Biking: Catch-all

That looks like a great setup.

Hypatian wrote:

New bike bike!

IMAGE(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/CJx8Bh_-poNgldWgFAky2721VjD5U9WOsx1ZEELRbIugkH5xCCKRqLbxq34_v2g9DKuIwjReOFU5v9SRED1M2B81iSCh_rc2-p1NbhgF2-Of8ZL-w6xszIf_Hsspvp6HOrDBPxVitEagihBbZNYV-xMiSzOm1Mc0k_08XtGOoIJTwsacJPg9PeXOL45P0RNAdDP3zWUsz6DRCGMdkmQjU3jRYoX1XfdsRdfeTA41_3LGa7-0Cxgq44YBfPz58TAXxAOfojJJvH9gACDSUAbP9wvYRHtDD0syrq3NyBncM9OUeK67P0SUvDRvsnF5iriVdRyh3GfIZw0TLnpkXdSS7fkArNOKR3-mXFjlTUUFaHT6oJDnv5hiH5GpeBjJz9i3rwnH_qSL6ieESDoSHYbFnHY9HTZzdqZYx2t-vzOnK7aixy_17IKif2qeB-3spGNauBDXsbHvDGDTdLdmUPp1mIKo7BIZh2h5RXoUU8s1i5IZhR-avLEMX6BELYUJU27i_74jhgwWYzE9rXCzuhXATHQh4Gtt8w4JQpyv1rbG_7obehB1PacHloJvHiPoNWSkiKRlXpeTFHfjRunrU49qD30S-TyC85Fbcw7M3YK4Yfi9YScclhWkLFV1FJ2EGCXlJS71JgFqK5fyLMo3MpLGwxmmTqbcVCdWVw=w2422-h1818-no)

I'm also taking a "Build A Bike" class right now and finally learning how to maintain my stuff from the ground up, which is pretty nice. :> (So far, I've finally successfully patched a tire >_>, trued a really out-of-whack wheel, and overhauled a front and rear hub. Next time, we'll be taking on the bottom bracket.)

Nice bike. I wish there were classes here like that. I have two Zinn books but it's not a replacement for in person training.

EvilHomer3k wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

New bike bike!

IMAGE(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/CJx8Bh_-poNgldWgFAky2721VjD5U9WOsx1ZEELRbIugkH5xCCKRqLbxq34_v2g9DKuIwjReOFU5v9SRED1M2B81iSCh_rc2-p1NbhgF2-Of8ZL-w6xszIf_Hsspvp6HOrDBPxVitEagihBbZNYV-xMiSzOm1Mc0k_08XtGOoIJTwsacJPg9PeXOL45P0RNAdDP3zWUsz6DRCGMdkmQjU3jRYoX1XfdsRdfeTA41_3LGa7-0Cxgq44YBfPz58TAXxAOfojJJvH9gACDSUAbP9wvYRHtDD0syrq3NyBncM9OUeK67P0SUvDRvsnF5iriVdRyh3GfIZw0TLnpkXdSS7fkArNOKR3-mXFjlTUUFaHT6oJDnv5hiH5GpeBjJz9i3rwnH_qSL6ieESDoSHYbFnHY9HTZzdqZYx2t-vzOnK7aixy_17IKif2qeB-3spGNauBDXsbHvDGDTdLdmUPp1mIKo7BIZh2h5RXoUU8s1i5IZhR-avLEMX6BELYUJU27i_74jhgwWYzE9rXCzuhXATHQh4Gtt8w4JQpyv1rbG_7obehB1PacHloJvHiPoNWSkiKRlXpeTFHfjRunrU49qD30S-TyC85Fbcw7M3YK4Yfi9YScclhWkLFV1FJ2EGCXlJS71JgFqK5fyLMo3MpLGwxmmTqbcVCdWVw=w2422-h1818-no)

I'm also taking a "Build A Bike" class right now and finally learning how to maintain my stuff from the ground up, which is pretty nice. :> (So far, I've finally successfully patched a tire >_>, trued a really out-of-whack wheel, and overhauled a front and rear hub. Next time, we'll be taking on the bottom bracket.)

Nice bike. I wish there were classes here like that. I have two Zinn books but it's not a replacement for in person training.

I’d love that too. If you have a Performance Bicycles nearby they run classes/clinics. I have one nearby but have not yet availed myself of their services.

The other alternative is just to run headlong into your ignorance. It’s likely to be expensive though. It will be for me.

Tools will eventually come into play when you're doing your own maintenance. I've been looking at tools and am comfortable with most selections, but I'm considering torque wrenches for the variety of torque-specified bolts and such and...I'm not sure what's good.

Does anyone have a torque wrench they use for bikes that works well for them?

I just put a rack on my new bike myself, and I jumped on Amazon to find a torque wrench with the right sort of range of torques for bicycles. The one I grabbed was this one and it seems to do the job just fine.

(Also I now own some oil for protecting the inside of the frame (since it's a steel frame, and the rack is also steel), some grease, some brushes for applying grease, and a hacksaw for shortening bars and such—although it turns out I didn't need that.)

On the bike class thing: The place I'm going is a local bike cooperative that does a lot of charity work with folks in the area where it's located (predominantly low-income PoC). They have a lot of pretty great programs, and we're working on donated bikes (and hopefully leaving them in better shape at the end of the class so that the mechanics there have less work to do to get them in shape in the end.) It was really cool when I was in there for class the other day and a kid from the area came in to get something on his bike fixed with his grandma who doesn't speak English. He got to explain to her what the mechanic told him, which was that he could have them replace the broken part for him, or for less money he could pay for the part and come in and do the work himself, or he could come in and volunteer and help around the shop for a few hours to get the part and then install it himself for free. A+

There are a lot of these sorts of cooperatives around, so chances are good that you might be able to find one in your area. Even if they don't have a specific organized class, they might have lessons covering all of the same sort of stuff. (Like, the one I found in Pittsburgh to recommend to a friend doesn't have a scheduled course of lessons, but does the lessons individually on a rotation.)

25 mile ride tonight. Slowly ramping my way back up to when I was biking more regularly. The weather seems to be cooling down, which will help quite a bit.

Last Tuesday I noticed my rear tube had a leak. Wednesday, I replaced it along with the tire, which needed doing badly. That night, I was getting constant slips, jams, and derailings, so I thought I needed to tighten the cables. When I got an actual look, though, I saw the cables had frayed to near snapping. Took it to the closest shop where the guy replaced the cables, but also noticed the derailleur was twisted and lacking a replacement, we tried to untwist it with a crescent wrench. This did not help the situation, so on Saturday I took it to the good bike shop where they informed me the derailleur wasn't the problem, the chain and cartridge were. Got them replaced, and Monday things were running great...

...last night the rear tube sprung a leak.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

IMAGE(https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51aCFGh8IBL._SX258_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Last Tuesday I noticed my rear tube had a leak. Wednesday, I replaced it along with the tire, which needed doing badly. That night, I was getting constant slips, jams, and derailings, so I thought I needed to tighten the cables. When I got an actual look, though, I saw the cables had frayed to near snapping. Took it to the closest shop where the guy replaced the cables, but also noticed the derailleur was twisted and lacking a replacement, we tried to untwist it with a crescent wrench. This did not help the situation, so on Saturday I took it to the good bike shop where they informed me the derailleur wasn't the problem, the chain and cartridge were. Got them replaced, and Monday things were running great...

...last night the rear tube sprung a leak.

Sheesh.

Hypatian wrote:

25 mile ride tonight. Slowly ramping my way back up to when I was biking more regularly. The weather seems to be cooling down, which will help quite a bit.

Are you getting the storms that're coming through the Midwest? I feel like they're picking up a little.

Looking around, it appears a rough consensus is that one should replace the bike's cassette roughly every third to fifth chain replacement, each of which would occur at roughly 3K miles (within a range). One person on Instagram said he replaces his cassette every six months. Certainly he's likely riding a lot and, well, I am not. Yet.

My cassette is the same Campagnolo Record 10S cassette that came on the bike in 2010-ish, but it's only seen on the order of 1-2K miles in that time. It doesn't look terribly worn, and I'll see when I drop my new KMC chain on there if I get skips. If I don't, I feel like I've got a bit before needing to drop yet another few hundred on a cassette.

How often do y'all change out your cassettes?

I have nearly 10k km on my Dirt E. 2 years. Same cassette.

muraii wrote:

Looking around, it appears a rough consensus is that one should replace the bike's cassette roughly every third to fifth chain replacement, each of which would occur at roughly 3K miles (within a range). One person on Instagram said he replaces his cassette every six months. Certainly he's likely riding a lot and, well, I am not. Yet.

My cassette is the same Campagnolo Record 10S cassette that came on the bike in 2010-ish, but it's only seen on the order of 1-2K miles in that time. It doesn't look terribly worn, and I'll see when I drop my new KMC chain on there if I get skips. If I don't, I feel like I've got a bit before needing to drop yet another few hundred on a cassette.

How often do y'all change out your cassettes?

I generally changed them out every 2000-3000 miles. When I ran Campy I never used anything but Record chains, to be honest (both before and after the Athena 11 build). When I worked in a shop, the only other Campy-compatible chains I ever knew about were Wipperman (I forget the model). I'm not surprised to hear KMC makes a Campy-focused chain as well these days, but I have no experience with it (though I'm running a KMC chain on my fixie right now and it's pretty nice, although probably time for a tune-up).

:gush:

muraii wrote:

This is why I hate living in the Midwest.

Well, if you ever happen out this way, I'd be happy to put you up and show you around!

Serengeti wrote:
muraii wrote:

This is why I hate living in the Midwest.

Well, if you ever happen out this way, I'd be happy to put you up and show you around!

DOOOOD.

I am Evernoting this.

Spent the weekend at Beaver Lake in Arkansas visiting family, and Sunday I took my bike over to the Bentonville/Springdale area. There are numerous mountain biking trails in the area, and they're investing millions of dollars into making it a real off-road destination. For any mountain bikers within a reasonable distance of NW Arkansas, it's worth a trip to explore the area. I rode some fantastic trails at Fitzgerald Mountain:

And the Slaughter Pen Trail system, part of a big Greenway trail through that part of Arkansas:

There are lots of well-designed trails with added features, jumps, obstacles, etc. Tons of bikers all over the downtown Bentonville area, and a lot of shops and restaurants are aiming to cater to the MTB scene. I had a blast.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Last Tuesday I noticed my rear tube had a leak. Wednesday, I replaced it along with the tire, which needed doing badly. That night, I was getting constant slips, jams, and derailings, so I thought I needed to tighten the cables. When I got an actual look, though, I saw the cables had frayed to near snapping. Took it to the closest shop where the guy replaced the cables, but also noticed the derailleur was twisted and lacking a replacement, we tried to untwist it with a crescent wrench. This did not help the situation, so on Saturday I took it to the good bike shop where they informed me the derailleur wasn't the problem, the chain and cartridge were. Got them replaced, and Monday things were running great...

...last night the rear tube sprung a leak.

I have very slowly, patiently, distractedly been working on recabling and otherwise reconditioning my bike. Watch video, look at bike, fiddle, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. When I have the time and inclination, the latter coming at odd intervals given I need to get back on my bike to maintain what little sanity I command. I bought a Campagnolo Record 10S rear derailleur to replace the one I still can't salvage, and decided to get new Campagnolo cabling for brakes and shifters. Finally have all the pieces together and sorted, and...

...and find out that the low limit screw hole on the front derailleur is stripped.

Boudreaux wrote:

Spent the weekend at Beaver Lake in Arkansas visiting family, and Sunday I took my bike over to the Bentonville/Springdale area. There are numerous mountain biking trails in the area, and they're investing millions of dollars into making it a real off-road destination. For any mountain bikers within a reasonable distance of NW Arkansas, it's worth a trip to explore the area. I rode some fantastic trails at Fitzgerald Mountain:

There are lots of well-designed trails with added features, jumps, obstacles, etc. Tons of bikers all over the downtown Bentonville area, and a lot of shops and restaurants are aiming to cater to the MTB scene. I had a blast.

I think my parents are doing a camping trip there, or at least near, in October and are trying to get me to meet up with them. I don't think the timing will work out for me but I think they're also scouting the area for potential relocation from central Texas. Maybe I should lean on them to really consider Bentonville...

It's a pretty cool town, and if you like to do things outdoors it's hard to beat.

Anyone use rollers for indoor training? It seems like a really good option versus the more-complicated setups involving swapping out training tires for something like the CycleOps fluid trainer or a whole separate stationary bike. Maybe?

Rochelle Gilmore makes it look ridiculously easy of course, but I feel like it's not bad in a doorway.

I just ordered this as my winter/fun run bike!! Should arrive right on my birthday next week!!

IMAGE(https://www.diamondback.com/media/catalog/product/m/o/mountain-bikes-18-syncr-purple-profile.1524666188.jpg)

WipEout wrote:

I just ordered this as my winter/fun run bike!! Should arrive right on my birthday next week!!

IMAGE(https://www.diamondback.com/media/catalog/product/m/o/mountain-bikes-18-syncr-purple-profile.1524666188.jpg)

High five for the October babies. I’m next Friday.

Haha awesome! I'm next Thursday! A little freaked that I'm going to be 37... That might be feeding into my desire for a mountain bike...

ALSO! Don't know why I didn't post this here sooner.....

I'm slowly selling some road bike parts for anyone interested (gotta cover the cost of that MTB!).

Right now I'm trying to sell this Ritchey WCS Carbon Fork. Make an offer if you're interested!

SOLD! To a man in Turkey with an incredibly misleading eBay bio (that says he's in the US)! Also, F*ck eBay for not making International shipping options a more apparent checkbox. It shouldn't be checked on by default but apparently was without my realizing it, and apparently selling other items no longer retains the settings you sold with in the last auction, because I know for a fact I disabled int'l shipping on my last auction.... uuuuuuuuuggggghhhhh. Now half the money for the fork is going to go to shipping to Turkey.

I'll post up other parts as I get around to getting pictures and posting ads. I've got some Ritchey Biomax handlebars and seat post, an ITM carbon stem, Speedplay Zero Chromoly pedals. I just don't want to get overwhelmed trying to sell all of them on eBay at once. If you're interested in any of these, though, PM me.

That stinks.

Got back out on Saturday for the first time since July 23. Is out off riding I think partially because I didn’t want to face having botched my repairs.

It rode like a dream. My gearing shifted more smoothly than it has in years. New cables and housings, new chain, new rear tire, new bar tape. Also new rain gear and handlebar bag. Even in the dreary rain it was a nice ride. (I like riding in storms though.)

Only thing was, either the rolling resistance on the Gatorskin on the rear is substantially higher than on the Grand Prix that was on there; riding at ~10-15 pounds lower pressure makes for noticeably more rolling resistance; or something’s up with my rear wheel/tire. I know I’m out of shape generally but I felt like I was peddling through mud. I was on city streets.

I checked to confirm my tire wasn’t rubbing my frame or the brakes, though the latter could stand a little more inspection. Maybe it’s rubbing against the fender, though I didn’t move those at all.

Gatorskins are inherently sticky tires, so there's a small amount of rolling resistance there, but not anything substantial that you'd really feel it unless you ride 365 days a year and suddenly changed tires.

I would also check my brake levers and calipers-- there's the possibility that you over-tightened the cable and they're just slightly gripping your rim (or the disc, as the case may be).

Trainers.

I have a stationary bike that’s not great. The pad squeaks too loudly if I have any more than the minimal tension on. I’ve used three different kinds of lubrication and it doesn’t remediate the issue for long. Still, I have it and it functions okay otherwise.

But I wonder if I should sell that on CL and get something to hook my bike up to. The trouble with that is it’s more expensive and wears more on my bike. So I don’t know.

How do y’all handle that? Like, I’m still gonna ride through the winter at least some but it’s nice having something inside too.