Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Miserable wet day so not going to bother starting a ride.

Noticed a rear wheel looking lonely and neglected in the shed
Had pulled a freewheel off it weeks ago because the freewheel was clunking and slipping due to worn cogs.

Spur of the moment decision- what more logical thing to do on a wet morning than get it operational again. I had recently been given another old freewheel that had good ratios and looked as if it had never been used much.

Of course the hub needed a service. Done.
Then a closer look at the bike. An old Shogun
The rear derailleur first pulley wheel was all spikes. Why not replace it. !!!

The spikey little pulley wheel came off Ok and had “Shimano Japan” imprinted on it. Interesting as it is a Suntour Cyclone derailleur !!!

So I decided to just do a raid on another old Shimano rear derailleur from the cupboard.
Nope, didn’t fit.
So I decided to raid another old Suntour derailleur. Nope, that one didn’t fit either.
But eventually I raided enough old half-clapped out derailleurs to find one that did fit -
And the beautiful old Suntour Cyclone was cleaned and reinstalled.
And a new chain went on.
Then the usual RD high/low stop screw adjustment.

But Oh no !
I couldn’t get it to play nicely with the Shimano indexed 6sp shifters.
While doing this I noticed that the derailleur body had some excessive play in the hinges.

Mission abandoned - time to retire this beautiful piece of equipment that has been in continuous use for 36 years.
Back to the cupboard to find yet another derailleur.
It’s a 30 yr old Shimano 105.
Doesn’t have the classy finish and sophistication of the Suntour Cyclone but it’s Shimano so it should work just fine.
A bit of faffing around with the chain and the cable but yes it index shifts perfectly !

But a test ride will have to wait.
Because 4 hours after I started this little project, It’s still a miserable day outside.

Picked up an unused Merida wheelset. Swapped the tyres over and put the discs on. Put the wheels onto the Cube SL flat bar. Hoping I can commute this week at some stage. Will check the Cube wheels over, try to find out why they were graunchy and maybe offload them cheap

Rode to and from work on the new Pirelli 26mm tyres.

Huge difference over those enormous 28mm tyres, bit more bumpy but feels much more stable and faster. Feels like I got my old bike back again.

I went out for a ride - to the local Tip Shop.

Getting there was quite pleasant, there is a “back road” through the Cane fields.
Alas when I got there the Tip shop was not yet open. I was 15 minutes early and there were already half a dozen people queuing at the door.

By the time that it opened there were more than a dozen people waiting.

I was mainly interested in the bicycle stuff.
There were heaps of hybrid bicycles and quite a few MTB. Most or all low end stuff that probably came off the production line less than 10 yrs ago
And of course lots of kids bikes that had had a very short lifespan.

Most bicycles were priced at 15 dollars, but there was a 5 dollar corner of the yard.

It was here that I saw the only bicycle that did interest me.
A very old - maybe 1970’s or 1980’s - Ladies frame bicycle. Quite low-end and faded/rusted
But at some stage, someone had done a drop-bar conversion on it.
So it had a very decent pair of drop-bar brake levers, prob 1990’s era, the sort that if you bought them new might be almost 100 dollars retail. A bit cobwebby but probably salvageable.
But not exciting enough to get worked up over.
It’ll still be there in a weeks time if I want it.

Swapped pedals around on the three main bikes, trimmed gear cables on the Wheeler, adjusted seat on the Azzurri and made the bracket for the back of my Ute so that I can sit a bike in the fork clamp.

Foo

After two or three weeks of wet commutes, a thorough clean and lube today for the Norco Search. And looking at forecast temperatures for the week ahead (7C at 6am), dug out toe covers and slipped those on my shoes.

Applied "another" coat (no I don't have a figure of how many coats...) of Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell Shine to the frame and any other shiny bits. Extra speed gain +0.00002km/h

CmdrBiggles wrote: ↑

Sun May 19, 2024 12:26 pm

Applied "another" coat (no I don't have a figure of how many coats...) of Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell Shine to the frame and any other shiny bits. Extra speed gain +0.00002km/h

It's all about marginal gains...

redsonic wrote: ↑

Sun May 19, 2024 6:05 pm

CmdrBiggles wrote: ↑

Sun May 19, 2024 12:26 pm

Applied "another" coat (no I don't have a figure of how many coats...) of Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell Shine to the frame and any other shiny bits. Extra speed gain +0.00002km/h

It's all about marginal gains...

What that does do I find is makes it less likely that dirt and other muck sticks to the frame.

The downside of having matt paint. Can't polish it and a PITA to clean (compared to shiny smooth polished gloss paint). That is probably the only thing I don't like about my Giant.

Andy01 wrote: ↑

Sun May 19, 2024 7:03 pm

The downside of having matt paint. Can't polish it and a PITA to clean (compared to shiny smooth polished gloss paint). That is probably the only thing I don't like about my Giant.

My Canyon Ultimate CF EVO is the same. It needs special cleaning.

Speaking of that bike, I saw another one of those today, extremely uncommon. Even more surprising it also had the sticker on it from my old cycling club, as mine does and in the same place.

I've only ever seen 3 Ultimate CF Evos in total and one CF Evo SL which is ridden by one of the Lanterne Rouge riders at the Haute Route events.

Andy01 wrote: ↑

Sun May 19, 2024 7:03 pm

The downside of having matt paint. Can't polish it and a PITA to clean (compared to shiny smooth polished gloss paint). That is probably the only thing I don't like about my Giant.

I have seen Wilier bikes (gravel?) with various mixes of matt frames: sand/honey, olive/lemon, and red/grey etc., with labels on them stating they must not be polished (!).

The TCR AR has a purple-green and sparkly iridescent, high gloss job. I think the waxing highlights the striking confluence of all the tubes in bright sun, particularly the BB and head. The frame has more sexy curves to it than the Great Ocean Road!

Took my Wheeler out for a shake down ride after replacing gear cables and hanger and also re-did the bar tape after the shifters. A slight delay in change up from the bottom cog to the middle but other than that, I appear to have it dialled in pretty well for under load riding.

Foo

foo on patrol wrote: ↑

Tue May 21, 2024 12:36 am

Took my Wheeler out for a shake down ride after replacing gear cables and hanger and also re-did the bar tape after the shifters. A slight delay in change up from the bottom cog to the middle but other than that, I appear to have it dialled in pretty well for under load riding.

Foo

Nice Foo! Hope you get some good weather for some good miles

Got the new Reacto home
Tyres off, tubes out, tubeless valves in, Orange seal and back on at 80psi.
Chain off, degreased with turps and then metho. Into the slow cooker with a couple of other chains and waxed.
Cassette off and wiped clean, back on, chain on.
Vector 3 pedals from TCR onto Merida. 4iiii L crank arm and chainset r7000 off S5 and onto TCR. TCR cranks r5800 onto S5.
Need to move some bikes and wheels on. They are piling up



Only ridden it up and down the street so far. I took my TCR into the shop yesty and he measured it up and copied the fit
He got it pretty close but those 42cm bars felt as wide as a bus. I've ordered some more that are 38 at the hoods and 41 in the drops.

Swapped the used R7000 onto the Cube SL. Chain is a little too short, but will see how it goes for a bit. Being a 34 large cog, that's probably a gear I will rarely use. The big ring combo mid-cassette is just OK, I think.

I am renovating my TT bike which I use for triathlons - the season has ended and I’ve done a few races on it this year. The bike is a 2012 model Cervelo P2 which I’ve had since 2016. My sweat was killing a few components so it was time for replacements. Yesterday afternoon I removed and replaced the bottom bracket and rear derailleur with a new FSA bb and a 105 derailleur. I also, disassembled and cleaned the innards of the rear shifter which sits out on the end of the TT bars - wow there was some gunk inside that. I packed it with marine greased and reassembled it. I’ll do the front shifter next.
The front derailleur side plates had some pretty ugly rust so I removed that for replacement as well.
Other plans include replace all the cables, rear wheel rebuild and headset bearing replacement. I’ll also replace the fasteners with 316 s/s.
Surprisingly everything still worked but with bikes I find preventative maintenance is better than breaking something mid ride or mid race.

Miserable weather on the weekend. Lubed the chain on the commuter. Dusted off an old set of MTB forks a listed for sale becasue the steerer is too short.

Measured the headtube and discovered the Trek Y project is a large size compared to the medium one I bought new. That solved the riddle of why I thought the forks would fit but won't.

Stared at the Giant XTC I was given trying to decide wether to sell it whole or raid it for parts and perform more part shuffles in the fleet.

Stared at the Giant XTC I was given trying to decide wether to sell it whole or raid it for parts and perform more part shuffles in the fleet.

Yeah.... like that. I picked up a Kona hybrid to convert to a gravel bike, but had it sitting in the dining room for a bit. Hard to start the tear down (dropbar conversion) on a nice working bike, only 9kg and 3x10 speed no less.

stevenaaus wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 03, 2024 5:09 pm

Stared at the Giant XTC I was given trying to decide wether to sell it whole or raid it for parts and perform more part shuffles in the fleet.

Yeah.... like that. I picked up a Kona hybrid to convert to a gravel bike, but had it sitting in the dining room for a bit. Hard to start the tear down (dropbar conversion) on a nice working bike, only 9kg and 3x10 speed no less.

True dat. Shame to see a quality frame scrapped, but I tried to sell it and the only serious buyer wanted a larger frame. Now Im rethinking.

Looked at the various components of the old Daccordi that I got from the Tip shop the other day

Decided that I had to try and liberate the non- driveside crank arm from the bottom bracket.

The BB was removed from the frame with this crank arm still attached - because I couldn’t get it off the spindle
I couldn’t get it off the spindle because I couldn’t get the crank bolt dust cover off

Yesterday I discovered that Campagnolo crankbolt dust covers are not made of plastic like the Japanese ones.
Which is not a good thing because they can be overnighted and fuse to the thread of the crank with time.
Anyway to cut a long story short I got it off.
Using all sorts of dodgy techniques.
Which I won’t go into because it’s potentially hazardous to the crank, the person, and the tools that get called upon to do various destructive things to steel dust cover threads

Here is the proper way to approach the problem.
But I only discovered it In hindsight

[shareyoutube]/https://youtube.com/watch?v=ALDFiDqCNTM[/shareyoutube]

I goþ it done at the bike shop, but steerer cut and new bars fitted. 38 at the hoods and 41 in the drops. Sorted now

Very nice!!

am50em wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 06, 2024 2:22 pm

Very nice!!

Thanks Rides well.

Replaced the handlebars on my Wahho Kickr Bike then wrapped the bars in some Deda bar tape I had in the cupboard.

The old bars were too wide anyway. Also took the opportunity to give the shifters a good clean up.

I might still get some heatshrink to go around the cables for the shifters and make them all neat.