 

[Saluki]

Chain cleaning in the front garden, my bike is in the bath (not filled with water before you ask, no loofah or rubber duck either) waiting for a rinse off and a polish.
I have a bit of a vibration when pedalling, it wasn't there on Thursday. I am hoping that its muck otherwise I will have to fettle properly.

 

[smokeysmoo]

Cleaned and checked the CAAD ahead of tomorrows GMC.

Thought she was clean and didn't intend anything more than a quick check over, but closer inspection revealed she was a dirty girl and needed sorting out

Anyhoo, she's gleaming like a new pin and ready for tomorrow

 

[potsy]

Main commuting bike (Secteur) had a new chain & cassette last week, this week it has a new crankset and bottom bracket, gone from the stock Octlink to the new fangled Hollowtech 2 system with a Sora triple.

It's my second time of fitting this type of crank/bb (replaced bb on Tricross a while ago) and I think I have it sussed now, been for a 5 mile test ride and all seems well, one or two previous strange noises have gone and the old bb was looking very tired and rusty

 

[Mr Haematocrit]

Cut the steerer on my Tarmac, its lost a little more weight and is now under 6kg

 

[wisdom]

Full clean and lube following the very wet commute home yesterday.All is well now

 

[potsy]

Stage 2 of this weekends fettling session included cleaning the CX bike after a few wet commutes this week, it also was time for some new rubber and is now sporting a pair of Marathon Supremes in 32c, the old pair were 35's (which in reality are 37c) and I felt were just a bit too wide, these look much better and have a bit more clearance now under the guards.

Also swapped the seatpost & saddle from the rarely used hybrid onto it, surprisingly they were lighter than the stock CX ones, so with those and the tyres have lightened the bike by 200g

 

[HLaB]

I really should get another pair of spd-sl pedals; Ive just transferred them to the good bike for the umpteenth time!

 

[morrisman]

Today I have lowered the handle bars and raised the saddle a 1/4" on my Dawes Kalahari and now I go faster (~8%) and my knees hurt less -

 

[flatflr]

New bottom bracket fitted to the mountain bike. The original (after 500 miles) had started to make a "clicking" noise when under power so after checking everything else I decided to change it. All pretty simple after watching some videos on youtube. Old BB was well and truly shot, non drive side (not sure if that has a proper name) felt really notchy and the drive side bearing wasn't moving at all.