What Have You Fettled Today?

[LucretiaMyReflection]

Fitted new bar ends - custom ones with expanders so hopefully won't lose these!
Also adjusted the mudguard to give more clearance. The new tyre seems to be marginally larger than the old one, and it's catching. The noise is very annoying.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Fitted marathon 40mm on one if my bikes. Tired of the frequent punctures on the terrain that bike covers

 

[ColinJ]

I built a singlespeed bike a few years back, mainly from surplus parts, but I had to buy some brake callipers because I didn't have any spare at the time. I wanted to spend as little as possible so I bought a pair of cheap Campanolo Veloce ones. They did the job but they felt a bit flexy/'spongey' compared to the better quality callipers that I am used to. They are also black, and I prefer silver.

Since then I have dedicated an old bike to turbo trainer duties so its brakes were no longer needed. I decided to pinch the callipers off that bike to use on the singlespeed instead. I swapped them over today and they feel a big improvement. It turns out that the old brake blocks were pretty worn, so they would have needed replacing soon anyway.

If I ever decide to take the old bike off the TT I can put the Veloce callipers on that.

Dear Colin - it is a good idea to tighten the sleeve nut on the rear brake properly before going off on a 161 km (100 mile) ride... I heard a horrible rattling from the bike on a long, bumpy descent into Wigan yesterday. I just discovered that the brake is now barely attached to the bike!

 

[roadrash]

where abouts in wigan was you @ColinJ

 

[ColinJ]

where abouts in wigan was you @ColinJ

I had ridden out from Littleborough with Littgull to do a big loop round - Rochdale, Bury, Bolton, Horwich, Chorley, Leyland, Maghull, Ormskirk, the biggest climb of the day to Ashurst's Beacon (Skelmersdale), Orrell, then down to Wigan Wallgate station via Kitt Green, Robin Park and Newtown.

We skirted round a lot of the towns, and used towpaths, greenways, quiet roads and the Trans Pennine Trail where we could to avoid traffic.

 

[roadrash]

only a mile from me when you was at newtown, I could have put the kettle on...

 

[ColinJ]

only a mile from me when you was at newtown, I could have put the kettle on...

Unfortunately, we were in a hurry to catch the train...

 

[Pale Rider]

Yes, we were very lucky to dodge almost all of the storms, and to take refuge in a bus shelter for the one that we didn't.

I am surprised how well those pictures of the rainbows turned out. You can clearly see how the bright one comes to ground between us and the distant trees. Also, the curious dark band between the rainbows that I commented on at the time.

Oh, and that my 'Ass saver' wasn't really saving my ass! Mind you, I could have had 5 times as much crud on me without it, who knows?

It would be better for your post and my reply to be in 'Your Ride Today'. I'll ask the mods to move them for us!

I had @ColinJ down as a confirmed roadie but he seems to have taken to paths and tracks.

I'm told he recently did another off-road ride which involved pushing due to terrain rather than gradient.

Whatever next - a flat bar mountain bike?

 

[ColinJ]

I had @ColinJ down as a confirmed roadie but he seems to have taken to paths and tracks.

I'm told he recently did another off-road ride which involved pushing due to terrain rather than gradient.

Whatever next - a flat bar mountain bike?

I used to do quite a lot of mountain biking on my flat bar mountain bike!

The bar ends were a bit long so I have taken them off and bought clones of those stubby ones with built-in grips that you have on your bikes. I haven't fitted them yet because I want to replace the brakes first. My cousin donated a pair of disk brakes to the cause, but I haven't got round to fitting them yet either. I am thinking of converting the bike from 3x9 to 1x11 while I am at it. I think I will try to get all of those jobs done over the winter and get back into doing more offroad riding next year.

I don't like really muddy conditions or extremely technical stuff that I don't have the skills (or courage) to ride safely. The bridleways round here are very good, though often hard work. I can tackle some of them on my CX bike but some are too rugged for that, while not being so scary that I won't ride them - that's where the MTB will come in.

 

[Pale Rider]

Dragging this back to fettling, 1 X gearing strikes me as a good idea for a mountain bike.

When I was doing some very feeble mountain biking, I had the occasional problem with the front mech clogging even in relatively light mud.

I like palm grips, mine are Ergons that came with the bike, and the right is Rohloff gear change specific.

The clones are just as good for a third of the price.

 

[ColinJ]

Dear Colin - it is a good idea to tighten the sleeve nut on the rear brake properly before going off on a 161 km (100 mile) ride... I heard a horrible rattling from the bike on a long, bumpy descent into Wigan yesterday. I just discovered that the brake is now barely attached to the bike!

I have now tightened the brake mounting nut!

 

[Vantage]

When I was doing some very feeble mountain biking, I had the occasional problem with the front mech clogging even in relatively light mud.

Can't say I ever had that problem. Not even in the muckiest, boggiest of bogs in 15 years of mountain biking.
1 x 11 setups sounds like sure way of wearing out chains and cassettes stupidly quickly and then paying stupid prices to replace them.

 

[DCLane]

Got some things done today;

Cleaned the Wilier Montegrappa after a week's wet commuting, together with fitting used front & rear GP4000S tyres. Fettled the clip-on mudguard so it fits properly for a ride in Bristol next week.

Then got out the Raleigh Sports for the final renovation job; new front and rear brake outer and inner cables for the first time in 40+ years. Minor technical issue; the new standard for MTB/road ends were too wide for 1950 brake levers fitting points so I ended up using a gear cable outer in the new inners. All done. Now I need to decide it's whether to 'keep' or 'sell'.

 

[Shearwater Missile]

After my front brake cable pulled through (not all the way) yesterday leaving me with a poor front rim brake I looked to see what I could do to stop it happening again. I did`nt wan`t to just tighten it up more in case I stripped the thread.This had happened once before. What I did was...... Removed the washer gripping the cable and cut 4 fine grooves across the edge of it that grips the cable. The theory being that having grooves across the cable will give it more bite and grip. Hopefully no more hairy moments !

 

[Richard A Thackeray]

Nothing much, just a check-over of 3 bikes

The CGR is my 'day to day'/work-bike'/'winter'/etc...…
The 'blue' was its predecessor, so hasn't been used much (so back into storage)

Boardman hybrid is SWMBOs, I bought it for her last weekend, after a weeks commuting, it was merely a case of making sure nothing had already worked loose

Next job is to source a front mud-flap for it, to suit '35' tyres & those fat 'guards (up to '45' section)