What Have You Fettled Today?

[ColinJ]

I built some wheels for the CAADX With Shimano hubs and Pacenti rims shod with Michelin Pro 4 Endurance tyres that I've used throughout the summer months and have been really pleased with them. But following a puncture on my morning commute at 6am in the pitch black and pouring rain have decided to go with the stock wheels/Marathon Plus combination throughout the winter months. Much, much heavier, but worth it to keep the puncture fairies at bay.

My BB30 seems to be behaving (4300 miles so far) - but now I've said that it will no doubt start creaking tomorrow morning.

I'm assuming that the freehub body will be a straight swap-out with a standard Shimano unit?

It seems very difficult to get information on the correct replacement hub bearings without taking the old ones out, and I don't want to do that as I need to use them daily.

I'm not an expert on wheels. I just search for info and usually find what I am looking for. I found THIS which looks potentially helpful. I thought I had some 6000 bearings in my spares box but they are in fact 6001 type which are a different size. If I get round to taking a look at my hub in the near future, I will report back below!

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Took the inner tube out, removed the offending thorn from the outer, did the patch sticking thing, allowed things to heal and refitted tyre and tube.

These hedge trimmer things are a PITA.

 

[DCLane]

New front brake cable on the Eastway winter commuter - after it went yesterday downhill

I'm still working on the Graham Weigh. Today the front cable guide arrived so both brakes are now set up. I've measured for the fork cutting - twice - so that'll be done soon. Then bar tape and finished.

 

[ColinJ]

New front brake cable on the Eastway winter commuter - after it went yesterday downhill

Yikes!

I have worried about that kind of thing for years, but so far avoided it. Some of our local descents are so severe that the only sensible thing to do would be to deliberately slide the bike sideways and fall off as gently as possible before gaining too much speed. The trouble is you would only have a second or two to make the decision and it would take a lot of guts to actually do it ...

I have had front tyre blowouts twice on such descents. The first time I was being (TOO!) closely followed by a double-decker bus. I managed to stop without falling off and the bus driver reacted fast enough that the bus ended up a couple of metres behind me rather than a couple of metres over me! The second time was one second after I got to the bottom of a hill. I had already scrubbed off most of my speed so though I DID fall off that time. I only suffered minor cuts and bruises and a car coming the other way that I rolled in front of also stopped in time!

And now, the saga of the singlespeed project continues ...

Singlespeed construction fettling: episode #5

Right, forget the idea of 2 x S/S; I put a chain on the bike and one look at it told me that there is a very good reason that derailleurs have 2 sections and 2 jockey wheels! The chain tensioner cannot possible tension a significant length of spare chain. So, a proper S/S bike it will be!

My first attempt gave me a fairly good chainline, but I couldn't quite get the chain to stay on reliably. Closer examination showed that I needed to move the sprocket one spacer nearer to the centre of the wheel. I made the change and I'd say that it is now within about 1/3 of a spacer thickness of perfect. I would have to get some thinner spacers to get it better than this and I don't think that is necessary because the chain now stays on.

The chain tensioner was designed to pull the chain down. I didn't like it! It was pulling the slack chain away from the underside of the sprocket, reducing the chain wrap round it. That would increase the wear on the teeth because the pedalling load would be concentrated on a small number of teeth at any one time. It also makes the chain more likely to come off. I looked at the tensioner and decided that I should be able to reverse its action. I took it to bits and managed to reassemble it in such a way that it now pulls UP. It seems much better this way. The chain now wraps round half of the sprocket rather one third (or less) and the chain is much straighter going over the jockey wheel on the tensioner, which I think is A Good Thing.

I have been fiddling about swapping between the 52 ring and the 53, and shortening the chain. It turns out that the chain length is critical. Too long and the tensioner was not really coping. I couldn't get it right with the 53. I shortened the chain and it was just too tight to get on. I figured that the very slight reduction in diameter of the 52 ring relative to the 53 would fix the problem and it DID - I can get the chain on, it stays on, and the tensioner pushes up enough to pick up the slack.

So, all is well now, eh? Not quite! The chain passing over the jockey wheel is too noisy. Every combination of chainring size, chain length, and direction of chain tensioning has been noisy. I took the jockey wheel out of the tensioner and greased it; still noisy! I took a jockey wheel out of an old derailleur that I had lying about, cleaned and greased that, and swapped it for the tensioner's jockey wheel; same noise!

The noise is a slight clunk as each link of the chain engages with a tooth on the jockey wheel. At slow cadences, the noise is subtle but I can feel the clunk by placing a finger on the end of the chain tensioner. As the cadence is increased the clunk gets louder and eventually becomes an annoying, rasping buzz. One of the nice things about a well-setup S/S bike is how quiet and efficient it is. That noise would drive me mad; I have to eliminate it!

It is a new chain and it came in an umarked bag so I wonder if it is a cheapo copy of an SRAM chain? I might try a bona fide SRAM chain in its place, but then the other one would go to waste. I'm not sure what else I can do though ...

 

[raleighnut]

If you have horizontal dropouts then there is no need for a tensioner but if the frame has fixed dropouts (vertical) then you are stuck with one.

 

[Wetdog]

I used my gifted to me bike stand today and sorted my derailleur out. All gears now sweet as a nut.
It feels good to work successfully.

 

[ColinJ]

If you have horizontal dropouts then there is no need for a tensioner but if the frame has fixed dropouts (vertical) then you are stuck with one.

It has vertical dropouts!

I've found lots of people online complaining of the same type of noise problem. I've also found people saying that the noise problem diminishes or goes away once the chain has been run for a while.

The chain has the factory grease on it. I don't normally lube a new chain because I think that the grease probably does quite a good job but I am tempted to go and drip some lube on the chain to see if it makes a difference. Blow it - I'm off to try! I will report back shortly ...

PS

I'm not sure that the dry lube helped that much. I think it made a slight difference.

What made a BIG difference was adjusting the tensioner so it did the minimum amount of tensioning rather than the maximum! It had been set to take up as much of the slack in the chain as possible. I changed that so it still took up enough slack but was putting much less vertical pressure on the chain.

There is still some noise but it is rather artificial running the bike on a stand in a quiet room. I think with my head 4 feet further above the chain and with wind and traffic noise to mask the transmission noise, it might now be okay ...

I need to put the pedals on and connect the brake cables and then the bike will be ready to test. I will check that all is well before I put the bar tape on. (I am going to try reusing the old brake cables but I may need to replace them so there is no point in doing the bar tape yet because it might have to be taken off again!)

 

[DCLane]

I've finished the Raleigh Pioneer with the front derailleur properly adjusted (no photo).

Also the Graham Weigh's been finished: the forks were cut down earlier, cables adjusted and the bar tape is on. The parts came from @rugbyleaguebiker and it now looks like this:

It did look like this originally plus a pile of bits and blue parts but I took the green off the seatpost as a colour base:

 

[ColinJ]

I've finished the Raleigh Pioneer with the front derailleur properly adjusted (no photo).

Also the Graham Weigh's been finished: the forks were cut down earlier, cables adjusted and the bar tape is on. The parts came from @rugbyleaguebiker and it now looks like this:

I'm confused ... If it is a Graham Weigh frame, why does it say 'GIANT'?

Also, are those the final positions of the saddle and bars? It looks like it would fit someone small with tiny legs and a relatively long body (or arms).

 

[DCLane]

I'm confused ... If it is a Graham Weigh frame, why does it say 'GIANT'?

Also, are those the final positions of the saddle and bars? It looks like it would fit someone small with tiny legs and a relatively long body (or arms).

It's not a Giant - although has Giant Connect forks hence the introduction of some green Giant decals: there was some decal residue I couldn't get off and Graham Weigh's own decals look awful.

And yes, it's a kids / tiny adults bike. The seatpost goes up ... a lot ... which means it'll fit normal humans as well.

 

[HLaB]

Put a new tube in a tyre but I've not pumped it up yet

 

[Tenacious Sloth]

Put a new tube in a tyre but I've not pumped it up yet

Thanks. Keep us informed...

 

[si_c]

Fitted new semi-permanent light. Cheapish ebay job, not so much for seeing than to be seen. Just running it on flashing mode.

Light fitted relatively easily with a rubber o-ring, but the battery pack proved more awkward, the straps on the unit were really loose as they were designed for an ahead stem rather than a quill stem so I couldn't tighten them sufficiently. Put the power pack in my saddle bag and routed the cable so I could attach it to the rear brake cable with electrical tape. It's more secure than it could be otherwise and it's also less likely to get soaked in the saddle bag.

 

[ColinJ]

What made a BIG difference was adjusting the tensioner so it did the minimum amount of tensioning rather than the maximum! It had been set to take up as much of the slack in the chain as possible. I changed that so it still took up enough slack but was putting much less vertical pressure on the chain.

There is still some noise but it is rather artificial running the bike on a stand in a quiet room. I think with my head 4 feet further above the chain and with wind and traffic noise to mask the transmission noise, it might now be okay ...

I need to put the pedals on and connect the brake cables and then the bike will be ready to test. I will check that all is well before I put the bar tape on. (I am going to try reusing the old brake cables but I may need to replace them so there is no point in doing the bar tape yet because it might have to be taken off again!)

Singlespeed construction fettling: episode #6

I keep fiddling with the chain tensioner but I can't quite get it quiet enough! I really do need to just ride the bike and see what the noise is like then. It took me most of this year to quieten my CAAD5 to the point where it no longer bugged me and I like it now. I really don't want to go back to having a noisy bike again ...

The brakes are now connected and I have put the pedals on. All that remains is to put the bar tape on and mounts for lights and my Garmin. I'll do those last few jobs after I have been to the shops and had something to eat.

If the weather is ok later, I'll ride a few miles up and down the valley to see how the bike is, but not go too far away in case I have a problem and have to walk back with the bike!

PS

I put the bar tape and lights on the bike. I found a rear reflector in my tool drawer while I was looking for some black electrical tape to finish off the bar tape; I put that on the seatpost below the rear light.

I double-checked everything and found that I hadn't tightened some important bolts enough, so I sorted those out.

The headset wasn't quite tight enough, which was odd because I remembered doing it and hadn't ridden the bike yet ... It turned out that there was not enough of a gap between the top of the steerer tube and the top of the stem. The cap through which the adjuster bolt passes was bottoming out on the steerer. I put a 5 mm spacer above the stem to give the cap something to push against. That did the trick.

The bike was looking and feeling pretty good for something which only cost about £60! (It was going to be £50 but I decided not put an old chain on and used a new one from my spares box instead. Call that an extra tenner.)

I weighed the finished bike and was pleased to find that the total weight including lights, reflector, pedals and a bottle cage was ~9 kgs or ~19 lbs - not bad for bike made mostly from old/spare parts!

I just had to go out for a quick test ride after I finished! I only did a couple of miles, including a two small climbs. The bike's new chain, perfect chainline, and lack of a rear derailleur were immediately obvious. I have set the chain tensioner to apply the minimum force necessary to keep contact with the chain so it is not introducing much friction. The transmission just felt so efficient!

I have been going on about the noise from the chain tensioner. I went out at 11 pm when there was not much traffic about. There was a stiff breeze blowing and the wind noise was masking any noise from the chain/tensioner combination. I could still hear a slight rumble from the tyres on the road though so I took that to mean that the tensioner noise is probably not going to be a big issue; we'll see!

I'll take some photos of the bike tomorrow in daylight and post them below.

 

[Salty seadog]

Put a new tube in a tyre but I've not pumped it up yet

How many miles have you done on it?