What Have You Fettled Today?

[Vantage]

Waiting for brake cables to arrive via postman pat so I can do my flat bar conversion.
Done my distance testing on the ekit.
I've squeezed 90 miles out of it! And that's without being especially frugal on the help it gives.
There's something to be said for overpowered illegal emotors. They go further. And yes, it's still limited to 15.5mph before the angels start chastising me.

 

[Jenkins]

Time to replace the chain, cassette, bottom bracket and outer chainrings on two bikes and, while the bits were oiff the bikes, I swapped the inner chainrings between the two bikes so they'd match!

Firstly the Planet X pro-carbon - this was on the original SRAM Rival 50T outer ring and an aftermarket 36T ring (fitted when I took delivery and on minimal use). This bike's done about 8900 miles, mostly in the outer so it was badly worn and was replaced with a Spa Cycles own brand 50T ring. As the inner was non-matching, I took the one off the Venus commuter (see below) as it was a Spa 38T and fitted that in place of the 36T. The chain & cassette had done around 4500 miles together and needed doing, while the bottom bracket was still in fairly smooth condition but still got swapped out for a Praxis unit.
Pics ot the worn chainring next to the new replacement and the badly worn 16T and hardly used 17T rings of the cassette.

Ventus commuter - this had had the chainrings replaced less than 4 years ago, but in that time nearly 10,000 miles had been covered whille the chain, cassette & bottom bracket were replaced 2 years and about 5200 miles so all needed doing. I'd picked up a couple of cheap 48T unbranded chainrings from Spa to try out for less than the price of one of their own ones and one of these was paired up with the 36T inner from the Planet X as they nearly matched. I'll be happy if they last even 2/3rds the distance of the good Spa ones.Again, the bottom bracket was still fairly smooth but got swapped out for a Praxis item. Finally I replaced the bodged on Crud mudguard that protects the front derailleur - this has been on there since not long after I got the bike at the start of 2016 so money well spent!
Same pics as before - old & new chainrings, worn 16T & hardly used 17T cassette rings and the bodged on mudguard - it bolts to the SKS Raceblade clip as if it was designed for it.

 

[ColinJ]

I have stopped mid-fettle to have something to eat but I am pretty confident that the fettling will be completed later, and that a test ride tomorrow will confirm that the problem has been fixed. I will report back after that!

Test ride done - the bike is now better than it has been for years!

I am hoping to get through the rest of this year (which shouldn't be difficult because the bike will soon be hibernating!) and all of next year without major fettling being needed again. My riding is spread between multiple bikes and my annual distance is not stupendous so that should not be a problem.

My next fettling tasks are to sort out my CX/gravel bike and MTB which are both out of action.

I also want to replace the bearings in the freehub and pedals that I took off the bike.

 

[bikingdad90]

Wanted to move my pannier rack back slightly so as to avoid heel strike on the upstroke. Went to the DIY store and got some little brackets to move the rack up and back. It’s solid and should do the trick.

 

[Vantage]

View attachment 665511

Wanted to move my pannier rack back slightly so as to avoid heel strike on the upstroke. Went to the DIY store and got some little brackets to move the rack up and back. It’s solid and should do the trick.

Erm...all that's gonna happen there is that with enough weight on the rack, it'll force the brackets down and in turn the rack height will lower until the brackets hit the qr skewers/axle nuts. Once that happens there's the risk of the brackets snapping or bending around the skewers/axle.
Your best bet is a seatpost clamped rack. They do have a lower weight limit than standard racks though.

 

[bikingdad90]

Erm...all that's gonna happen there is that with enough weight on the rack, it'll force the brackets down and in turn the rack height will lower until the brackets hit the qr skewers/axle nuts. Once that happens there's the risk of the brackets snapping or bending around the skewers/axle.
Your best bet is a seatpost clamped rack. They do have a lower weight limit than standard racks though.

Tested that one out already, I leaned on the rack and put my body weight on it, didn’t budge.

It will not have too much weight on it anyway as it will not be used for serious touring, just the commute to work every now and then and to pop to the shops for groceries, most of the usage will be to cycle down to the gym over the winter as I don’t like road riding in the dark in winter. Family life prevents most daytime riding.

It is something I am monitoring and will keep an eye on it.

 

[si_c]

Non bike fettling today.

Fitted an outdoor tap so that I can use the hose. Sadly the pipe where the tap used to be had been secured in a different place previously (judging from the rawl plugs visible) but had come loose at some point and then been capped off by the previous owner/tenant. Secured the pipe and added the tap, but the tap is inverted at present, not an issue if I plan to use a hose, but amusing to look at.

I also fitted outdoor lights to the garage, wired them in and set them up, they now are connected via a smart switch so that I can turn them on or off using my phone. Easiest option compared to trying to get a switch installed in the house.

Also did some preliminary wiring for outdoor sockets, drilled through the garage wall and ran cable from outside to an isolation switch inside, wired it all up and secured a wooden plate inside so I can secure the cables. I've also cut and painted some wooden blocks for the outdoor sockets to mount to rather than trying to drill into the concrete walls, and I can mount that tomorrow. Just waiting for the paint to dry on the wood blocks first.

 

[bikingdad90]

Did some pro level bar tape wrapping with the lifeline bar tape. Pretty stretchy and easy to work with.

Found the black shifter hood that went missing. @ColinJ better?

 

[ColinJ]

Found the black shifter hood that went missing. @ColinJ better?

Very much so!

 

[Vantage]

Having messed about converting the bike to flat handlebars I discovered I didn't like them. So, having tried the continental style touring bars earlier in the year and now these bull horn type it seems drop bars are the only type that my arms are happy with.
So, yesterday I did more messing about fitting the old drops back on. Checking the gears I noticed some bobbing in the rear wheel. Had my increasingly fat arse finally squished it?
This morning I dug out the wheel truing stand and checked. Nope, still as true as when I built it The tyre just hadn't been seated properly. Checked the front wheel too while the stand was out. It needed a slight tweak.
Noticing a ticking noise from the rear wheel I decided to strip the rear hub. Ugh. Mirky much? Cleaned, regreased and rebuilt. Running super smooth again. The same can't be said for the front hub which is sounding a bit groggy. Sealed bearing type crap so will wait till it dies and just buy a better hub someday. This'll be the second SP hub to go on me. Rubbish.

 

[CXRAndy]

Fitted a couple LED strip lights in the loft. I hate dark lofts

 

[si_c]

Painted the landing upstairs, was starting to paint the stairs when the plaster started to crumble and come away from the wall.

So this afternoon, I "replastered" the damaged section. It's far from a good job, but it'll let me sand and then paint with minimal observable difference from the rest of the wall.

 

[robrinay]

Bought a vintage French (non named) saddle for a tenner yesterday at Newark Runway Monday Antiques Fair and as they say up North it was as dry as old sticks and warped out of shape. A damp down plus a string wrap to reshape it and after an overnight slow dry away from direct heat I applied a generous coat of Vaseline and melted it in with a hairdryer. Result - it’s practically an arm chair in its comfort rating.

 

[chriswoody]

So after several years of hard use the rear hub of the Kona has developed some quite severe lateral play. Along with this the bearings felt rougher than a Badgers bottom.

Unfortunately it's a modern hub with no obvious means of working on it and no markings on it meant I couldn't find no technical documents. The only thing I knew from the original bike specs is that it is a Novatech hub, but no clue which model.

So this evening I sat down and had a play, removed the disc and cassette first, so I could see more clearly, then realised you could unscrew the disc side end cap off by hand. With that, it all came apart and I was left with this pile of parts.

Immediately I could see the sealing O-Ring around the end cap was shot, which in turn meant the end cap was not sitting properly, potentially the source of the float?

I then checked the bearings out, there appear to be three sealed bearings, one in the freehub assembly and two in the actual hub assembly. The freehub one felt absolutely fine, the two hub ones though are another matter. Removing the front seal reveals the rubber seal behind is completely rotten so I'll need to replace them. I checked online for replacements and struggled to find a direct replacement until I looked on the Enduro Bearings website and spent a fascinating half an hour educating myself on bearing designations! Turns out the numbers 6902 refer to the size and type of bearing and I could find these with no issue, however, the RS designation was where I was struggling, until a I read it meant "rubber seal" and is quite frankly a bit rubbish. There are much better ways to seal these bearings and soon I realised that the Enduro 6902 llb was not only available for 6 Euros each, but a good upgrade from what I have.

So there we go, I should be able to clean everything up and order these new bearings, just the small matter of working out how the hell I'm going to get the old ones out and also finding a suitable replacement O-Ring for the end cap.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Currently swearing at a rear mech, which will either shift accurately up, or down on the stand, but not both.

New cable;
Wheel straight
Hanger straight as far as I can tell.
New chain/cassette.

Still won't cooperate.

Next stage will be to change the mech unless anyone has another idea.