Fettled the race bike shifting on Friday night before the first (road) race of the season at Hillingdon.

Typical infuriating will change up or down fine, but not both. I’ve mentioned it before, but it is almost always due to the last cable outer before the RD. True to form the ferule (plastic) had a small kink. Turning it 180 degrees and refitting the cable did the trick.

I must have changed gear 200 times during the race and I think the bike failed to shift just the once. Ultegra 6600 with external cables is very good indeed.

Oh and I moved the four bike racks and roof bars to the new car (another CRV).

Fixing = nothing
Riding = lots

Just the way I like it

Was planning to service my Mavic freehub. Didn’t do it in the end, but did ponder a lot about whether or not I could get away without removing the cassette

Bar tape change.

Need to put some more hooks up. Probably tonight.

I got bored last night as now’t on TV so ended up cutting the steerer down on my CX’er, something I’ve been meaning to do since I bought it 😕 Anyway, all done.

If anyone wants to do this it’s a bit fiddly..

The steerer in the Giant TCX with carbon forks and steerer has a funny “star nut” configuration. It’s contained within a small alloy tube with a star wedge where the nut slides into, as you tighten the alloy bolt up the nut slides up the wedge in the tube..
Don’t be tempted to undo the alloy bolt and expect the nut to stay in the steerer because it undoes and drops into the bottom of the steerer tube, which is a bit annoying and you have to turn the bike upside down to get it out.
Anyways the alloy tube thingy that hold the alloy wedge is only a press fit in the steerer, if you just undo the bolt a few turns and then get hold of some mole grips and pull upwards the whole thing comes out of the steerer in one piece.

Just thought I’s share that.

Tubelessing various wheels as part of the fleet (or should that be stable as in steeds 🙂 ) revamp. First stans one was a doddle, second one a pain (though eventually got there), the bonty wheel was a doddle (as always – love their rim strip system – though I did have to pump it to 60psi to get the bead to ping in place 😯 ). Just the one more bonty wheel and I’m done with that.

I’ve turned the tyre round the right way that I fitted the wrong way in my haste to ride some new wheels. I should add, these wheels are now 2 years old. And are now on their second frame. The stupid thing is, it’s always annoyed me, but never quite enough to do anything about it.

One of those tyres I’ve done above was the wrong way around and that’s for at least 3 years I reckon. It’s right now 8)

I took the back wheel off my singlespeed Genesis thing took fix the puncture and noticed one of the stupid little screw chain tensioner things in the rear dropout was bent. Ah, so that explains why I’ve been getting a bit of brake rub, thinks I.
So I proceed to replace the stupid little screw thing with a spare.
I think the threads had rusted, cos it took ages to get the old one out and the new one just wouldn’t go in. And it was freezing in the garage.
Ended up throwing the frame across the garage and hitting it with my skateboard.
Took it indoors yesterday and sorted it 😆
Luckily I restrained myself from giving it the beating it deserved!
(Anger management issues, I know)

Ended up throwing the frame across the garage and hitting it with my skateboard.

Quick lower leg service. Clocked bushes need replacing on rear shock but that’s a job for next year.

My forks – RS Revs – have been leaking a bit of suspension fluid from the damper side. So I took the damper out and had a look, replaced the main O-ring. It still leaked. So I dismantled the damper – who knew the red plastic compression damper unscrews with an LH thread?

With the damper apart I found the culprit a split O-ring under the floodgate. Need to order one as the service kit I bought doesn’t include this O-ring

So not fixed, but problem found to fix later once I have the bits I need

Chill? Mate, I was bloody freezing!

Put a new saddle on Mrs Lunge’s bike.
Attempted and failed to change the BB on my winter roadie.

Nothing this weekend since I’m convalescing from minor arm surgery to remove a blackthorn. I

‘m glad of the rest tbh, after building a new Hardtail with reused bits and undertaking winter maintenance and bearing re greasing, plus stripping my full susser for a full pivot rebuild and degunk (ongoing). I’ve been a bit sick of it recently.

Put the motorbike battery on charge as it was flat when I went to give it a 5 min run.

Cleaned up my Karate Monkey frame ready for the XT groupset I’m getting for xmas.

Replaced cracked forks and 2 spokes.

Spent a few minutes repairing the cracked rear mudguard on my commuter. Split in two places, drilled two holes either side of the cracks, zip ties through the holes and pull it all back together.

They’ll last another few months now. The reason I’ve repaired rather than replace is that the last time I looked for a set I couldn’t find them in stock anywhere in the size I need. But its always good to fix things anyway.

Built up a pre war GT Zaskar for my missus. All my old 9 speed XTR bits and comes in at 22lbs!!!. Then dismantled a Jamis Durango for a mate. I made him come round and clean the chain and cassette cos I ain’t working in those sort of conditions!!. And I found out why we moved on from square taper bottom brackets cos I had the fetch it to work this morning and get two very big men to help me undo it!!!.

Oh yeah.. just remembered why I posted this.. almost had an utter disaster. I was bleeding the brakes using the Hope bleed tool – the one that uses compressed air from a tyre to force fluid through the system. Just as I was undoing the cap on the lever I remembered that I hadn’t disconnected the pressure…

That bleed kit is the most hateful devise ever conceived by man.

Ergonomically designed around the Octopus – when used by a biped the result is the creation of lethal cloud of corrosive DOT4 which enters eyes mouth and nose before settling on nicely polished paintwork to dissolve at leisure while the hapless victim struggle’s desperately to prevent blindness.

I cut the rubber tube off mine and binned the rest – the tube is all you need to bleed Hope brakes.