Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

Spent tax on e bike

1. cockpit accessories
2. b17 saddle
3. ortlieb classics
4. flat out treatment to tyres
5. new locks for lock up at work

locks were most expensive, need a cable tie type lock for paniers

Crog

Tried to pick up a new project I really shouldn't be buying. Seller had to go away at short notice. No new toys today.

Joined a (small) bunch ride this morning.
Nothing unusual about that, although it was pretty fresh at the 7am starting time - apparent temp of about 9 degrees C. at Kingscliff NSW

Before getting on the bike of course there is a “process” to be followed ~

Am I dressed adequately for the (cold) conditions ? Tick.

Water bottle ? Tick

Spare tube and pump ? Tick

Front and Rear lights ? Tick

Tyre pressures ? Yeah Nah, just a bit on the soft side, could do with a top up.
Search for Track pump.
Yes no swearing necessary it’s in its usual spot.
Valve stem positioned. Nozzle attached. Depress Plunger

Kaput ! Plunger goes to floor with no resistance and a rattly sound.
There’s no mistaking the sound of an expired track pump. The “Pro Performance Edition” is no longer performing !

As they say, back to the drawing board.
Hand pump to the rescue.

Then grumpiness strikes.
Why the bloomin heck did I purchase a new valve stem head for it a few weeks ago if the whole pump was on its last legs

elantra wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 02, 2024 4:56 pm

Joined a (small) bunch ride this morning.
Nothing unusual about that, although it was pretty fresh at the 7am starting time - apparent temp of about 9 degrees C. at Kingscliff NSW

Before getting on the bike of course there is a “process” to be followed ~

Am I dressed adequately for the (cold) conditions ? Tick.

Water bottle ? Tick

Spare tube and pump ? Tick

Front and Rear lights ? Tick

Tyre pressures ? Yeah Nah, just a bit on the soft side, could do with a top up.
Search for Track pump.
Yes no swearing necessary it’s in its usual spot.
Valve stem positioned. Nozzle attached. Depress Plunger

Kaput ! Plunger goes to floor with no resistance and a rattly sound.
There’s no mistaking the sound of an expired track pump. The “Pro Performance Edition” is no longer performing !

As they say, back to the drawing board.
Hand pump to the rescue.

Then grumpiness strikes.
Why the bloomin heck did I purchase a new valve stem head for it a few weeks ago if the whole pump was on its last legs

It may just be the O ring on the plunger that provides the seal between the plunger and the pump housing. Mine did that a while back and a new O ring from my various sized O ring box sorted it.

Put a new 28c Schwalbe one tle on the front Reynolds AR60 that came with my Reacto yesty. Had also swapped in a new waxed chain.
Decided to put those wheels back in. Another 100k on them. I think they may be a touch faster than the WR50s but not much in it. The WR are a touch more stable. Only an issue whilst hands free on the bars, such as eating.
Had to adjust the derailleur 4 clicks inboard.
Reynolds -13
WR -9 according to the Shimano E-tube app.
The 105 12s cassette shifts a touch better than the all steel Z
tto cassette. Not a huge amount in it but the 105 is snappier and more positive. 100+gm heavier though.

Added another to the fleet. Not too exciting, another retro MTB. Went to pick it up and when it was time to pay found id dropped a pineapple in the car. Apologised to the seller after i retrieved if. He then told me he sold a car for a mate. E type jag and the buyer wanted to pay cash. I thought that's gonna be a lot more than the 3 pineapples I handed him for the bike. Yep, $210,000. In cash. I nearly fell over. Apparently the bank required a special after hours appointment to accept the funds and count it!

After much consideration, last night I added a Trek CarBack radar tail light to the TCR. As expected, it integrates faultlessly with the iGS800, withi control of on/off, auto start/stop, mode change and tri-colour movement of car(s) along the left and right sides of the screen.

I decided to add this admittedly pricey trinket to the bike additional to the very long-standing use of a helmet-mount rear view mirror — always the first point of reference in traffic, but it does have a blind spot.

The CarBack was chosen over the Garmin Varia as the XS frame size potentially places the device where the rear wheel can interfere with detection. The 90 lumen day flash (same as the Trek Flare RT tail light) is also brighter than the Varias (65 lumen), while the "battery gauge" of 4 green leds along the left side are sweet (and useful!) nod to Thunderbirds are GO!.

https://www.trekbikes.com/au/en_AU/equi ... Code=black

A few pluses and minuses. Brighter light but it doesn't change the flash pattern as a vehicle approaches. Narrower beam but sometimes a longer detection range.

Should do the job.

warthog1 wrote: ↑

Thu Aug 08, 2024 9:14 pm

A few pluses and minuses. Brighter light but it doesn't change the flash pattern as a vehicle approaches. Narrower beam but sometimes a longer detection range.

Should do the job.

Ant+ operability is limited to 196m, so the 240m stated by Trek is not true in a technical sense. And that's funny given how they have also stated this in their FAQs page! That said, I'm very happy with it. A couple of connection dropout issues starting out on this morning's ride, promptly fixed by turning off iGS800 + CarBack, then on again so they can handshake and stabilise connectivity. No issues at all since then. Tawriffic little trinket! Tracks 6 to 8 cars from bottom of screen to top, from black (no traffic), orange - traffic detected, red - close behind, yellow - in blind spot and shown, green - once passed, then back to black...I see all this in the helmet mounted mirror too, just not the point where the cars enter its blind spot.

Major grating issue presently is catastrophic Friday traffic bottlenecks, caused by V/Line rail duplication works (since April!) closing 8 roads. Won't be finished until 25th of the month. Until then, life threatening Russian roulette with B-Doubles, buses, idiot drivers and clearly inattentive SUV jockeys. So rides are necessarily short, for now.

Yes they are very handy for the riding I do. I like to know what is there so won't ride without one now. I time my "incompetent weave" using the radar if I feel a close pass is possible due to road/traffic conditions. Lower traffic than the cities though.

warthog1 wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 09, 2024 12:49 pm

Yes they are very handy for the riding I do. I like to know what is there so won't ride without one now. I time my "incompetent weave" using the radar if I feel a close pass is possible due to road/traffic conditions. Lower traffic than the cities though.

I've got plenty of space in on-road bike lanes, even on busy, fast-traffic arterials — the radar is certainly busy in those conditions!!

Meanwhile...a "close pass" down here might vary by your experience: it is a filthy, noisy, rumbling B-Double thundering by 10cm from my elbow. It is so frightening that I am not going down that road again. I'm just not. Not. Not. Not. Not.

I have had similar. Fright then fury. I choose my routes and timing with care. I ride for recreation, mental and physical health is the primary reason. I enjoy it. I don't enjoy that sh it so it is out.

After a long morning ride, getting lost, being found and getting going again, returned home and got down to the task of fitting two King cage x Wolf Tooth MORSE bidon cages to new MTB (Zaskar 2018 Comp 9r).

They are called MORSE for the novel (and undeniably useful) dot-dash-dot-dash mounting plate that provides for 32mm of travel to accommodate fitting on small frames. On this occasion, for the heavier MTB (relative to the flyweight TCR), I decided against forking out another $237 on Silca Sicura titanium cages (as fitted to the TCR) reasoning that stainless steel should work fine, and look just as good.

Decided to drag the S5 down off its' hook and whack some pedals and a chain on it.
Gave it a clean with the Unpass wipes. She still comes up pretty good



Will go for a ride on it tomorrow. Over 2 years since I've done so. No PM, no cadence. It will also be a while since I've done that.

Yeah a hunjy on it. Wasn't too bad, still a very responsive ride. 25c tyres at each end 75f and80psi r was ok.
I was going to move it on but it is worth more to me than I will get for it which is bugger all. Going to hang on to it and have a ride now and then. Very enjoyable.

warthog1 wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 12, 2024 2:43 pm

Going to hang on to it and have a ride now and then. Very enjoyable.

Got a single speed in the stable WH?

You can always convert it just to have something different to ride!

jaseyjase wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 13, 2024 10:51 am

warthog1 wrote: ↑

Mon Aug 12, 2024 2:43 pm

Going to hang on to it and have a ride now and then. Very enjoyable.

Got a single speed in the stable WH?

You can always convert it just to have something different to ride!

No. 4 roadies and a gravello. One roadie is just a trainer drone though. A cheap old Ribble Aluminium goer with 11s 105.
Surprised it hasn't broken, but I hate trainer rides compared to real rides, so not used much.

warthog1 wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 13, 2024 10:55 am

No. 4 roadies and a gravello.

could be you (with a tensioner)

jaseyjase wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 13, 2024 11:02 am

warthog1 wrote: ↑

Tue Aug 13, 2024 10:55 am

No. 4 roadies and a gravello.

could be you (with a tensioner)

I have a P2C I could do that with. CF derailleur hanger broken off. It has horizontal drop outs with 130mm spacing at the rear

I rode mine today for the first time in about 12 weeks. The longest break in nearly 15 years.
The regular routine was becoming a bit stale so I thought a change of activities might be a good thing. And it was. I've bounced back with renewed enthusiasm and motivation.
The first ride wasn't as hard as I'd imagined. Just a high cadence, low power, casual 35km. I'll keep the cadence high and speed low, then start pushing it uphill a bit quicker and generally faster and further as time progresses.
I feel, and felt good. Heart rate was way higher than 12 weeks ago. Between 10 and 20 bpm more than for a roughly equivalent effort previously.
Not to worry, things will get better.
I just need to toughen-up the posterior. The roads around here are in an awful condition.

The wet weather bike needed a bit of love ie maintenance.
Because if it continues to rain then it will be used.

lots of things needed attention.
The usual things with old retro bikes loose BB, loose headset, worn chain, sticky gear cable etc.

Above sorted OK *but* also noted excessive play in the RD mechanism.
Not surprising as it’s an early gen Shimano golden arrow RD circa 1980.
So I decided to “replace” it with a slightly more recent Suntour Cyclone.
On she went.

When adjusting limit screw I got a bit concerned because the cage wanted to take out the rear spokes unless I turned the screw all the way in
So I attempted to solve the issue by replacing this screw with another M4 screw that was a bit longer.

This simple remedy failed because I made the startling discovery that Suntour Limit screws are a finer thread pitch than Shimano Limit screws
(and any other type of M4 screw in my shed )

How interesting is that !
Who woulda thought that a Shimano M4 limit screw has a different thread pitch than a Suntour M4 limit screw
So back to the drawing board.
Screwed the original one In completely as far as it would go and there is enough clearance to the wheel. Just

That looks like an old derailleur, friction shifters, on the downtube?

DS

DavidS wrote: ↑

Fri Aug 16, 2024 8:50 pm

That looks like an old derailleur, friction shifters, on the downtube?

DS

Yes, this Suntour rear derailleur was original equipment on a complete bicycle that I purchased in early 1988, so presumably date of manufacture would be 1987.
It’s done a lot of work over the years, the pulley wheels have been replaced at least once !

It was “originally” powered by indexed 6sp downtube shifters - which were fantastic to use.
I still have the downtube shifters but can’t really use them optimally any more - because they only work optimally with Suntour 6sp freewheels
And Suntour 6sp freewheels in good condition are rare as these days.
Especially the ones that I used to use - 6sp 13 to 24 tooth.
So this derailleur is working with some other freewheel that is somewhat deficient in the spread of ratios.
But it doesn’t matter as this bike only really gets used on the local railtrail, which only has gentle gradients
And the derailleur is controlled by a steering stem -mounted shifter on friction setting.

6 speed indexed, sounds pretty fancy!

Friction shifting works fine, I have bar end friction shifters running 10 speed SRAM on my wet weather bike, I suppose it is easier given I had friction shifting as a kid.

DS