Success and failure.

Having acquired new pins from my local bike store I replaced the missing pin from my pedal, a very easy job to do taking minimal time and effort and the smallest allan key I have.

 

Now the major project has been the Lanai, and you may remember I was waiting to get a tool from my parents’ house. I retrieved the tool and set to work attempting to undo the Bottom Bracket, a job I’ve done before with minimal fuss and effort. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be the case this time, the old Bottom Bracket (BB) was cross threaded and seized in place, and after much effort, pulling a muscle in my ribs and destroying my socket wrench, I had to concede defeat and take it to my local bike shop and their proper workshop, where even they didn’t have an easy time of it.

Disappointed by having to admit defeat on that one, once I had the bike back I set about cleaning it up in order to install the new BB. There was a lot of crap in there with dirt stuck hard into the threads inside so this took a good bit of work. Also there was a bit of damage to the threads from how badly stuck and cross threaded the old BB had been.

Once cleaned out, installing the new BB was easy, greasing the threads before using the bottom bracket tool and an adjustable spanner to tighten it in. After that I re attached the cranks and pedals, I had debated putting the old cranks and pedals off my bike on to it however, the wear on my chainrings was higher and felt it best to keep it as was.

Now all that’s left is to put on some new tyres and replace the brake pads and it will be rideable, it’s a shame the owner is currently nursing a knackered wrist, and therefore can’t come try it out….

The World Cup series is almost over, with the last round taking place next weekend at Val Di Sol, Aaron Gwinn (USA) has already taken the Mens overall, which is no suprise considering the runs he's been putting together this year, Tracey Moseley (GBR) (riding on the same team) Is looking to take the Womens overall title with Troy Brosnan (AUS) looking to to be the mens junior champion and Manon Carpenter (GBR) the womens junior champion, despite having missed a race to do her exams! Good luck to all the riders next week.

I mentioned the trails at Ashton Court in my last post, I really want to get a proper post up about them as they are great and am very impressed with the work Architrail has done, however to put a decent post together I need pictures which means going up with other people. Please continue to watch this space….

Lost parts and pointless bikes.

A few days ago trying to fix one of those annoying little clicks in the pedal area I decided to re-grease my pedals, an easy job, just undo the grease port screw inject the grease from the handy syringe thing DMR supply with the pedal then put the screw back in. Unfortunately at the bottom of the yard is a drain and it’s a very small screw, I think you can guess what happened next. I replaced the screw with one of the pins out of the pedal to stop grit getting in while I waited to replace it, having looked at the prices I decided to replace the pin rather than the screw as a set of pins are about the same price as one screw.  Time will tell if this is a good idea or not.

Having visited the new improved trails at Ashton Court (post coming soon hopefully) I decided to do a little tweaking here and there, again some slight adjustments to my gear alignment and taking a couple of links out of my chain, which with the right tool is very simple and can be done very quickly. I use a Topeak Super Chain Breaker which is small light and works very well and also comes with a hook to hold the area of your chain you’re working on loose.

Something I’ve noticed a lot since I moved to Bristol are people riding around on cheap full suspension bikes, and it bugs me. Why on earth do you need a full sus’ bike to ride around town especially a cheap one that takes most of the power out of your pedal strokes? It doesn’t look cool because cheap full sus’ bikes look… well… cheap, for the same money you could get a much better hard-tail which will be much more suited for what you use it for and less likely to break. If you do take it off road, the stuff a bike like that can handle can easily be managed on a hard-tail, not only this but it will improve your riding. If you need a full sus’ bike then you probably know all this anyway, if you don’t know this you probably don’t need one and can either save some money or get a better hard-tail.  I guess most of these bikes come from large chain shops and shops where you just pick one and walk out with it, where there is no advice or potentially not anyone who knows anything about bikes working there.

Rant over, happy riding.