What Have You Fettled Today?

[Elybazza61]

Just finished the neighbours Cannondale MTB(with a lefty!0

Basically he bought it for £400 from his brother-in-law and asked me to get it 'useable'

So problems were SRAM brakes were foobard and spares are hard to get,inner plate on XTR rear mech was broken and pulley wheels knackered as was the chain, cassette and chainring(been run 1x with a normal chainring.
Plus wheels a bit out of true.

Now it's sporting some nice XT hydros,FSA narrow/wide chainring(3-bolt FSA cranks so no other options),Sun-Race cassette and Gussett chain;wheels are still wobbly and can't be trued so will need new rims(hubs are XT and lefty front);all for £250.

Oh and I got paid in beer for my labour

 

[Alembicbassman]

Servicing the hubs on my commuter in the kitchen workshop.

 

[Gunk]

As I'm without a current project I'm back to the French Elvish kids bike, just doing some additional jobs to really make it actually useable. Today I fitted a pair of fresh brake cables and swapped the brakes over so the rear is on the left rather than the right. Next will be a replacement rear wheel, freewheel and chain.

 

[DCLane]

Finished my son's hillclimb bike project for his 16th birthday; current weight is 5.6kg with some minor tweaks to do which should drop it to 5.5kg.

- Picked up some 1175g 50mm deep carbon wheels; the seller gave me lightweight skewers and carbon pads as well. A nice man.
- Fitted an ultra-lightweight Vittoria Crono Evo-CS 20mm front tub and Continental Competition 22mm rear tub
- Fitted temporary Ultegra pedals
- Adjusted the brakes, which now work. Lighter pads on the way as I don't want to chop down the Swissstop ones.
- Added handlebar tape. It's there, honest: one strip on each down curve, one strip where the cables are
- Added a Dura-ace 11-28 cassette

Still to tweak; probably one more chain link removed (-4g), Dura-Ace pedals when I find them (-20g), a lighter stem (-25g), steerer to be cut (-25g), chopped brake pads (-5-10g), brake hoods to be swapped for heat-shrink plastic and possibly the left Dura-Ace lever lightened. The largest / heaviest 46-tooth chainring is fitted; all the others (38/40/42/44 tooth) are lighter.

 

[Gunk]

I decided to rescue the knackered 60 year old wheelset which came with my Claud Butler, they were filthy with a couple of broken spokes. The rear hub isn’t worth saving, but the front hub and both rims are. With a wire brush attachment on an electric drill and some wire wool, the rims look surprisingly good.

The plan is to rebuild the front (to test my skills) and then swap the original rear rim on to the replacement hub which is on the bike, I’ve never built wheels before but I’m sure it’s something I can do. The nice thing will be that the bike will have its original rims.

 

[Gunk]

Continued with my front wheel build today.

Firstly I cleaned, stripped and serviced the hub with new bearings.

I then cleaned all of the 32 spokes with course wire wool and white spirit

and then polished the rim with fine wire wool and Autosol

I then found a very good video on YouTube on how to build a 32 spoke wheel, took me a while but here is the result

With some time and patience, I've managed to get it running straight and true, considering I was going to chuck it away, it is amazing what is possible with some time and effort, total costs = zero!

 

[jowwy]

I fettled an extension to the decking to house the hot tub

 

[Gunk]

I fettled an extension to the decking to house the hot tub View attachment 534339

View attachment 534341

View attachment 534340

Did you plant some Pampus Grass in the front garden as well?

 

[jowwy]

Did you plant some Pampus Grass in the front garden as well?

No...

 

[NotAsGoodAsMyBike]

Finally got around to fitting the Rene Herse Cayuse Pass 700 x 26mm tyres to my best bike, in place of 23mm Conti 4000s. Went for a quick test ride. Seemed ok - comfortable (not that I noticed the Conti being uncomfortable) and no noticeable difference in speed. Only time will tell on puncture resistance.

Jury still out on whether they are worth £87 each 😭

 

[Nigelnightmare]

Finally got around to fitting the Rene Herse Cayuse Pass 700 x 26mm tyres to my best bike, in place of 23mm Conti 4000s. Went for a quick test ride. Seemed ok - comfortable (not that I noticed the Conti being uncomfortable) and no noticeable difference in speed. Only time will tell on puncture resistance.

Jury still out on whether they are worth £87 each 😭

Ouch!!!
I didn't even pay that much for my CAR tyres (£270 for 4 tyres) and they weren't bargain basement ones either.
The cheapy cheapy ones were £40 each inc fitting and disposal of your old ones.

I don't think I've ever paid more than £18 for bike tyres.

 

[NotAsGoodAsMyBike]

Ouch!!!
I didn't even pay that much for my CAR tyres (£270 for 4 tyres) and they weren't bargain basement ones either.
The cheapy cheapy ones were £40 each inc fitting and disposal of your old ones.

I don't think I've ever paid more than £18 for bike tyres.

I reckon at least half the cost is shipping/duty. They’re made in Japan (by Panaracer), then imported into US, then shipped from their to UK, so two sets of costs. I reckon I usually pay about 30-35 for each Conti tyre, but I only buy them every 5 years or so at most. So these cost double and here’s hoping they don’t wear out too quickly!

 

[avecReynolds531]

I reckon at least half the cost is shipping/duty. They’re made in Japan (by Panaracer), then imported into US, then shipped from their to UK, so two sets of costs. I reckon I usually pay about 30-35 for each Conti tyre, but I only buy them every 5 years or so at most. So these cost double and here’s hoping they don’t wear out too quickly!

Thanks for posting about the Rene Herse tyres. Could you let us know sometime down the line please - how they are in terms of longevity, punctures & ride quality?

 

[rogerzilla]

Rebuilt the back wheel on the Harry Quinn track bike with a better example of a Record Pista hub. Couldn't get bearing adjustment right (you have to do it AFTER tensioning the wheel on hubs with nutted cup and cone hubs). Decided it might be a bent axle although the hub was NOS and unused. Axle looked ok when rolled on a worktop but a used Record Pista axle from my shed totally solved it and proved the NOS one was bent. So that's why no-one ever built it into a wheel!

 

[LeetleGreyCells]

Not really fettling, but a puzzle to work out. A new ETC Watchman Camera Light arrived this morning which was great and then it came to mount it on the bike which had me scratching my head for a few minutes. The back of the light shell is angled to help aim the camera and this mounts onto the seat post. When mounted on the seat post, the light doesn't leave room for my saddle bag. Not acceptable. Tried lots of permutations and couldn't figure out how to mount the camera light. It wouldn't go on the seat stay as then the lens would be pointing up at the sky. Finally, it came to me to mount the light on my saddle bag using some of the extra rubber bands that came with the light sliding them under the Topeak logo badge on the saddle bag. Success! It was attached. It seems secure (famous last words).

I'm not sure how effective it's going to be though as the saddle bag wobbles quite a lot even when I've got the velcro strap tight on the seat post. I will have to test the camera picture and report back. I may have to find some way to stop the saddle bag wobbling.