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

Yeah if you don't want anything fancy I'd just use Strava and stick it in your pocket.

If you want it on your bike, you can get very good phone mounts.

I've a Dremel, and like every other offer I've made on boards, if you're anywhere near Naas, pm and we can sort something out

Front wheel was jumping a small bit on breaking and discovered a small dent and raised spot on the braking surface where it must have taken a bang. Smoother it out as best I can but a little worried about the small chip out of it. Thoughts on this and if I need a new rim/wheel

I'd second that

Isn't that a wear indicator on the rims braking surface?

I.E. when it's worn away and no longer visible, the wheel is not safe to ride.

Yeah no it’s not the wear indicator. On these rims There’s a line around them which is the west indicator. This was definitely a bang as the material which had filled that spot was raised up and I could feel the breaks hitting it every rotation until I cleaned it up.

pretty sure on the tyre you can see some signs of the same bang as the rim as it’s a bit scuffed there

I had a "slow" moving derailleur recently. New cable didn't completely solve the issue (it did improve a bit) but a good cleaning and a new cable had it shifting like new.

Another job for when I get a chance. Old bike not happy shifting through them right

Cassette is on the bike from new, so about 1500 miles on it. Chain was replaced a little over a year ago, there's about 760 miles on it. Checked it with a chain checker, it's close to 0.5 stretch, still a way off 0.75. It's 9 speed Sora, so should be a bit of life in it yet. I think it's most likely a sticky derailleur/cable combo issue, so I'll start with the cheapest option 😁

Well, I'll ignore it for tomorrow morning's cycle.

Then I might take off the derailleur and clean it ( or maybe I'll just have a cup of tea, depends)

Not very often.

I've to do the back brake annually main bike. Gets a light rub where it comes out from frame.

From the above seems I may have to do rear gear cable on old bike.

Never done front cable or outer on a bike.

No play in the cage, and the derailleur returns to the smallest cog when released, and not connected to the cable.

I'm thinking that I might have inadvertently caused the issue myself. When I was initially taking slack out of the cable, I opened the cable clamp and pulled the cable tight, then tightened it back up.

It could be that I was over enthusiastic, and that in 'neutral', as such, the cable was pulling inboard, preventing me from fully releasing the derailleur.

I'll check it out tomorrow

I've got a Shimano CS-HG-700 11-34 (11 speed) cassette on the way to me. This is 105 equivalent for 11-34. I'm a bit confused looking at the Shimano website about freehub compatibility as I know it is one of those rare cassettes that works with both 10 & 11 speed Shimano.

I want to fit it to a normal 11-speed freehub body - do I need a spacer?

Yes you will! But I think it will come with it.

Edit - yes, it does come with the 1.85mm spacer. See here for HG800 which is the same.

Thanks all for the replies

@Rosahane - got it on Bike24, was over 50 or even 55 euros though but that seems to be going rate for a 105-level cassette these days, they were much closer to 30 three or four years ago

So, I took off the derailleur, stripped it, cleaned it, and reassembled, took off the cassette and cleaned it, put in a new inner shift cable, replaced some sections of the outer (I had zero interest in removing and rewrapping bar tape), and finally, cleaned the chain while everything else was off the bike.

Result. Shifting through all the gears, nice clean changes, no ghost shifting, no double shifting.

I've no idea which of the things I did above fixed the problem, but it's probably a combination of all of them

Sorted with a hammer and a length of metal bar

Has anyone got a left Shimano shifter model ST-R7020 or ST-R8020 they'd sell me? Mine took the brunt of a sudden and unpleasant coming together with a Land Rover drivers door and is leaking hydraulic oil so needs replacing (LBS can't repair) but supplier lead times are nuts so scrambling round trying to locate one.

For an old fart I managed to bale right fairly sharpish but ended up landing awkwardly on the handlebar and bending it beyond repair which didn't do my hip any favours but my hands were fine. It was possibly me landing on the handlebar which damaged the shifter. I got the handlebar replaced and but didn't spot the damage to the shifter until a few weeks later when I could feel the lever was travelling way too far before biting the brake so LBS checked it out and topped up the hydraulic oil etc but the lever travel continued to grow and the leaking oil started presenting under the hood. The conclusion is there must be a hairline or other type of fracture in the body of the shifter or perhaps a component has cracked or failed somehow.

Bottom line is the shifter needs to be replaced but no one seems to have them in stock and the "hoped for" lead time is 3-4 months minimum 😥

There are lots of thru axle adaptors on the market, just google thu axle adaptor

Im not sure about the brake question. Theoretically you could, I suppose, as you dont have to brake (I assume) on the trainer. If you have haydraulic brakes, make sure to put a spacer in the caliper to prevent you inadvertantly pressing the brake lever and poppint the piston out

New spare wheel most likely - some wheels have end caps where you can swap from QR to thru axle, but this is more the case for disc wheels. If it is an older rim brake wheel then very likely it will only work on QR

Cheers guys, thanks for that. Will let a shop have a look at it I guess and see what's doable (or not !)