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the 'there's no such thing as a stupid question' bike maintenance thread

magicbastarder

is there a simple list of chemicals which you should not get near disc brake pads? i.e. would even something like a detergent cause issues with contamination; i was wondering as i was cleaning the bike earlier if i can be overcautious in cleaning the bike near the brakes.

any tips on looking after a steel frame? my latest purchase has mountings for racks and also a couple of unthreaded holes - should i tape those up to keep water out, or leave them uncovered to let the water out should it get in?

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Deano12345

cletus wrote: »

If it was me, I'd just tighten down the locking on the cassette you have and see how it feels.

Won't take more than a few minutes

That’s the plan for tomorrow anyway, was getting late when I was looking at it last night and I knew I would have done something stupid if I kept working at it!

onlineweb

magicbastarder wrote: »

not just big (up front) to biggest (at back) - you should try to avoid going from big up front to maybe the three biggest at the back. those gear ratios will be available - without cross chaining - going from the small up front to the gears on the middle at the back.

it's common enough that if you want to change to an easier gear, but have travelled far enough up the cassette at the back, to drop to the smaller ring on the front while dropping two small rings down at the back.

Sounds as if the combination of large large & small small can cause more trouble than they are worth due to wear and tear.

Perhaps they should do away with them by removing the largest and smallest from the back cog. So you will have 9 cogs instead of 11.

magicbastarder

you mean keep the max ratios but narrow the cassette? too many gaps in ratio between gears then.

it's not difficult to avoid cross chaining once you're aware of the concept.

onlineweb

magicbastarder wrote: »

you mean keep the max ratios but narrow the cassette? too many gaps in ratio between gears then.

it's not difficult to avoid cross chaining once you're aware of the concept.

Ok, cool.

nialljf

How much wear on rim braking surface is too much? Is it too much if I can feel any concave wear at all?

Tony04

onlineweb wrote: »

Sounds as if the combination of large large & small small can cause more trouble than they are worth due to wear and tear.

Perhaps they should do away with them by removing the largest and smallest from the back cog. So you will have 9 cogs instead of 11.

Why would you do that?

Theres no point cross chaining as it's an inefficient way of cycling anyway forgetting about the wear it causes to the chain.

Using big ring big sprocket is pretty much the same gear ratio as using small ring middle sprocket and small ring small sprocket is the same gear ratio as using big ring middle sprocket.

Getting rid of the big and small cogs makes no sense as when you pair big small you've your biggest gear or small big lowest gear.

You can still cross chain on a 9 speed cassette and the cassette isnt even that much narrower anyway

The advantage of 11 speed is not that you have 22 gears, with cross chaining and similar gear ratios you probably only have 16-18 it's that you can have a very low gear and a very big gear and very close gear ratios in between so no big jumps

tomasrojo

Type 17 wrote: »

You were told correctly - riding with big-big or small-small is called cross-chaining and it causes rapid wear of chain, rings and sprockets.

I've read that cross-chaining isn't so big a deal with modern chains.

Trying to find out where I read that (I didn't find it) led me to this, with SRAM being pretty blasé about it, while other manufacturers less so.
https://road.cc/content/feature/cross-chaining-it-really-all-bad-213468

However, my touring bike chain is I think one link too short, because I removed one link years ago to stop the chain slapping off the chain stay, and I kept the same length every time I changed the chain.

But four years of cycling a bakfiets mean that I now hang around in the big chain ring most of the time on my touring bike, because of my greater leg strength. So now if I accidentally go big chain ring/biggest sprocket the chain jams. I probably should go back to living with the chain slap.

tomasrojo

nialljf wrote: »

How much wear on rim braking surface is too much? Is it too much if I can feel any concave wear at all?

When I was broke I kept running my wheels until one day the wall of the rear wheel deformed when I used tyre levers to get the tyre off.

This is definitely too much wear! At that point I found some money and bought new wheels.

I think if you can see concavity I'd schedule a wheel change for the near future, just to be on the safe side.

Just to be clear, never run wheels to the point that the walls deform under relatively modest pressure, as I did!

There's sometimes a shallow groove on the wheel wall that I think is meant to indicate excessive wear: if the groove can't be seen, it's time to change. Dara in Bee Cycles seemed to reckon these weren't up to much as indicators, if I recall the conversation I had with him correctly.

This seems a reasonable method:

https://cyclingtips.com/2016/11/when-to-replace-a-road-bike-wheel/

magicbastarder

tomasrojo wrote: »

Trying to find out where I read that (I didn't find it) led me to this, with SRAM being pretty blasé about it

Talking about what pros do as if it's a plus is on odd one. Pros don't have to worry about paying for new drivetrains or about the work to replace them.

tomasrojo

Yes, true, but SRAM seem to be saying that it doesn't cause a lot of wear anyway,as long as the chain isn't rasping on the cage.

saccades

Tony04 wrote: »

Middle of the cassette you'll lose high gears and low gears depending on the chainring size not due to the chainline, in fact only really high gears thanks to the new high range cassettes, especially on enduro mtbs etc.

1 x is a better system imo as its simpler but just doesn't have the range on a road bike

My MTB has 500% range, how much more do you need?

My next road bike will be 1x

ironictoaster

ironictoaster wrote: »

Quick question.

I recently got a new bike however after a couple of days. I'm starting to notice a clicking sound when in the large chain ring in a high gear for every revolution. I checked obvious things like cables hitting the chain etc but I'm convinced it's the chain rubbing off the FR.

Just wondering does anyone think this is a quick fix?

I looked at a few videos and seems you change the limiting screws. I turned them slightly and retested and it seems not make a difference.

Am I better off going back to the shop with this?

Thanks!

Just an update on this. I brought the bike back to the bike shop. The mechanic seem pissed I was back so soon. He rode it around the car park and he said he could hear no clicks, second mechanic rode it heard the click and preceded to move the FR cage by hand. Problem fixed.

Glad it's fixed now, customer service wasn't great but its understandable as they were flat out busy.

Thanks for all help everyone. Happy cycling

Tony04

saccades wrote: »

My MTB has 500% range, how much more do you need?

My next road bike will be 1x

I guess a 50t set up with an 10t (I'd imagine if 1x is going mainstream it's going to be microspline that will do it) 50 t cassette would work. So you have you 5:1 ratio to grind away on flats and 1:1 ratio as your granny gear.

But I still cant see this working;
Big range cassettes are heavy to save weight you see aluminium rings being used on the mtb but these wear quicker, you can get away with this on the mtb as they're very scarcely used because you already have the smaller 30-36t chainring on the front.

On a road bike your going to be using the high cogs alot
presuming you have a big chainring so you'll have to use steel rings unless you want to pay to change your cassette alot.
The deore 12 speed cassette, all steel, weighs about 600 grams so youd probably have to have something similar on the road bike also your rd is going to be heavier because of the higher range, so you acctually wouldnt be saving weight, when you think about it.

Also on a road bike a 500% range cassette is going to be very jumpy and hard to find the right gear so I dont think it will take off.

Even though it's much more a pain to maintain I think for the wide choice of gears I'll be sticking with 2x.

Even for the maintenance benefits the cassette mightnt be as mainstream and therefore harder and more expensive to change

Saying that I did spin the other day around ncd when I didnt shift down on the small chainring although equally did 50k with 1000+ elevation the next day that I wouldnt of completed without the little ring

statto25

Very daft question but what direction do you turn the front dereilleur barrel tensioner on an internally routed cable? I would be sitting on the bike if you get me

grogi

statto25 wrote: »

Very daft question but what direction do you turn the front dereilleur barrel tensioner on an internally routed cable? I would be sitting on the bike if you get me

That's a regular thread, so Left to give it more tension, right less tension.

statto25

grogi wrote: »

That's a regular thread, so Left to give it more tension, right less tension.

Thank you. Ive always had external cabling so wasnt sure.

smacl

statto25 wrote: »

Thank you. Ive always had external cabling so wasnt sure.

If you're trying to tighten it, it will be a bit easier if you pull the front mech towards you while doing it to give you a bit of slack. Was doing this the other day myself and the in-line barrel adjuster was very stiff and a bit awkward.

irishrover99

irishrover99 wrote: »

I dropped my bike into a lbs yo have the BB changed. The new BB is a bigger size so it needed the front derailleur adjusted.
When I collected it, the guy told me that I could do with a new front gear cable. I thought nothing of it as it was perfect when I dropped it in.
So cycling home I changed gear and it went to the small ring fine but it would not go into the big ring without a lot of pressure and it kinda jumps into the big chain ring. So today I spent 2 hours fiddling about trying to the change the cable and eventually I got it through the frame but it made no difference at all. It’s still very hard to push into the big chain ring.
Can anyone give any ideas to why this happened.
I’m pissed tbh and looks like I’ll end up bringing it to another shop which will cost me more money.

So just to update this. I bought a new r7000 front derailleur and it solved the issue. There was already an in-line barrel adjuster(as some suggested) on the cable but it didn’t resolve the issue well enough.

Thanks for the assistance.

onlineweb

I was 20 km into a cycle when my rear wheel started to make noise. At first I thought it might have been a branch wedged in the wheel, but there was nothing there.

Then I checked the chain and disc breaks, they both appear to be operating fine.

However, I noticed that the wheel is wobbling slightly from side to side. Any ideas?

magicbastarder

when you say it's wobbling - can you actually wobble the wheel from side to side? or is the wobble caused by a buckle in the rim?
are all spokes present and reasonably tight? i.e. no obvious looseness?

onlineweb

magicbastarder wrote: »

when you say it's wobbling - can you actually wobble the wheel from side to side? or is the wobble caused by a buckle in the rim?
are all spokes present and reasonably tight? i.e. no obvious looseness?

No, you only notice it moving from side to side when you spin the wheel.

Wheel, rim & spokes all appear to be ok.

Tony04

Thru axles/ qr skewer loose???

onlineweb

Tony04 wrote: »

Thru axles/ qr skewer loose???

Thru axle and quick release appear to be tight.

Type 17

Maybe loosen the thru-axle, jiggle the wheel (with the bike upright on its wheels), and then re-tighten the thru-axle.

onlineweb

Type 17 wrote: »

Maybe loosen the thru-axle, jiggle the wheel (with the bike upright on its wheels), and then re-tighten the thru-axle.

Unfortunately it didn’t work. It’s got worse.

Any suggestions?

Type 17

Cones have come loose?

Take a pic of two of the axle on the non-drive side - let's have a look at what we're dealing with.

What kind of noise is/was it?

onlineweb

Type 17 wrote: »

Cones have come loose?

Take a pic of two of the axle on the non-drive side - let's have a look at what we're dealing with.

What kind of noise is/was it?

Cones and the axle were ok.

It turns out that I need new ball bearings.

Effects

Looking for some advice on an issue with losing traction/power on my rear wheel. Seems to happen when I'm pushing hard, and hitting bumpy road service. Gears are indexing fine, so I don't think it's an issue with the derailleur/cogs. Could it be the freehub being worn out, so it's losing traction internally?

I haven't checked for chain wear, in case that could be the issue. I've order a wear checker anyway, but might not get it for a week or two.

According to Bikeradar:

A broken freehub is usually made apparent by the loss of power to the back wheel when pedalling. While many freehubs can be serviced, it’s easier to just replace basic Shimano models.

Had a few close calls, but then last Friday it happened when I was sprinting through a junction and I went down pretty hard. Scrapes and bruising from my ankles up to my shoulders.

Thinking of replacing the Shimano R500 wheelset for a CAMPAGNOLO CALIMA C17 WHEELSET to see if that will sort the issue out. Old wheels are out of true anyway, and seems like Shimano don't make these anymore. Do I need to worry about this:

*If the system weight is 82 kg or more, you should have your bicycle serviced more frequently to check the spoke tension.

I'm about 86kg before the bike weight. So close to 100kg in total when I'm carrying a pack.

cletus

Effects wrote: »

Looking for some advice on an issue with losing traction/power on my rear wheel. Seems to happen when I'm pushing hard, and hitting bumpy road service. Gears are indexing fine, so I don't think it's an issue with the derailleur/cogs. Could it be the freehub being worn out, so it's losing traction internally?

I haven't checked for chain wear, in case that could be the issue. I've order a wear checker anyway, but might not get it for a week or two.

According to Bikeradar:

Had a few close calls, but then last Friday it happened when I was sprinting through a junction and I went down pretty hard. Scrapes and bruising from my ankles up to my shoulders.

Thinking of replacing the Shimano R500 wheelset for a CAMPAGNOLO CALIMA C17 WHEELSET to see if that will sort the issue out. Old wheels are out of true anyway, and seems like Shimano don't make these anymore. Do I need to worry about this:

I'm about 86kg before the bike weight. So close to 100kg in total when I'm carrying a pack.

When you say you're losing traction, is it at the crank or the wheel itself. As in, the tyre is not holding traction on the ground, or it feels like she merging mechanical is slipping. If it feels mechanical, there could be wear on the pawl and ratchet, or perhaps even dirt in there

Effects

The tyre is holding traction to the ground alright. It feels like mechanical slipping. That's why I'm wondering if it's the hub.
If the chain was worn, it would slip on the cogs right?