I'm a champion bike mechanic...

[Tim]

I think my torque wrench calibration is out. Adjusting the angle of my carbon bars. Tightening the stem bolts, got all 4 to 3.5nm. Set the wrench to 4.2nm, tightening a little bit a heat a crack, suspiciously like CF cracking. Stopped tightening, bars look ok, no damage and tight. I put my full 74kg on the drops and lifted my feet off the ground and no cracks or deflection. Going to ride as is.

I have now bought a t-handle 4-6nm wrench until I get time to test and calibrate the click style wrench (it's a Giant 2-15nm if anyone is interested).

It's quite important that you tighten the handlebar clamp faceplate bolts correctly so as not to damage carbon bars.
Do them up in a diagonal pattern similar to tightening and torquing down engine head bolts.
Looking at the plate and 4 screws from the front of the bike number top left bolt as 1, top right as 2, bottom right as 3 and bottom left as 4.
Do each bolt up finger tight, then starting at bolt 1 give it a quarter turn. The next bolt is number 3 - quarter turn followed by bolt 2 - quarter turn and finally bolt 4 - quarter turn.
The order is 1-3-2-4.
Keep tightening each bolt in that order, incrementally, with the same amount of turn but from now on with only a very small but exactly the same amount of turn, say 1/8 or even 1/16 or less twist on the allen key. Finish off with a torque wrench.
The gap between the faceplate and the fixed part of the stem should be even, with the same width gap on top and below.

I wrecked a friend's cheap (and soft) handlebars doing things incorrectly leaving dents in the bars from the clamp and heard that same cracking noise although none of the bolts were over-torqued.
In a rush I didn't do the bolts up in small even increments nor in the proper sequential pattern.

[blizzard]

Yeah I was following the torque pattern, tightened to the same perceived torque with an Allen key before using the torque wrench, could have potentially gone a bit slower through the torque range. Gap between the stem and face plate is actually even now so not sure.

[OnTrackZeD]

I was bleeding my front brake yesterday and nothing was coming out, then I realised I put the bleed cup on the rear brake.

[MichaelB]

I was bleeding my front brake yesterday and nothing was coming out, then I realised I put the bleed cup on the rear brake.

Been there, done that

[familyguy]

I discovered the shelf life of tube patches and glue is less than 11 years. Have about 40 of them left in a pack I bought 3 addresses ago. None of them come off the foil backing without destroying them now. LBS trip tomorrow.

[OnTrackZeD]

I discovered the shelf life of tube patches and glue is less than 11 years.

I think you missed out by abut one year, lol

Good to rotate out supplies in the saddle bag every couple of years as well.

[OnTrackZeD]

I discovered the shelf life of tube patches and glue is less than 11 years.

I think you missed out by about one year, lol

Good to rotate out supplies in the saddle bag every couple of years as well.

[familyguy]

I discovered the shelf life of tube patches and glue is less than 11 years.

I think you missed out by abut one year, lol

Good to rotate out supplies in the saddle bag every couple of years as well.

Yeah, true. My saddle bags all have a spare tube and an emergency adhesive patch as my on-road option mainly for that reason. Good excuse to revisit and restock them though.

[warthog1]

Gear shifting went to poo quite quickly on my 11s 105 TCR yesty.
Pulled the cable last night. What a mess! hanging on by 2 strands but all bunched up further down. Will have a go at feeding a new one today.

As a side note, I see Shimano list their "optislick" cables as their longest lasting. What do people find are the most durable?

[blizzard]

I always had good runs with optislick, the top level cables (can't think of the name) and coating isn't very durable and causes shift issues earlier.

[warthog1]

I always had good runs with optislick, the top level cables (can't think of the name) and coating isn't very durable and causes shift issues earlier.

Thanks

New cable in. Fed straight through. Tubing all the way through the frame.
I'll order optislick next.

[jasonc]

Re-waxed chains for both bikes yesterday. Put the chain on this morning and it has slack. Turns out I mixed up the chains. Chain swapped all good

[warthog1]

Gave the shifters a good spray with silicone lube.
Pulled back the hoods and there was salt everywhere from perspiration.

Needs new hoods too. One is starting to tear and a bit loose.

[OnTrackZeD]

Gear shifting went to poo quite quickly on my 11s 105 TCR yesty.
Pulled the cable last night. What a mess! hanging on by 2 strands but all bunched up further down. Will have a go at feeding a new one today.

As a side note, I see Shimano list their "optislick" cables as their longest lasting. What do people find are the most durable?

I don't know about most durable but I put two new normal cables in every 5000km.
Cheap, easy to change and keeps shifting nice with no guessing how long they will last.

[warthog1]

Gear shifting went to poo quite quickly on my 11s 105 TCR yesty.
Pulled the cable last night. What a mess! hanging on by 2 strands but all bunched up further down. Will have a go at feeding a new one today.

As a side note, I see Shimano list their "optislick" cables as their longest lasting. What do people find are the most durable?

I don't know about most durable but I put two new normal cables in every 5000km.
Cheap, easy to change and keeps shifting nice with no guessing how how they will last.

Should have done that, or at least had a look. It was a tangled mess.

Edit; had a look at my file on that bike. That derailleur cable did 9.5k km.
I'll change them at 7.5k km in future.

[Duck!]

I always had good runs with optislick, the top level cables (can't think of the name) and coating isn't very durable and causes shift issues earlier.

Optislick are my favourite cables, although I did prefer the PTFE-coated cables from 7900 Dura-Ace & relatives. The later polymer-coated Dura-Ace-labelled cables are crap once the coating starts to wear. They're great when new, but when the coating wears, it goes all fluffy & bunches up in the outers, preventing the cable from sliding properly, so each shift puts more strain on the cable and as a result it fatigues sooner.

[bychosis]

Rode to work last week after giving my MTB a decent hosing after riding in the mud. Chain was very crunchy. Options at work were canola spray and wd40. Turns out canola spray works pretty well. Really should have re-lubed the chain over the weekend but .. insert several excuses ... canola still OK this morning.

[WyvernRH]

Rode to work last week after giving my MTB a decent hosing after riding in the mud. Chain was very crunchy. Options at work were canola spray and wd40. Turns out canola spray works pretty well. Really should have re-lubed the chain over the weekend but .. insert several excuses ... canola still OK this morning.

Yes, good stuff canola.... Got caught out on the Central West Trail once after a wet, muddy day in Goonoo (sp?) State Forest. We were staying at the Hair of the Dog pub so I raided the pub restaurant rubbish bins for empty(sic) cans of canola oil and the remainder oil in these got us all back on the road until we could find 'real stuff' at Wellington.

Richard

[bychosis]

This afternoons champion mechanic work was to forget about ehat id assumed was the front brake rotor rubbing and ride off, but then later find the rear brake making a horrible noise due to a missing calliper bolt. Removed the remaining bolt and strapped the calliper to the seat stay with the Velcro strap off my light.

I really should go over the bike properly.

[familyguy]

Maybe this will help me stop dropping tools as much when I need to tighten/loosen various bolts.

[stevenaaus]

^^^ Like to automotive "Parts canon" - throwing parts at a broken car, except it's a tool canon. I'm guilty too But haven't gone the T-bar yet.

[bychosis]

My go to Allen keys are still the 35yo folding set. Similar to park tool AWS-10, but a chrome metal housing. Ive got a million other Allen keys, but still grab the folding set first.

[WyvernRH]

Today I decided to get around to replacing the rusty Dunlop steel lightweight 26x1 1/4 rim on my wife's Sun with the Dunlop stainless steel lightweight rim I have had hanging up for some time. So, easy 20-minute job, done this many times before when replacing a damaged rim. Tape the two rims together with the spoke holes aligned, swap the spokes over to the equivalent spoke holes in the new rim (which keeps the pattern) then into the jig and the tension up the wheel. That was the theory...

Started going downhill cos I had forgotten how heavy a steel rim and Sturmey Archer front dyno hub is. You need a lot more tape to keep things aligned once you have loosened things off and moved a couple of spokes over. OK, more tape - fixed that. Then I hit the curse of British hub design - keyhole spoke holes on the small flange side. As you loosen the small side spokes off, they just slip out of the keyhole and drop out of pattern. Then you have to work out where they went and try and hold them in place - which didn't work at all .

In the end, after much time wasting and unchristian language, I ended up transferring all the large flange spokes across to their matching positions in the new rim, took off the old rim and then, starting from the spoke hole parallel spoke, I worked backwards around the wheel, inserting all the small flange spokes in the correct keyhole slots and spoke holes, making sure the spoke crossings were correct and ensuring there was enough tension to hold them into the slot. Not foolproof by any means with the odd spoke slipping out to vex me but all the spokes were eventually in place and the wheel placed into the jig. Once I got to that stage, truing up and tensioning the wheel was a major relief which took all of 5 minutes!

So, a 20-minute job turned into a most of the morning job mostly due to the fact that someone back in the 1930's decided to put a small flange on the non-dynamo side and thus these (your favorite curse here) keyhole spoke holes made necessary. To save money on materials I'm guessing - sounds like something a production engineer would do

Richard

[CmdrBiggles]

My go to Allen keys are still the 35yo folding set. Similar to park tool AWS-10, but a chrome metal housing. Ive got a million other Allen keys, but still grab the folding set first.

My very first set of LIGHTWEIGHT allen keys were purchased on Saturday night, a progressive anointment after my go-pro light bracket decided to chuck a wobbly...far, far from home. Fortunately my Saturday Morning Gentleman's Coffee Classic route has many other bikers forward and back, and two stopped to help me adjust that. "You need to carry a 4mm...", he in fluoro pink and yellow with white shoes spaketh.

Picked up a TOPEAK set that is small, lightweight, has the keys I need, ChrVan and ... shiny! Said shiny "toolbox" now resides snuggly in my underseat pack.

Have also this day upgraded my 2020-vintage IGPSPORT computer with a snazzy iG630S https://www.cycloworld.cc/article/igpsp ... r%20cover.; I baulked at the steeeeeeep cost of any and all of the Garmin, Wahoo and Hammerhead devices. So decided to stick with the ecosystem I know best and enjoy most — no floss, no artifice, yes to a few nice graphics and critically, integration with the SRAM Force drivetrain sensors and gearing. Sorted.

Final job before heading inside to A/C bliss...degrease the drivetrain (Muc-Off Degreaser), squirt of water, wipe down and drip-run Morgan Blue Ultra Dry. Again.... (¯`'•.¸(¯`'•.¸(¯`'• shiny! •'´¯)¸.•'´¯)¸.•'´¯)

Oh, almost forget to mention: frame has been waxed too (Turtle Wax Super Hard Shell Shine). Yup. Real. Shiny.

I could take this thing to bed with me.

[antigee]

listening to the Escape crew podcast a few weeks back and one of the presenters suggested that rotors might need changing around every 3 times change pads and don't use a vernier to check as there is usually an unswept edge that distorts reading...couldn't remember last time swopped a rotor and yes have used a vernier when checking so a visit to ebay got a $40ish electronic micrometer and yesterday when cleaning bike checked. Front and rear both around 1.6mm...down from 1.8mm but above the 1.5mm minimum Shimano recommends so all good.
Before putting micrometer away thought would check my much less used "rowdy" gravel touring bike and found the rear nearer 1.4mm than 1.5mm I've got a pretty good idea from ridewithgps how many km each bike ridden but thinking about it last year I swopped the wheelsets over because of hub noise and ease of tubeless so the much less used bike had a wheelset that had clocked up a lot of km's and should have checked at the time