To Be Truly Clean

I am not a clean person. Some might say that describes me in general, but, specifically, I'm not clean with my bikes. I tend to lube and re-lube and assume the old lube just vanishes into nothingness. After years of doing it this way--often times using supposedly "self-cleaning" lubes--I realize that my drive-train is almost always dirty. The good news is that it's a well-lubed dirt. I've convinced myself that this fact makes it okay.

At Interbike, we got to pick up a sample of some new wax-based lube: Squirt. We've got it on at least three bikes here at GearReview, but when I decided to put it on my road bike, I decided that this time, I'd clean my bike first. And by clean, I really mean really clean and not "Jon clean".

I started out with a large container of de-natured alcohol for my degreaser. I then proceeded to disassemble my drive-train. I removed the chain (of course), the cassette, the chain-rings, the derailleur pulleys, and the inner rear-derailleur cage plate. I soaked the parts. I scrubbed the parts. I went through rolls of paper-towels. The chain itself was soaked and wiped clean 3 or 4 times. I used up that entire 20-gallon barrel of de-natured alcohol. When I was done and everything was re-assembled, I could touch any part of my drive-train and my fingers would remain clean.

Of course, at this point, my fingers were a long-way from clean, but trust me, this was clean. I may not have ever known a single clean thing in my entire life, but this day, this moment in time, I knew clean.

Then, ever so carefully, I applied a drop of this supposed wonder-lube on my chain--one drop per roller. I ran it through the gears. I waited. I re-applied the lube. I waited some more.

Actually, I waited a few days, but only because it was midnight and I didn't get another chance to ride for a while.

First Impressions?
Everything was smooth and quiet. Shifting was superb.

Well, until I shifted under load and threw my chain off the inside of my chain-rings. I then reached down to put it back on (it got stuck around the bottom bracket when I tried to just "shift" it back on). To my amazement and horror, my fingers were black. Black, I tell you! Where did all this unclean blackness come from? How could this be? Evidently, I don't know clean.

Since then, I've learned that I should have sprayed off my chain with water to rinse out the rest of the solvent and the remaining hidden uncouth blackness. All I know is that I'll probably never go to all that trouble to clean my drive-train again.

Resuscitation

I came up with a lot of titles for today's post. Because ideas don't come easily to me, I decided I better not waste them.

I own two mountain bikes and two road bikes. One nice new(ish) mountain bike, and one cobbled-together one. One really nice road bike, and one really old road bike.

Recently--as in the past number of years--I've been mechanically inept when it comes to hydraulic disc brakes. Sure, I can install them just fine, but I can't seem to bleed them. From this you can conclude any number of things. For one, I like new disc brakes. For another, you can see I'm not as mechanically adept as James.

After two failed attempts at bleeding the brakes on my nice mountain bike--we'll call it, Jekyll for kicks--I decided to take it to my local shop to have the brakes done. After a week and a half, they returned it to me saying that it couldn't be fixed. The master cylinder leaks and the manufacturer no longer stocks parts that old.

I feel okay now that I couldn't get my bleed jobs to improve braking.

I don't feel so good knowing that I need new brakes.

Kickin' It Old School
My cobbled-together bike is, um, interesting. The frame is from a local company, but imported. It's magnesium. You might remember it from when I first built it up as a commuter (here), or from when I decided to start using it as a hardtail mountain bike (here). Though I bought a front deraileur for it, it isn't installed. The rear deraileur is Alivio (it was a commuter at one point, remember?). However, not all the parts are cheapos. The handlebar is a nice Maxm MX-5 and it has a Thomson Masterpiece seatpost. It also has a steel rigid fork and linear-pull brakes.

Okay, that was just background for the next part...

You see, recently, a co-worker of mine has started a weekly mountain ride. Being without my Jekyll means I’ve had to use my magnesium hardtail (hereafter: mag). I'm tired of riding a rigid bike. I mean, it’s cool and retro and what-not, but I'm tired of taking a beating at every trail imperfection. Yesterday, when they announced this morning's ride, I knew I'd get beat up. A lot. It's not a smooth trail.

Open Heart Surgery
All evening yesterday, I spent wondering what parts I had lying around my garage that could help. Mostly, I kept mulling over my old Manitou Black suspension fork. How long, I wondered, would it take to install a new fork on my mag?

Rebirth
My mag now has 100-120mm of travel out front. It only took about an hour and a half to install it. (A personal record.) Sure, the fork is old--really old, in fact. But, it is much better than rigid--at least for the trail I was riding, and the person riding it. The steel fork it replaced was much shorter, but I think the mag was built for suspension, as it finally felt and handled more like I'd expect it to with the added front-end height.

Why I Love My Road Bike
I have to say that an 8-speed cassette mated to an 8-speed Alivio rear deraileur and coerced into action by an old 8-speed SunTour thumb shifter--with me as the mechanic that assembled it all, no less--does not lead to great shifting. In fact, on more than one occasion I ended up with a chain in the spokes when I tried to get to my largest cog. In the end, I think I settled for the third largest cog and I manually moved the chain in front when I drastically switched terrain.

This is why I love my road bike. I love that it always works. I never am frantically trying to get something to work late at night so I can go on a ride in the morning. I've never taken my road bike into the shop and had them return it to me saying, "we can't fix this." I love that my road bike isn't my mountain bike.

I hope I can keep the mag alive long enough to fix the Jekyll.

Cannondale Goodies

A package arrived from Cannondale this week. In it, were shoes and a multi-tool--two items perhaps not normally associated with Cannondale. The shoes are Diadora (owned by Cannondale) Ergo Carbon mountain shoes.




The next item is the Head Wrench multi-tool. It is designed to sit in the head-tube of a Cannondale Lefty fork. Of course, its compact shape would work for just stowing in your pack/bag as well. One of the less-obvious features: There's a glue-less patch kit in the top part.



Keep your eye on GearReview for their forthcoming reviews.

Spring Cleaning

I really like working on my bicycles. When I can do it on my own time that is. I swap out components often, and it's a lot of fun. What isn't so much fun is bicycle maintenance. I always seem to have one or more bikes that need adjustments, cleaning or fixes of some sort. If I can pick and choose when I can make the time, this isn't a problem. But when it's my commuter bike, and I need to get to work the next day, this is a problem. It means that I either drive -- shudder -- or I stay up late getting things fixed.

Usually, what happens is this: I'll be riding home -- or to work -- and I'll notice that something isn't working right. Most recently this was the shifting. No problem, I ride in Oregon and I'm used to the environment messing up my shifting. Water and gunk and mud and dirt is always making it's way into the cable housing. I'll just deal with it until I have the time to remedy the situation. I fiddle with the barrel adjusters and get it sort of working. Knowing that I had resurrected the cables and housing before, and that their days were numbered, I went ahead and ordered new cables and housing.

Side note: Lately, when I've been ordering wear items -- brake pads, housing, cables, tubes, etc. -- I order more than I'll need and stock up. See comment above about having to fix things at night so I can ride the next day.

In the meantime, I needed to get my shifting pseudo-working. I lubed the cables and hoped for the best. The best was not to be. Tolerable was not to be. I turned out that I could shift to an easier gear just fine, but had to shift twice, then back once, to get one gear harder. Ugh. The next day, the cables arrived and I found the real culprit. This wasn't just a case of gunked up housing. This was some else.

See the little wires sticking out of the housing below? (It's grainy, I know, but I had to blow it up so you could see them.) They are all in a row. Yes, normally there is a ferrule there, I removed it for demonstration purposes.
The housing that I had on the bike had those little wires sticking out and binding the cable at the cable stop.

So, why am I telling you this? Well, other than the fact that it is a mildly interesting anecdote, it serves to prove a point. Had I swapped out the housing earlier -- I did know that it's days were numbered -- I could have done it on my time -- not late at night -- and wouldn't have had to put up with the headache of the shifting issues. Maintenance is a very good thing on a bike that is ridden in adverse conditions.

Spring is just around the corner. If you've been on your bike this winter -- and riding a trainer doesn't count -- if you've been on your bike outside this winter, chances are it's taken a beating. Throw some new cables and housing on there, swap out the chain -- especially if you've got more than 1000 miles on it, and check the brake pads. Clean the bike, inspect for cracks, paint chips, anything that can cause you grief down the road. A little work now, saves a lot of work later.