Assuming Spring Comes, What Do We Need to Change in Bikes and or Equipment

[Greenbelt]

@fuzzy 47410 wrote:

Buy screen-door mesh for the helmet vents or they’ll get clogged by cicadas.

Do they have carbon fiber mesh, or do we have to go with all-metal?

[OneEighth]

Now is probably a good time to pull things apart, clean, and re-grease—especially headset bearings and bottom brackets. I will most likely follow-up with another round of cleaning and re-greasing after the April showers are past.

[vvill]

Hm… I haven’t had any of my bikes’ bottom brackets, headsets, hubs or pedals serviced, ever. I guess I should consider it?

[hozn]

@vvill 47417 wrote:

Hm… I haven’t had any of my bikes’ bottom brackets, headsets, hubs or pedals serviced, ever. I guess I should consider it?

Well, a lot of modern stuff uses cartridge bearings, which really aren’t serviceable; they’re just “replaceable” I used to try to service outboard bb bearings, but once you pry off those seals they never last much longer (at least in my experience). So trying to service sealed bearings is probably not a good idea. I also used to soak chains in degreaser periodically; that also did not extend the life of the chain. Now I just use rock n roll lube and replace the chain when it’s .5mm “stretched” (which seems to be every 2k miles) and then replace the cogs and rings with every other or third chain.

I do have a Chris King bottom bracket on my commuter that has a grease gun fitting that allows me to purge the grease every 6 months or so. So far it has outlasted my gxp bearings (which seem to last me around the life of a drivetrain), but it has only been about 6k miles, so it needs to last at least another 12k before it will start to make economic sense.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

[GuyContinental]

@vvill 47417 wrote:

Hm… I haven’t had any of my bikes’ bottom brackets, headsets, hubs or pedals serviced, ever. I guess I should consider it?

Pedals- absolutely. If your clipless pedal rotates without minor resistance, it needs grease. If it wobbles on its spindle you have probably worn out the bearings (good news is that they are often replaceable)

As Hozn said most modern bearings aren’t truly serviceable but getting in there cleaning the races and re greasing the contact points will extend their life. On bottom brackets in steel bikes I like to clean out accumulated corrosion and grease the shell.

[vvill]

Thanks for the tips, hozn and GuyContinental. I’m glad I don’t really have to service anything much other than I’m already doing. I’ll have a look at my road bike pedals since they have at least 6000 miles on them.

I also try to replace the chain every .5mm and yeah that does seem to be every 2k miles. Last time I missed it until 3k miles and it was more stretched than that, so I may just leave the current one until 3k miles and then change the cassette as well. I probably won’t buy an Ultegra cassette again though, they’re so expensive!

[krazygl00]

@hozn 47424 wrote:

Well, a lot of modern stuff uses cartridge bearings, which really aren’t serviceable; they’re just “replaceable” I used to try to service outboard bb bearings, but once you pry off those seals they never last much longer (at least in my experience). So trying to service sealed bearings is probably not a good idea. I also used to soak chains in degreaser periodically; that also did not extend the life of the chain. Now I just use rock n roll lube and replace the chain when it’s .5mm “stretched” (which seems to be every 2k miles) and then replace the cogs and rings with every other or third chain.

I do have a Chris King bottom bracket on my commuter that has a grease gun fitting that allows me to purge the grease every 6 months or so. So far it has outlasted my gxp bearings (which seem to last me around the life of a drivetrain), but it has only been about 6k miles, so it needs to last at least another 12k before it will start to make economic sense.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD

I’ve been thinking of a CK bottom bracket as much for the bling factor as the durability.

Even if you don’t service the sealed BB bearings, I find it is a good idea to remove the cartridges, clean and re-grease the threads and reinstall. In fact I’ve detected a bit of creaking lately on my road bike so I may be due. I may experiment this go-around with backing them out half or three-quarters of the way, spraying liberally with WD-40, re-greasing and then re-torquing. I’m super paranoid about cross-threading a BB.

[krazygl00]

@vvill 47436 wrote:

Thanks for the tips, hozn and GuyContinental. I’m glad I don’t really have to service anything much other than I’m already doing. I’ll have a look at my road bike pedals since they have at least 6000 miles on them.

I also try to replace the chain every .5mm and yeah that does seem to be every 2k miles. Last time I missed it until 3k miles and it was more stretched than that, so I may just leave the current one until 3k miles and then change the cassette as well. I probably won’t buy an Ultegra cassette again though, they’re so expensive!

What kind of pedals? Speedplays have a kind of “grease fitting” on them that makes it easy to flush out the old grease with new.

I was buying Sram cassettes but they were seriously biting into my drive shell and making them devilishly hard to remove, so I went to Ultegra because of the super nice carriers they are made with. I don’t know why Sram isn’t using the same thing for their (non-Red) cassettes. In my opinion, the Ultegra are worth it.

[GuyContinental]

@krazygl00 47517 wrote:

I was buying Sram cassettes but they were seriously biting into my drive shell and making them devilishly hard to remove, so I went to Ultegra because of the super nice carriers they are made with. I don’t know why Sram isn’t using the same thing for their (non-Red) cassettes. In my opinion, the Ultegra are worth it.

Ditto on both counts- I get 5K out of a well maintained Ultegra chain & cassette combo and had huge troubles with SRAM cassettes and soft free-hub bodies. In fact, I’m probably due a set soon…

[vvill]

Is the 105 cassette very different? I noticed last year when I replaced my stock 105 cassette with an Ultegra one there was some biting into the freehub body, but just assumed all cassettes did that to some extent.

5k?! I can’t imagine even regular maintenance would prevent my chain stretching as it does for 5k, because I assume the wear from road grit, etc doesn’t affect chain stretch – or does it?

[Arlingtonrider]

@acc 47183 wrote:

So what do I need to do with my bike? Anything in particular I need to check?

Do I really need to have it tuned professionally for the season?

Maybe not, but I like to get it done every couple of years, especially if I have a lot of mileage. This year, I had a gift certificate for a tune-up that Papillon donated for a drawing at the Arlington Fun Ride, so I made an appointment and decided to add a little more money and upgrade to the full-tilt boogie version tune-up, which apparently includes bike detailing.

My bike was ready in one day and came back not only as a well-lubed and finely-tuned machine, but also so clean and beautiful (wheels, drive train, everything) that I had to take some photos before riding it this morning. . Many thanks to the folks at Papillon for their generous support of community events and for the sweet job they did on my bike! They also suggested a return visit after about 100 miles for some included re-tweaking of the adjustments.

[brendan]

@Arlingtonrider 47621 wrote:

My bike was ready in one day and came back not only as a well-lubed and finely-tuned machine, but also so clean and beautiful (wheels, drive train, everything) that I had to take some photos before riding it this morning. . Many thanks to the folks at Papillon for their generous support of community events and for the sweet job they did on my bike! They also suggested a return visit after about 100 miles for some included re-tweaking of the adjustments.

Heh. John and Bailey, the shop kids and Yuki are the best.

Brendan

[brendan]

@vvill 47595 wrote:

Is the 105 cassette very different? I noticed last year when I replaced my stock 105 cassette with an Ultegra one there was some biting into the freehub body, but just assumed all cassettes did that to some extent.

5k?! I can’t imagine even regular maintenance would prevent my chain stretching as it does for 5k, because I assume the wear from road grit, etc doesn’t affect chain stretch – or does it?

Grit is exactly what causes it: the grit gets captured in between the rollers and bushings which grinds material down. Proper lubrication reduces the grit’s ability to wear the metal down. Lubricated grit is like wet sandpaper: it is much less effective at grinding. Cleaning can get rid of some/most of the grit. Lubricating reduces the effectiveness of what grit is left.

The grinding from the grit in between the roller and bushing allows play to develop between the two parts (spacing). Collectively all these extra spacings add up to what is known as chain stretch. The links plates are all still the same size, but they can now be slid slightly back and forth due to the growing gap inside.

The stretched chain no longer fits as perfectly in the troughs of the sprockets so the sprockets start to wear down due to the spacing mismatch because the rollers no longer sit evenly on the metal and put more stress on smaller areas of the trough/sprocket, asymmetrically wearing them faster and faster.

Or…so I’ve read.

Brendan

[cephas]

@hozn 47278 wrote:

In addition to being lighter and better venting, nicer helmets tend to have great retention/size-adjustment systems that make for a comfortable fit and are easy to adjust. … And by “nicer” here, I just mean in the $60-$70 pricepoint; above that you’re looking at pretty diminishing returns.

I must disagree. I have the Superlight, and while it took my bank account down, it helped me hold my head up high, without all the sore neck muscles. If you ride far or long, I’d definitely say it’s worth the lighter weight.

[hozn]

@vvill 47595 wrote:

Is the 105 cassette very different? I noticed last year when I replaced my stock 105 cassette with an Ultegra one there was some biting into the freehub body, but just assumed all cassettes did that to some extent.

5k?! I can’t imagine even regular maintenance would prevent my chain stretching as it does for 5k, because I assume the wear from road grit, etc doesn’t affect chain stretch – or does it?

Yeah, the 105 cassettes I have used have engagement points that only interface every few splines on the free hub, this makes them chew freehubs horribly. I have had much better luck with SRAM 1050 or 1070 cassettes. I haven’t used Ultegra recently.

So, AFAIK chain stretch is actually the material in the link connections wearing out. So road grit does have a big effect on this. I definitely notice that I need to replace my chain closer to 1500 miles on my commuter (esp when weather has been bad) compared to the 2000+ miles on my fairweather road bike.

[Author]

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