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My free hub has been getting steadily worse on the commuter but, it's a job I'll always do next week.
Gave up about 4 miles from work, balls!!
At least it is a lovely day for a walk.
Freehubs plus a few, always one of those things that gets worse, then cures itself, you convince yourself it's fine then it goes 🙁
Crank-Bros pedals, got grittier and grittier, then fell off the axle.
My bikes do tend to go through bits until I fit something reliable, then once it's there it tends to be fine, so they do tend to gravitate towards singlespeeds with Hope everything.
Changed the travel on my fork Friday night, didn't make the time to set it up. Also my dropper has been sagging for weeks, haven't fixed it.
Arrived for a ride yesterday mechanically unprepared, poorly dressed for the colder than expected conditions, which meant I really wasn't in the mood and my arms was screaming just as things got fast and interesting so I sucked on the way up, sucked on the way down and had to sit in cold, wet clothes all the way home.
No one to blame but myself, but I wish I hadn't bothered.
Greasing the headset bearings! nahhhh don't bother until it cracks when you turn.
Probably freehub pawls won't make that mistake again though 😉
Probably freehub pawls won't make that mistake again though
Ssssshhhh, i've told my wife i'll be needing a new wheel.
What happened Rocketman? I've been putting that job off for months.
Usually your testicles hit the stem at about mach 3 as you gurn up a hill and the pawls finally let go.
IIRC there are three or four and when each one breaks it sounds like a mis-shiftWhat happened
When the last one breaks [b]your testicles hit the stem at about mach 3 as you gurn up a hill[/b] & when you've had a lie down for a bit you have to tie-wrap the cassette to the spokes so you can ride home in fixie mode
HTH
Excellent. I've not got any testicles, so I can safely keep ignoring my sticky pawls.
Always brake pads for me, I've got a syndrome which means I have to get every last bit of use out of them. Luckily, the backing plates on superstar kevlar pads are still pretty effective for braking with.
I've left a plethora of things too late in the past and it's cost me alot of money in the early years of my riding.
I have 2mtbs and these days I basically have a permanently running schedule of maintenance to stay on top of everything. It's like chores in the house, hoovering one day, washing the next, kind of thing.
Apart from damage picked up from actual riding, mechanicals are so infrequent now I can't really remember the last one.
It certainly makes for better rides.
I've not got any testicles, so I can safely keep ignoring my sticky pawls
I imagine a stem in the slats would be just as painful 🙂
Not changing the timing belt on my diesel Renault van at 120,000 as per the book. It went at 120,001 miles. Who would have thought Renault could be so reliable ?
Oh yes, riding home on the hack bike, 1.5 miles from the station so an easy walk/limp home if needed...
BANG! that was a 517 rim exploding and taking out the inner tube. People came out of their houses as it sounded like a gunshot. I thought it was getting thin. Walk home...
SNAP! that was my chain snapping and ramming my knee into the shifter. I thought those out of the saddle efforts were sounding a bit granchy. Limp home...
The area about the bottom bracket is looking a bit rusty, what could possibly go wrong next...
Rocketman - Member
I've not got any testicles, so I can safely keep ignoring my sticky pawlsI imagine a stem in the slats would be just as painful
It really would depend on the head angle
I dunno how you can ignore problems. All my bikes are in tip top condition
The bearings in my road bike are sounding more graunchy than my knackered old knees...I'll get another season out of them 😆
I dunno how you can ignore problems.
The serious answer to that is cost. I know I need to replace the hub bearings, headset and bottom bracket on my road bike, but I'm skint at the mo'.
The serious answer to that is cost.
And time. I commute everyday on my bike, and need it all the time. I just hardly ever see the window in which I can spend time working on the thing (or taking it in).
It really would depend on the head angle
Yes I can see how that would make a difference
I had an old SS. There was "a bit of play" in the cranks. It was octalink and I'd put in a cheap BB with the plastic cup on one side not the metal. I finally got round to replacing it. Went to unscrew it and pulled it out by hand. The plastic had failed and the whole BB had been moving (the bearings were fine!) and it had destroyed the threads.
Went to Molini with Riviera 3 years ago, one of our boys was, ahem, told beforehand to get his bike a full service, as it was hanging.
I reckon he rode 1 full day in total the whole trip....
stilltortoise - Member
The bearings in my road bike are sounding more graunchy than my knackered old knees...I'll get another season out of them
The knees or the bearings
I ignored the noise and play in the BB on my commuting bike until the axle wore so badly that it snapped through on the way home one day.
I'm really lazy when it comes to looking after that bike, as I use it every weekday, whatever the weather.
I had an old SS. There was "a bit of play" in the cranks. It was octalink and I'd put in a cheap BB with the plastic cup on one side not the metal. I finally got round to replacing it. Went to unscrew it and pulled it out by hand. The plastic had failed and the whole BB had been moving (the bearings were fine!) and it had destroyed the threads.
Dunno how I ever managed before, but my latest cartridge BB (bog standard Shimano UN type) came with instructions which I actually read, turns out you're not supposed to keep tightening it until the threads bottom out. Just torque it up properly and it leaves a fraction of a mm gap.
Made the mistake first time and they were really tight, done properly and they're fine.
Have shimano changed the design, or is it just me?
Actually, the freewheel slipped on the commuter this morning and I had a bit of a tankslapper moment, which I luckily managed to save.
Should probably do something about that now... 😕
Started an epic maintenance session on my full susser last night. Needs chain, chainring, cassette, jockey wheels. Bottom bracket. Forks lowers and shock air can service. Wheels tighten & true, probably should do the bearings in the rear. Was well before Christmas I last rode that bike.
Wheels need doing on the single speed too. 🙄
My MTB pretty much always just works. I'm not pedantic about it, it never really gets cleaned, I just make sure all the moving parts are doing what they should.
My commuter is the one that suffers. It's probably more dirt and zipties than bike nowadays. Last thing that went seriously wrong was the rear rim wearing through. Somehow managed to make it home on it though. Bolts holding on the rear guard corroded away too, so it rubbed the wheel . Brake pads are another thing. They tend to wear way past where they should before I notice.
Freehub is on the way out on the SS. It's just got to that stage where it seems to have fixed itself - it wont get done until I'm walking home with aching knackers 🙂
I finally got round to getting a white board in the garage so i can keep a track of the jobs that need doing.
My worst one was being thrown to the ground with force when my chain snapped on the dual slalom at chicksands that one hurt.
Beyond that having grinding and crunchy sounds is a pain in the arse when you forget it needs doing until the next ride.
Quite a few including:
Pedal locked up due (presumably) to a bearing or two breaking and jamming against others, on a trip to the shops so easy push home.
Not really maintenance but I had some old elastomer forks with fork boots, the action went pretty shit so put em on my old commuter removed the elastomers and ziptied the brace to the fork crown. Used for a while, unbeknown to me the stanchions corroded and eventually one of them gave up, cue some very wandery steering, fortunately I was next to a train station when I noticed.
I've scored a few BB axles when I've run dead BBs too long - see also headsets and fork steerers.
Pitted a disc rotor when I ran out of brake block a fair way from the car. Several months running the rotor with sintered pads got it smoothish (still in use on one of my bikes)
Only one scoot home from a failed freehub - wouldn't engage rather than cataclysmic pawl failure.
In the rim brake years I had some rims start to split at the brake surface - never actually had one explode tho.
Tend to run drivechains too long, just removed my commuter one which was slipping badly for a couple of months. Had a few cassettes that I've struggled to remove as they were so worn a chain whip wouldn't grip.
Erm jockey wheels too:
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Surly Cross-check set up fixed and ridden to work and back every day for ages. Slightly annoying ticking noise developed over a couple of weeks but figured it was the BB on the way out and I'd get to it before too long.
CX season started and with the new race bike not fully built up yet, decided to ride the Surly with the rear wheel on the freewheel side.
Halfway through and the ticking noise no longer a mystery at the bottom of a sharp little descent as I lay there dazed with feet still clipped in and my right hand holding half a handlebar. Crack had developed between the stem and my Exposure light mount and the ticking was the crack slowly getting bigger.
I exploded 7th gear on the casette of my commuter a few weeks back. So I'm riding it around in 6th now. I should probably get a new one, but that'll mean a new chain and cranks (as they're often cheaper than chainrings) and I may as well do the BB while it's in bits...it'll wait until something properly terminal happens to the drivetrain...
My old lathe was always a bit noisy, I figured it was because it was from 1942. Then suddenly it lost all power - the motor had been up against the edge of the cabinet, and it had very slowly sawed its own motor shaft in half.
The freehub is definitely considering its pension options on the commuter.
I also noticed a bulge in the rear tyre one afternoon before hopping on it to ride home. Deflated the tube, resat the tyre, pumped it up again and there it was. No worries thinks I, it'll get me home and I'll sort it there.
There's a pothole I (almost) always manage to dodge just before Shepherds Bush roundabout heading westbound. Obviously I didn't manage to miss it that day, and the sound of an almighty bang was swiftly followed by the tire vacating the rim. Oops.
[url= https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1642/24960037623_a2716a800e_c.jp g" target="_blank">https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1642/24960037623_a2716a800e_c.jp g"/> [/img][/url][url= https://flic.kr/p/E2CHAg ]Oops[/url] by [url= https://www.flickr.com/photos/11569254@N06/ ]molgrips[/url], on Flickr
@molgrips - I do that every year.
Every year I repeat "I must check the brake pads for wear sooner" and I end up losing a brake mid ride, around June/July time.
This time round, I replaced a wheel on my bike and was somewhat alarmed when the remains of the sintered pad dropped out.
Loads of life left in those. There's still spring left!
More concerned about the uneven pressure tbh. Could be down to the spring though, I suppose.
I serviced my FS and checked pad life, probably 50% left, and following a Swinley mud fest I was cleaning the bike. I happened to take the rear wheel out to check something and spotted some odd wear marks on rotor. On checking the pads there was nothing. It had gone about halfway through the metal on both sides 😯 . About 3000 miles prior to this on the pads to bring it to 50% and then one Swinley ride and it finished them off. Mad.
Amateur Molgrips!
I was a bit annoyed I changed the fronts slightly prematurely on these:
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I wore down the piston in the rear brake and trashed a pair of Hope floating rotors by wearing through the rivets. Had to send the brakes back for a rebuild. They turned down my warranty claim 🙁
Lol!
A 'friend of a friend' story so might not be true, but I do remember hearing about a bloke who did a very wet xc race somewhere very gritty and wore through pads, backing material and by the end of the race was using his pistons as braking material.
That's exactly what happened there ^^
Gorrick Enduro in 2010. They were brand new pads, used for less than 4 hours.
I ignored the increasingly rough rear axle in my commuter until it seized solid. I managed to push the bike all the way to the train station by opening up the QR and letting the whole thing rotate in the dropouts... it turns out that axle nuts are harder than steel frame dropouts, so I was left with a nice gouge in the frame.
Mate taking his lovely carbon epic for one last ride before selling it, tried to avoid unnecessary expense by only changing the outer front ring and chain on a thoroughly ignored drivetrain.
Walking up every single hill on a 50 mile ride in the Cotswolds left him in no doubt that the £18.99 saving was not good vfm
I stopped riding with one chap a few years ago.
He never maintained his bike. Would ride it until failure then we'd have to stand around while he'd try to fix it, fail. Then call the wife for a lift home. Probably once a month.
The straw that broke the donkeys back was the snapped crank (went across the square taper) while on a lads trip in Scotland. Wife was 300 miles away. The crack had been pointed out a month earlier.
We pointed him in the direction of the hostel and he walked/scooted/coasted his way there. About 20 miles iirc.
I understand he only runs these days.
I posted this on Facebook and commented about my lucky escape;
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What I didn't do was throw away it's partner. Instead I fitted it to my roady (much less wear on there) and forgot about it, until a few months later when...
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When it snapped it broke the chain which in turn bent both mechs and most of the drive-side spokes in my rear wheel! Bugger...
I snapped a chain so removed a link and added a split link which shortened the chain. I made a mental note not to use both big rings but every time I got home from a ride I was to tired to deal with it so just put it away in the garage. By the time I got it out again I'd forgot that it needed doing. This went on until I decided to sell the bike, again I forgot and testing the gears I banged it through the range and locked the back wheel up, snapping the mech and banging my clems in the process. Cost me £40 for a new XT mech just so I could sell the bike.
Having 2 kids really helps with me keeping on top of the bike maintenance as if I get a bit of spare time (when the wife is out) I'll bring the bike in the house, so I can still hear the kids, to give it a once over..
It's nice going out on a ride knowing that you've done as much as you can to prevent any mechanicals.
Ignored a knocking noise on my van, didn't notice it getting worse until I realised what used to only knock on a rough track was now knocking whenever I turned the wheel.
It would have been a simple fix, tightening up a bolt on the damper. But by the time I got round to taking a look, it had worn the bolt and ovalised the hole on the wishbone, so had to buy a new bracket. Thankfully it wasn't integrated into the wishbone:
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Had a customer in a while back, very proud of how he'd got every last bit of use from his HT2 BB, he wasn't quite so happy at the quote of another £230rrp for replacing the Ultegra chainset he'd ground through the axle of.
I took a fork to TF tuned a while ago after I'd had it about 4 years
They opened it up and tipped out a load of brown sludgy, gritty water
and said "you're lucky it's a marzocchi; don't leave it so long next time"
must be about time I amused them with it again
Quite a few years ago, I had a old diesel Peugeot 306 as I was racking up 110 miles per day commuting. The heater failed but rather than addressing the root cause, I bought an plug in electrical heater.
It started to lose water and I just topped it up occasionally. Needless to say, I had a pretty good idea the head gasket had blown when it suddenly lost all power in the outside lane of the M6/in peak hour traffic.
Cost me about grand to get the gasket done (and head skimmed) but, annoyingly, the car wasn't worth much more anyway.
Worryingly, I have similar symptoms with my current car but a pressure test was inconclusive...
scaredypants - MemberI took a fork to TF tuned a while ago after I'd had it about 4 years
They opened it up and tipped out a load of brown sludgy, gritty water
and said "you're lucky it's a marzocchi; don't leave it so long next time"
When I took my first motorbike in for its first service, I went to collect it and the boy put on the counter a can of coke, with the top cut off. Inside was maybe 150ml of brown, filthy oil, visibly full of bits of metal. "That was all that was in your engine. **** knows how it's still going. See all those shiny bits? That's probably crankshaft". It did another 10000 miles before I sold it, no fuss, then got written off by a bus. Who needs oil?
I snapped a chain so removed a link and added a split link which shortened the chain. I made a mental note not to use both big rings but every time I got home from a ride I was to tired to deal with it so just put it away in the garage. By the time I got it out again I'd forgot that it needed doing. This went on until I decided to sell the bike, again I forgot and testing the gears I banged it through the range and locked the back wheel up, snapping the mech and banging my clems in the process. Cost me £40 for a new XT mech just so I could sell the bike.
Thanks for reminding me that I'm still [b]two[/b] links short on my best bike. Last break was in August and I still haven't got around to changing it. That's despite having 2 brand new chains sitting next to me right now!
My roady / commuter shifting has been bad for a month or so after some serious winter mileage. Really struggling to shift between gears and skipping despite the mech being properly set up. Finally got round to ordering a new cassette and chain.
Before fitting the new cassette I noticed the build up of gunk between the sprockets on the old one. I cleaned the cassette and shifting is perfect again. The sticky oily gunk was holding the chain in place and stopping it shifting. Glad I didn't chuck it!
This thread makes me wince...
couple of years ago while commuting into work. was just over halfway there in the driving rain when the pedals refused to rotate. chain could be heard sticking somewhere at the back. backpedalling sorted it and then about 1 minute later it came back followed by a massive crack, snap and bang.
lower half of rear mech was nowhere to be seen; what remained of the rear mech had bent inwards and the mech hanger was bent; couple of driveside spokes had snapped; and the chain had snapped.
i found the rest of the mech on the road and then rejoined the chain to create a makeshift single speed. but the chain kept climbing up the sprocket and would then be too tight to turn. then the chain snapped again. so i rejoined it and this time i pedalled very slowly so i could feel when the chain was about to shift up and then back pedal it so it stayed. i managed another mile before the chain snapped again so again it got fixed. then another mile later it snapped again. by this point i was so fed up i decided to walk the remaining 1.5 mile to work and then took it home in the back of a cab
after i got it all fixed on another commute home i went over a pothole and heard a crack/snap noise from under the saddle. i assumed it was the rails just re-seating themselves on the saddle and thought nothing more. al looked fine on inspection. then i went to llandegla the week after.
2 miles in the saddle fell off...one of the barrel nuts on the seatpost bolts had snapped and came loose.
i tried to secure it all using zip ties but this bodge lasted another mile before everything fell off.
ended u doing the rest of the whole ride with the saddle and post in my camelbak...my calves were on fire at the end of the ride 😯
Wheel with a ball bearing disc front hub arrived just a little bit too tight, but I never checked it because it seemed to run okay from new. One day I noticed the wheel tilting left whenever I braked. Rode it for a few more weeks. Opened it up, and not only was the surface pitted, the hub was so far gone there was room for an extra ball bearing in that side.