Mashing up a little incline trying to show up the kids, chain snaps and i almost eat asphalt.
Culprit was my dodgy chain join…and thats why folks you dont rejoin pins…at least dont mash on the chain if you do.
Finally got round to finishing a set of rebuilt wheels I’ve had sitting idle for months. They were dished and pretty much tensioned but not quite true. After half an hour of adjusting I wondered why they were basically the same, if not worse. Took me a while to realise I was mixing up the turn directions every few adjustments. Resorted to drawing the rotational directions on a strip of masking tape and putting it on the stand so I could get it right. Then finished both wheels in about 10 minutes. FMD
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18 balls came out of a hub. Placed safely on a rag. Didn’t move anywhere. 17 balls went back in. Still haven’t found it.
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Crank bolt loose (again) after tightening it at least 3 times with blue loctite. Cleaned it off, degreased bolt and spindle threads. Pulled out the loctite bottle. Realised it felt a little ‘bottom heavy’. Shook and squeezed it hard with the lid on to mix it up. Put a small dab on the bolt. Huh… Loctite is thicker than last time?
Dawns on me that it had settled in the bottle, and I’ve been applying the homeopathic equivalent of loctite, aka. blue water, to my crank bolt the last couple of months.
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Piecing together a single speed drivetrain from stuff in the shed.
Trying to join a ten speed chain with a quick link I found in a zip lock bag floating around in my commuting bag.
Couldn’t get it to join nicely at all.
Turned out to be two different brands of quick link.
I found both their friends in the shed.
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Tuned father in laws bike today (started riding with his golf mates since iso began)
He lubes with WD40, so his whole drive train was covered in grime, like jockey wheels that couldn’t move freely/chain could stand up by itself kind of grime.
Was fucking gross. Spent 3 hours cleaning and tuning.
Got it spotless and shifting perfectly.
He goes and test rides it and complains that when he 'shifts gears it makes a clunking sound.
I ride it, it’s shifting perfectly. He rides again to demonstrate. I still don’t understand.
After some back and forth I discover that the clunking he is referring to is actually what you would better describe as snappy shifting.
He prefers how it was before. ie, with the grime cushioning the chain as it smushes from cog to cog.
FML
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Maybe offer to throw it into coburg lake or lie it drive side down in a large muddy puddle in your nearest park…? What a goose.
I can remember starting out wondering where guys got those silver cassettes from and how come I was the only one with a black one.
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Still do…
Thought this minivelo project I’m working on had black hubs… till I took a rag to them.
hahahahahah what an absolute king Hubbard.
This is also why I rarely buy used bikes off triathletes. Maintenance? What’s that?
There are also modalities of disrepair. Rode behind Jensen Plowright yesterday and his bike was fecked, but in a pro way. Mad lad.
That and the yellow stains.
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I thought you quit bikes jamesy
im back in the game baby.
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Not sure this qualifies, but… Ordered 8 spokes and bag of nips to fix up a wheel. Measured the length twice, added spokes to cart, something was off - they seemed short, measured again, oh shit - they’re 285, not 258!, fixed up cart, still somehow ordered 1mm too small (284). Now thinking the existing spokes are probably slightly stretched, so maybe the 1mm too small was a helpful accident.
I always round up for my spokes, so 285’s would have become 286’s in my cart. Generally spokes come in 2mm increments, so that works out for me.
Reminds me, I’ve got a broken spoke in the back wheel on the Pivot I need to get sorted out.
Not exactly on topic, but close enough. Tore my derailleur and hanger off today - riding off track, and got a good stick wedged.
Cut the derailleur cable and cut short the chain for a SS conversion to get me the 35km home. Got about 5km before the chain slipped, snagged and snapped.
I had a spare quicklink for the chain, but needed to get back for school pickup so had to Uber. The Uber driver was a bit miffed by a muddy bike in the boot and muddy me on his seats.
Anyway I thought my bush mechanics was pretty pro, until it wasn’t.
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that’s some serious bad luck