What Have You Fettled Today?

[fossyant]

Fettling will be tomorrow. On the sub standard lockers fitted to our new offices. No rails or ventilation. That will be fixed tomorrow, taking in some PVC pipe with pipe cutters and will wedge a piece in at the top to act as a rail. Will then place a usb powered fan in the bottom to air my sweaty kit. If it's been raining, the wet waterproofs will have to come into our new office, where I will get told to get lost. Charming

 

[ColinJ]

I also think the chain might have slipped under heavy load on one sprocket, though it could just have been a gear adjustment issue.

I was getting the problem again today so I checked the gear indexing and found that no matter how I adjusted the indexing, the chain sometimes moved up or down two gears rather than one when shifting. Sometimes it shifted one gear, but seemed like it was trying to shift an extra one.

I just had a brainwave and went down to check the bike. Sure enough - I have put the new gear cable on the wrong side of the clamp bolt. I am almost certain that this is causing a mismatch between the indexed steps of the derailleur and the gap between sprockets. I will put the bike on the workstand tomorrow, move the cable to the other side of the bolt, and see if that sorts the indexing out.

Sheldon Brown suggests that friction between gear cables and the guide under the bottom bracket can cause problems on flexible bikes when putting big efforts in. I have noticed that when I stand up on my steel-framed Basso on steep climbs, after a few pedal strokes the front mech cage starts to rub on the chain and I have to trim its position with the shifter. a few more pedal strokes and the problem recurs. I will put some grease on the guide tomorrow and see if that helps to alleviate the problem.

 

[PeteXXX]

Time to change the jockey wheels..

Out with the old..

In with the new.

It took slightly longer than expected as one of the bolt heads was a bit mullered so I had to carefully tap the allen key in to be able to crack the Loctite.

 

[Pauluk]

Riding over a tow path bridge today I changed down at the front and up at the back at the same time. Done this hundreds of times before without incident but this time I must have been applying too much pedal pressure to get over the humpback bridge.

The chain came off at the front and some how doubled over itself and jammed, two links abreast, right between the bottom bracket housing and inner cog wheel. The whole thing was ridged with no play in the chain. No matter how I tried I couldn't release the chain.

Luckily I was able to break the chain with a splitter tool and unthread the chain to provide some slack. Having removed the chain from the rear cogs and derailleur I was able to gradually ease the front jam.

I was quite pleased with myself as I've never swapped a chain before on the trail, under pressure to get to work.

I'm now wondering if I should carry a crank extractor as I think it would have been easier to remove the crank set to free the chain.

As anyone else had this problem of a jammed chain at the front.

 

[Salad Dodger]

I put a new (adjustable) stem on my mountain bike today. I hope that angling the stem up a bit more than the virtually flat one which was fitted before, will ease some of the neck pain that I get on long rides. Time will tell.....

 

[Pauluk]

I put a new (adjustable) stem on my mountain bike today. I hope that angling the stem up a bit more than the virtually flat one which was fitted before, will ease some of the neck pain that I get on long rides. Time will tell.....

I did the same because I was getting some pain between my shoulder blades. The adjustable stem did the trick. Hope yours goes as well as mine Dodger.

 

[ColinJ]

I just had a brainwave and went down to check the bike. Sure enough - I have put the new gear cable on the wrong side of the clamp bolt. I am almost certain that this is causing a mismatch between the indexed steps of the derailleur and the gap between sprockets. I will put the bike on the workstand tomorrow, move the cable to the other side of the bolt, and see if that sorts the indexing out.

Sheldon Brown suggests that friction between gear cables and the guide under the bottom bracket can cause problems on flexible bikes when putting big efforts in. I have noticed that when I stand up on my steel-framed Basso on steep climbs, after a few pedal strokes the front mech cage starts to rub on the chain and I have to trim its position with the shifter. a few more pedal strokes and the problem recurs. I will put some grease on the guide tomorrow and see if that helps to alleviate the problem.

I clamped the cable on the correct side of the bolt and went out for a ride. The gear changing was transformed! I only had one iffy change which I am putting down to friction in the rear gear cable. I really should have changed the cable outer when I changed the inner. I have now greased the cable where it runs through the bottom bracket cable guide. I will probably squirt some lube down the outer before my next ride to see if that removes any residual friction.

 

[Spoked Wheels]

I swapped my old el cheapo Aldi computer for my yet unused speed / cadence sensor of the Edge 800 so that I can use an old bike as a dedicated bike with the turbo trainer in the winter months. It works a treat

I can now upload / keep track of my turbo trainer sessions as well.

 

[arch684]

just changed my giant rincon mountain bike into a giant rincon road bike . fitted new forks wheels drop handle bars brake levers all new cables bar tape and tyres and set up front and rear mechs . was at it for 7 hours

 

[DCLane]

Got a slashed tyre and tube on the Raleigh Team on the way home from work thanks to a load of brown glass all over the road.

Now normally I've the adjustable spanner with me when I ride it, but I'd left it at home so couldn't undo the wheel nuts; they're not quick release.

So, trying a trick I'd done when riding back from the BBC filming in May, I undid the electrical tape that holds the Raceblade mudguards firmly in place (there's clips/tie straps as well), taped over the slash and onto the wheel rim. Several loops of tape later, along with tightening the valve screw it pumped up OK.

Got enough pressure in to ride the 6 miles I had left home, stopping and re-inflating a couple of times

It's still got air in 6 hours later

 

[Cubist]

We're off to Scotalndshire in the morning, so today was spent fettling the IBIS. Good clean and lube, bled the rear brake , at the same time noticing the pads were unevenly worn. Respacered the caliper to perfection and added a new pair of Superstar Kevlars to the XT caliper. I then added new Stans fluid to the tubeless tyres. The number of healed holes in the tyre now numbers over sixty, with a couple of bigish slits. I'll pack a tyre boot and some vulcanised rubber sheeting just in case!

Cubester's Canyon-framed wonder was next. Cleaned, lubed and tyres had new jizz added.

His girlfriend's Dad then appeared with a Trax full suss behemoth. Apparently Cubester had offered to fettle it as the chain was doing strange things. It's her sister's bike. A quick spin round the yard showed some odd feel. It was very steep at the front and my foot caught the front wheel. The fork was the wrong way round. Good old Halfords!

It's been a long time since I fettled a quill stem, and needless to say the expander was seized into the steerer tube. Loads of GT85, and a T handled 8mm socket and mallet eventually shifted the bastard. Cubester was in awe at the way the quill stem worked, and had never seen a threaded headset before. Fortunately I had a 32mm spanner left over from the "golden era" so I could show him how it works.

The chain was "doing funny things" because the rear mech had taken a huge clatter at some point. The cage was sitting in the spokes, and the stop-screw angling it onto the hanger was bent. Fortunately it's all made of cheese so I was able to gently straighten the screw and realign it. It wasn't short of oil, in fact the chain needed to be cleaned thoroughly. Otherwise the gears seemed to work pretty well. The bars are a bit bent, but nothing I could do about that. I als unseized teh front fork and managed to introduce about 30mm of buttery smooth and well damped suspension movement into it

The rear preload screw was wound right up to max. I found that a Hollowtech BB tool fits the adjuster ring and wound it right off. With my 15 and a half stone weight on the saddle the rear shock compresses about 5mm. So that's great.

Gobsmacked by the heft we decided to weigh it. 17.7kg. FFS!

 

[cyberknight]

Puncture to mend and changing both my compacts to 50/36 chainrings

 

[ufkacbln]

Just practiced Necromancy.... does that count as fettling


My wife's Bionx battery had stopped charging and was dead.

So fitted to the trike and put trike on rollers.

15 minutes of "regenerative" cycling and it started charging (different charging circuit).

Now charging on the mains charger, hopefully problem sorted

 

[Colin_B]

I have made a mudflap for my front mudguard. Hopefully it will keep my feet dry. Being new to cycling and fettling I didn't know how big to make it. I have had a little test ride and all seems good so far

 

[RebornBumbler]

Replaced my (replacement) 12-27 HG50 cassette with a 11-28 HG80 which I managed to get hold of for twenty quid.
I didn't really need the extra tooth, but have recently missed the 11 for the odd descent.

It's surprisingly light too.

I'll probably replace the 34 chainring with a 36 if this cassette works out.