What Have You Fettled Today?

[smokeysmoo]

I suspected the freehub was sticking on the Ribble as the chain was gathering up when you back pedal. Any hoo, stripped the rear hub and all seems fine. There are pawl mark in the freehub body but that's to be expected. Re-greased and re-built the rear hub and everything seems fine now so not sure where the issue was. The BB seems stiff though, not sure if this is a characteristic with Campag Veloce, (I'm a Shimano & BB30 man usually), so I'll see how it goes.
I need to invest in a puller for the stoopid Campag power torque crank as I can't fettle it like I can BB30 or Hollowtech II

 

[HLaB]

Over the last few days, the lbs fitted a new BB and I've fitted new wheels (transferred the existing cassette) and new rear brake pads and last night in the search for resolving a creaking problem I took my chain ring bolts out cleaned and re-greased them finished in the early hours of today , its quietened the creak, so that rather than every time I stand up its only every 2nd time

 

[Fair Weather]

Yesterday I put together a custom rear cassette for myself.
The background to this is that I have an 8-speed rear, and the oem 11-32 cassette (11,13,15,17,20,23,26,32) had an awkward jump from 20t to 17t that didn't suit me. After some research, and a friendly commuter at work (who's as nerdy and anally retentive as I am) gave me a copy of a gear ratio spreadsheet he'd put together, I set to work.
After working out what ratios suited me (actually it's MUCH simpler to think of this in terms of cog teeth), I first replaced the 11-32 with an 11-28 (11,13,15,17,19,21,24,28) which suited me much better.
Now if I had any sense, I would have stopped at this stage, and been happy.
The problem is, I have no sense but I have a spreadsheet. What the spreadsheet told me, in conjunction with knowing what gear I like to cycle in, was that I have a comfort zone. My comfort zone is ratios of between 2.5:1 and 3:1, or in teeth terms between 19 and 16 teeth. It's not all I use, but it's what I like to use. My original 11-32 gave me just one gear (17t) in my comfort zone, my new 11-28 gave me two. (17t & 19t).
But what if I had a cassette that gave me every possible gear in my comfort zone? Now I appreciate if you have 9 or 10 cog cassettes, this is pretty easy to achieve. But on an 8-cog, it's more problematic. So I then started a hunt for the perfect rear cassette.
Anyway, without out trying your patience any more, I didn't find one, so I made one myself. I took a 13-23 (13,14,15,16,17,19,21,23) and a discontinued MTB 11-32 (11,13,15,18,21,24,28,32) and mixed and matched the cogs to give myself my perfect 8-cog cassette. (13,15,16,17,18,19,21,23). I had a nice ride out today and it performed very well. It's not perfect, Shimano HG is very clever and if you monkey about with it you lose some of the smoothness of operation, but it shifts well and is a joy (for me) to ride.
Best of all, I learned loads about my bike gears on this little project.

 

[Salad Dodger]

I had to fix a p*****re in the rear (motorised) wheel of my e-bike today. It's a horrible job because you cant completely remove the wheel, as the power cable to the hub motor is hard wired, and there is no plug to disconnect. So the whole job has to be done virtually "in situ". I decided to change the tyre for a (hopefully more puncture proof) one at the same time, so I had to ease that out too, and then fiddle a stiffer replacement tyre into place.
A bout of Tourettes thus occurred......

Oh, and to give myself a bit more room I had to take out both rear brake blocks, so once I had finally got the tube and tyre all back into place, I then had to rebuild the rear brake as well.

Anyway, it's done now and all appears to be working correctly. I guess I had better get hold of a p*****re proof tyre for the rear wheel of my wife's e-bike and do the same job on hers, so at least only one of us will have had a 3 mile walk home pushing a bike with a flat tyre!

 

[Rickshaw Phil]

Adjusted the saddle and oiled the chain on my brothers bike, then replaced the window regulator assembly on his car and oiled a sticky lock. A well rounded day of fettling.

 

[Bluenite]

Cleaned my white handle bar tape ........time for a cup of tea.

 

[Tricycleboy]

Gonna get home and move my new 6700 ultegra shifters back up the bar a bit. Fitted them over the weekend and the weather was so rubbish i didn't get a test ride in. so the test was on my commute this morning.

Its a real pain to discover you've set something up not very well within 50meters of a 20km commute. Still some fettiling tonight and it'll all be gravy.

mmmmm.gravy.

 

[TheDoctor]

Taken the tyres on the Brommie back up to 100 psi, they'd slowly gone down to about 60-odd psi. The bike was noticeably nippier once I'd done this.

 

[Tim Garrett]

Took delivery of hiduminium bailie race bars. Will tape them up and install them on the Rory O'Brien at the weekend.

 

[compo]

Bloke in the shop said I couldn't fit my standard SKS full mudguards I had in the shed as the stays would foul the disc calipers and I would have to use clip on types. I have been looking at SKS RaceBlades and Zefal Shields etc. Today I thought let's have a look at the ones in the shed and see just what the problem really is. There wasn't a problem. I had to make a slight bend in the stay on the front to clear the caliper and a slightly more angled bend for the rear to clear the brake actuating arm, and that was it. The other side of the mudguards just fitted as normal. The mudguards are in perfect condition and the stainless steel stays will polish up nicely. It would be nice if I could find some stainless stay nuts and bolts that attach the stays to the mudguards. I could always drill a hole in through a 5mm screw, add a nut, jobs done.

 

[Tim Garrett]

Greased pedal bearings, fitted bell with charming ping.

 

[HovR]

Fitted new brake hoods, to replace the original perished ones, and new alloy cable stops to replace the cracked plastic originals - Thanks compo! Also fitted new brake cables. Cockpit now looks neater, and braking is more responsive.

 

[HLaB]

I've got an annoying clunk! when I put force on the pedals, its particularly loud when I stand up but can occur sitting down The lbs fitted a new BB last week as there was play in the cranks and I fitted new wheels but the noise is still there So tonight I stripped and cleaned and re greased the pedals, chain rings, gear hanger and rear derailleur bolt. As a separate item I also added new front pads.

Edit: It seems to have worked I took the bike out for a fast and challenging 22miler and it seems to have been a success

 

[Cubist]

Put new SLX brakes and shifters on the MTB, needed new cable inners anyway. Discovered what I thought was a conventional dual pull front mech was in fact a 2 speed, so will have to wait for the new build to put it on. Anyway, conventional top swing is fugly.

 

[danger mouse]

Thought I had fettled the rear bearing. Quite a bit of lateral play in wheel so managed to loosen ,repack with grease and retighten.

Seemed fine and lost the play. Smooth running, all seemed well

Then went out for a 25 miler and got back to find its loose again.

LBS view is that it is a 'cracked cone' (?) due to it being a freewheel hub.

Took a look at drive chain, forward cogs, rear cogs- all worn out.

Estimate £150 to sort out. On a bike I paid a ton for.