Today I did something to my bike thread...

Finally, got the spokes tensioned, rims dished, centered, and had my first ride on them to work this morning.

They feel great. I like them .

Came home this afternoon after seeing the in laws and taking the missus out to dinner only to find it was raining. Had planned on cleaning my Canyon and stuff.

Raining outside = no

Missus suggested doing the work in the kitchen, if I put newspaper on the floor :eek:

I tested things to see if it was some sort of trap tbh. Apparently not.....

Ended up changing the tyres on the Canyon from 23c Gator skins to Conti Gp 4000s II with 23c at the front and 25c at the back due to a thread I read here.

Learnt how to put on folding tyres.

Cleaned the chain and cassette too. All shiney etc.

Still no idea what price I have to pay to be let do it in the house.

I'll find out soon enough.

Unknown Soldier wrote: »

Came home this afternoon after seeing the in laws and taking the missus out to dinner only to find it was raining. Had planned on cleaning my Canyon and stuff.

Raining outside = no

Missus suggested doing the work in the kitchen, if I put newspaper on the floor :eek:

I tested things to see if it was some sort of trap tbh. Apparently not.....

Ended up changing the tyres on the Canyon from 23c Gator skins to Conti Gp 4000s II with 23c at the front and 25c at the back due to a thread I read here.

Learnt how to put on folding tyres.

Cleaned the chain and cassette too. All shiney etc.

Still no idea what price I have to pay to be let do it in the house.

I'll find out soon enough.

theres a difference? ive never noticed any difference to wired...

Stuck my new wheels on and a bigger gear for racing on Wednesday.

Unknown Soldier wrote: »

Came home this afternoon after seeing the in laws and taking the missus out to dinner only to find it was raining. Had planned on cleaning my Canyon and stuff.

Raining outside = no

Missus suggested doing the work in the kitchen, if I put newspaper on the floor :eek:

I tested things to see if it was some sort of trap tbh. Apparently not.....

Ended up changing the tyres on the Canyon from 23c Gator skins to Conti Gp 4000s II with 23c at the front and 25c at the back due to a thread I read here.

Learnt how to put on folding tyres.

Cleaned the chain and cassette too. All shiney etc.

Still no idea what price I have to pay to be let do it in the house.

I'll find out soon enough.

Probably the shiny ready for collection bike is already on Adverts!

Finished building up my tt bike, took it out for its maiden voyage this morning, still needs a few 'tweaks' but I love it

Laced up a new Stans rim with an 8-sp Alfine hub for use on the Single Speed MTB.
The purpose being able to switch from SS to geared in 15mins if the need arises, longer days or for certain terrain etc.
It’s been nearly 18months since I last got busy with a handful of spokes & bits so doubting myself I followed a few youtube clips only to end up stripping it back twice as I was just not entirely happy with the results.
Finally I just closed the laptop and did my own thing and got it right.
I’m gonna go with the lesson being learnt is not to doubt one’s own awesomeness!!

25mm in one go. This is going to be interesting.

Should have explained that a bit better. I felt like I was stretching for the bars. This was due to the saddle pointing upwards and me effectively sliding back. It's now leven and moved forward on the rails and with a smaller stem adding to the saddle being raised.

CJC999 wrote: »

You felt the bike was too big for you so you raised the saddle a full inch??? They say that raising the saddle 1mm increases the angle of your upper/lower leg by 1degree so you have effectively increased the angle of your leg/knee/lower leg by 25 degrees which is a huge increase so unless your saddle was ridiculously low then you may find your new position might cause problems

Surely that should be 1/10th of a degree.

jinkypolly wrote: »

Surely that should be 1/10th of a degree.

No... 1 full degree per millimeter.

New Tiagra chain set to replace the old FSA one.
Bottom bracket needed replacing a coukdnt get an FSA one do went for Tiagra,

The defy 2 is now fully Tiagra and seems a bit smoother

Changed a chain on Sunday. On the Monday commute I found the cassette was starting to jump on one cog so changed the cassette last night. When refitting the wheel, my rear mech fell off! Hanger broken. Took spare hanger* out of toolbox and fitted that.







* Everybody keeps a spare hanger in their toolbox don't they?...

Carbon seat post.

Almost there.

Seaneh wrote: »

Just about to roll it out the gate for a quick spin and noticed a bulge on the back, looked closer and the tire was still sitting the wrong side of the rim near the valve.

What happens here is when you're mounting the tyre, it lands on top of the tube and valve. Then when you pump it up, the tube pushes the tyre bead back over the rim.

For future reference, when mounting a tyre, push the valve stem back into the wheel so the tube clears the tyre bead and then seat the bead. That will avoid this issue.

Last month I finally revamped my old touring bike, a 1994 Trek 520. It was parked up, worn out, 5 years ago thanks to a new bike from the bike-to-work scheme, so it was time to get it usable again. I had a medium sized box of spares so used them as much as possible.

Dumped: the mudguards, chain, saddle, cateye 'computer'. The U-lock and front pannier racks went into the spares box.

Replaced: ALL the cables and housings, handlebar tape (on top of fisik gel pads) and a new Giant back wheel/hub/block. (The latter was donated by another victim of theft. The owner locked only the back wheel of her new bike and that's all that was left one day... )

Revamped: the middle ring was already a steel replacement and only slightly worn, so I flipped it to get a nice unworn profile again. Derailleur was rebuilt with new jockey wheels. Speedplay pedals got new grease and bearings. Brooks saddle had its broken rails replaced at the factory for less than the cost of a replacement.

New: Skinny mudguards, Schwalbe Marathon tyre, folding Abus bar lock, 8-speed chain, kickstand, QuadLock mount for phone/Strava (not shown)

In all, it was pleasant evening work over 3 weeks, and I can resist the need to acquire a carbon road bike, for a while at least...

Edit:- if you can get it, super fine 0000 steel wool is your friend, it just eats rust without scratching (much). Also wrapping handlebars is not as bad as it seems, even if I did put it off for a decade. Finally, the bar end shifters may look olde, but they did let me to move from a 7 speed to 8 speed block without any new equipment.

Scrappy600 wrote: »

New bar tape, lost one of my bar end plugs on my last spin and couldn't see any separate ones at short notice, so decided I'd go the whole hog and change the tape too. Only realised when I opened the packet that the new plugs were chrome and I wanted plain black with the black tape. Don't even think I like the tape now that it's on. Bugger.

Screw in (actually they use an expanding nut) bar plugs only cost a fiver and don't get lost or come loose.

gadetra wrote: »

I am indeed a female type…I hope :eek: I have no bar tape at the moment, and did 124k today, and my right arm and hand have yet to stop being numb and weak - I got back at 4 o clock. I am not a former East German Olympian either sadly, although my top is the same weight as my bottom, most female types are and I ride in the drops 90% of the time. An arm goes numb or weak every time I go over 60k, and I lose sensation in my little fingers every time I go over 30k so some shock absorption would be nice I think! But I only ever had cotton bar tape so maybe cork would be a good upgrade? ANything's better then the current nothing!





Yeah I had cotton, that does look beautiful, but the numbness and weak thing may be alleviated somewhat by the padded-y cork/gel type things. Maybe? Unless shellac has gotten spongy since used it last

Yeah sorry I was assuming that 1. Cork vs gel was the discussion and 2. That you had some form of bartape.

Also weight distribution. I'm cartoonishly top heavy whereas the buffest woman I've ever met (bodybuilder) was still pretty evenly proportioned.

But ymmv and also use at least cork. Does changing hand position help at all with the numbness?

gadetra wrote: »

Well it's not just the shoulder muscles that add weight I suppose we are evenly proportioned though, I suppose it's my cycling stye that adds pressure-I am comfiest down on the drops and tend to stay there a lot. I do vary it a bit, but not enough probably.

Is cork as shock absorbent as gel? The sister said she wanted some for her bike too. She wants pink. I showed her multiple non-pink options. She still wants pink. I am disturbed. Her bike is red. I see a large clash in her future!

I find cork does the job with padded (not gel) mitts or even just my neoprene winter gloves (I heart them).

I spend a fair amount of time in the drops (less so on the Tifosi but still) and have found that when my hands are getting numb moving back towards the end plugs helps a lot.


Edit: have you tried cold water for the post ride numbness. I used to get numb/micro shakes after using a punch bag. Cold running water sorted it out (apparently it was the result of a souped up blood flow to the surface).

Bit of bling thrown at the rothar today. I'll look the part at least

Before


After


I think I might need to upgrade the frame next. Ground up