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Road bikes are easy to look after - need very little attention other than a wash and lube after a wet ride. Very much different with the MTB, with the CX bike in the middle.
I've a friend who basically gives his bike to another mate to fix (he'd give it to me if I was nearer). He's even called the wife out when he's had a puncture. He's recently bought an MTB, so we steered him clear of the complexities of a full sus. and he got a hardtail.
Then you get those that don't carry anything with them, relying on tools others carry. I've used my multi-tool many more times on other's bikes.
A sub-moral of the story is that he was clearly a significantly faster rider than me, I think there might be a subset of riders who just ride their bikes ALL.THE.TIME and don’t bother devoting any time to maintenance or learning new skills. It’s a sort of all-or-nothing approach I guess, if you get fast enough soon enough with few enough mechanical disasters you can get signed by a team and have a pro-mechanic on hand all the time 😎
Not just mechanicking. I noted this really in the aftermath of the Olympics and British successes at the TdF, peaked around late teens and not so bad now. But there was an influx of riders (in Surrey at least) that had bought bikes, ridden them and got pretty fit and fast, and then decided to join a club. And had no group skills, to the extent of being dangerous.
But when pointed out, in a non-threatening helpful way, became very defensive or even belligerent back. Alpha male types who didn't like to be told their riding could be improved. The too high a gear is one example but the one that sticks in my mind was a guy who'd pass parked cars with about 9" gap. As a kid I was doored and that is the one and only time it's going to happen because it ***ing hurts. I merely suggested a bit more space in case, and you'd think I'd bummed his dog! "I know what I'm doing, I've got time to react!!"
Pointing out that if he then swerved and took the rider next to him out then everyone behind is coming down too just made it worse.
Must say I won't ride in close formation with anyone I don't know. We used to practice riding close on club runs and were well drilled doing through and off etc. Now, I'm very wary of others. Simple stuff like suddenly standing on the pedals to hit a climb, causes your bike to 'jump back' a foot or so, as you temporarily lose a bit of momentum whilst the rider behind is still maintaining speed - you've got to be aware of this when riding in a bunch.
Alpha male types
TBF to roadies, I've been in both road and mtb clubs with these sorts in them. I think the tradition of getting your bike fixed by mechanics is much more embedded in the roadie world, they're traditionally either supported by the local shop, or start from the local shop, and its often that the service schedules are pretty far apart so the cost doesn't seem that bad. I could easily get silly mileages out of cassettes and chains before the mechanic would be sucking air through his teeth...
As with any job you are able to do yourself, it seems to expensive to pay for someone good to do and at the price point you are willing to pay, it will almost certainly be done badly.<br />
It’s not that any single job is particularly expensive, more that it all starts to add up when it’s being done regularly.
Alpha male types who didn’t like to be told their riding could be improved.
Ride-leading has become much more difficult in the last 10 years. It needs to be carefully done anyway - people don't sign up to a bike tour to be told "ride like this, do that, hold the wheel!" - but now the slightest suggestion that maybe 2-abreast does not mean 8ft apart or that using something other than 52:12 in a group will avoid surging up the wheel in front will often result in "I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!" and "I'VE ALWAYS DONE IT LIKE THIS!"
Lots of riders very fit from Zwift but with zero ability to ride in the wet, in a group, in traffic and through towns.
In our club, new riders ride in the beginners group until they can ride safely in a group. Then the fittest can go straight to Group 1 and dish out the pain as they see fit. Riders from other clubs tend to get a free pass, especially if its a well-known road club (rather than a cycle-boom social). We also operate no drop rides in most groups. I rode with the beginners on Saturday. I made them WALK through-and-off in the car park before we left. Two abreast should be no wider than two handlebar widths. Even our experienced club riders struggle with that, but the roads are terrible, especially for the inside line which explains some of that. On the track, one handlebar width. DON'T get me started on surging!
No wonder they all look so miserable. 😉 Lots of rules.
Lots of rules.
Ahhhhm oot.
So, a further update, not entirely uncoincidentally, the shifter has now given up the ghost…
It is six years old, has been ridden and partly stored outside in all weathers, hasn’t had a hood on it for the past ~ 6 months (supply chain issues) and hadn’t been shifting well for a while now, which I’d put down to an old cable and worn drivetrain, which is what I’d started off replacing this weekend before I put what I thought was going to be the finishing touches to a refurbishment with some smart new hood covers and a new cable.
Turns out that I may have inadvertently administered the final coup-de-grace by taking it to bits and reassembling it to get the hood covers on.
When I installed the new cable yesterday, it turned out it wasn’t long enough, it was a very old one and I think must have been sized for a 26 inch mountain bike.
This morning, popped to the LBS, got a standard new shifter cable, installed it, and nothing, it won’t shift.
3 days in, and all I’ve succeeded in doing is creating a highly geared single speed commuter bike, with new hood covers.
FML.
Did the old cable have any frayed bits? Very easy for a bit of frayed cable stuck inside to stop the shifter working.
It did.
Any suggestions as to how to get them out?
Fine picks from Screwfix or MachineMart and compressed air - wear goggles!
I've got some picks. No compressed air unfortunately.
Which sti? For 11spd 105 then take parts 5, 6 & 7 (see exploded diagram link) off then you should have enough access to get any bits out.
https://si.shimano.com/en/ev/ST-R7020-4341
In some ways your hood replacement method has actually helped you, if the cable was frayed then it’s not far off snapping and that’s even more faff! As regards your present problem, gently operate your lever one click at a time and look carefully with a bright light from all angles and this may reveal strands of the frayed cable, gently tease with fine pliers or tweezers any bits you can find. Operation of the lever one way or another can help free it up, patience is your friend so don’t rush it. Hope this helps.
Do your own spannering? You're not a proper roadie, return your Rapha/Castelli kit immediately! 😏
All seriousness, I know a fair few club roadies that won't touch their bikes other than washing it and lubing the chain. They might fix a puncture but would rather pay someone if they could.
These types however tend to have highend road bikes so can understand it to a point, nobody wants to knacker their bike while attempting a spot of DIY spannering.
In some ways your hood replacement method has actually helped you, if the cable was frayed then it’s not far off snapping and that’s even more faff! As regards your present problem, gently operate your lever one click at a time and look carefully with a bright light from all angles and this may reveal strands of the frayed cable, gently tease with fine pliers or tweezers any bits you can find. Operation of the lever one way or another can help free it up, patience is your friend so don’t rush it. Hope this helps.
Are you telling me that I've got to take the f***ing thing off again?!
I've ridden with the local road club a couple of times (the quickest of the three available) as I'd ridden with a few of the riders regularly on local gravel rides and thought "what the hell!"
I found I needed to really concentrate on my positioning, cadence, gear changing and braking, whilst simultaneously riding to the road and conditions. Add in the regular changing/rotating of riders and it's a lot to take in. I enjoyed it but would rather ride off-road and solo but riding on the road at a decent pace in a well working group is very satisfying. The other riders were probably thinking "whats this fat dirt rider doing riding at the front?" I only made a few mistakes so definitely had room for improvement which is quite humbling for a bloody minded person like myself.
Shame the Saturday rides clash with my son's football or I'd do more club rides.
Note that we all pushed a car out a ditch one time just showing they're not all that miserable, actually we never asked if they were the owner, maybe we were unknowingy accomplices 😬
@kramer you have to disassemble the entire bike to the last nut and bolt. It's the only way to be certain... 🙃
Spannering-wise I started from nothing (I guess we all did at some point) but MTBing means you do learn at an accelerated rate out of necessity.
If you buy a semi-nice new road bike and have even a cursory fit done by the shop then there is no need to do anything for ages. Nothing needs adjusting, altering, repairing. Hose and a chainlube application will be all the attention it needs.
All of a sudden you are 2 years in and it needs a new shifter cable and you've done nothing more complex than changing a tube, if you have been unlucky. If you started mtbing back in the tubed days, you probably figured that out in your second week.
Until you’ve threaded internal cables in a carbon frame, you haven’t lived.
Ah that's why you treat yourself to the park tool internal cable routing kit, after previously going thru that trial by fire 🙂
it’s a SRAM Rival HDR 1*11.
I'm out. Sorry.
This morning, popped to the LBS, got a standard new shifter cable, installed it, and nothing, it won’t shift.
Is the cable end seated properly in the housing?
@ransos, yes it is. And I’ve checked it at shorter length of outer and it’s not pulling at any of them.
Fortunately I have a set of watchmakers screwdrivers and I ain’t afraid to use them. 🙃
On a more helpful tack, did you make sure the gear lever was in top (the smallest sprocket) position before changing/tensioning the cable?
riding on the road at a decent pace in a well working group is very satisfying
When it works properly, it is poetry in motion. It is genuinely an amazing feeling to be in that totally zen zone where everything is effortless, you're sitting in the wheels and just...flowing.
I remember being in a break in a road race somewhere up on the flatlands around Blackpool in a group of about 8 - just perfect through and off for 40 miles. We were absolutely caning it but it just felt so smooth.
On the other hand I've been in groups where no-one knows how to work together, people are pulling out from the group, smashing it to the front and then dying after 5 minutes but they refuse to pull off, some else swings out, smashes it to the front - that kind of thing is disorganised and stressful.
Yes I did.
The whole drivetrain is pretty knackered, 6 years of commuting, so most of it was on its last legs. I’d given it a good clean, regreased the freehub, replaced the cassette and chain ring and chain, and was going to replace the shifter cable anyway.
So I single speeded into work today, the irony being that apart from being unable to change gears, the rest of the bike is running better than ever.
I'll have another look at the shifter at the weekend.
We await the end of the weekend for your update as if it were Christmas Day itself 🫢
I found I needed to really concentrate on my positioning, cadence, gear changing and braking, whilst simultaneously riding to the road and conditions. Add in the regular changing/rotating of riders and it’s a lot to take in. I enjoyed it but would rather ride off-road and solo but riding on the road at a decent pace in a well working group is very satisfying.
Welcome to the (often) beautiful world of club riding,the trick is to find a group that you trust completely,everyone on auto pilot,and as smooth as a smooth thing.
Then ride a Sportive with a load of 'cycle-boom social'* and Triathletes..OMFG 😉
* TiRed copyright 🤣👍
Ironically, it’s normally the ones who do *everything* themselves that cause more problems because they’ve almost invariably bodged something or used not quite the right tool or “just done that for now” or got distracted.
That'll be the "Do everything, know nothings"
My assumption is that MTBing ends up almost 1:1 riding to maintenance time once you include faffage like getting bikes in/out of cars, having to clean it, etc. Then less frequent stuff like suspension serviceing, tubeless tyres, etc.
Ride more or get better at servicing/cleaning/fixing?
I've just rehosed and refitted/filled/bled a set of brakes and replaced the (internally) routed gear cable in under an hour... Though i *do* have a decent sized workshop and near enough 35 years of spannering experience. I can even rebuild a road STI (though i'd rather not if i didn't have to).
That’ll be the “Do everything, know nothings”
The shop I worked in employed a young lad as a mechanic (mostly on the begging of his Dad and the fact that the kid was actually a good racer in the club that was sponsored by said shop).
Turned out the kid knew how to work on a very specific set of components - mostly top end ones because his Dad was rich and just bought him XTR. Anything else, he had neither the knowledge nor the interest to fix. So yeah, if it came to his own XTR, he was a decent mechanic. If it was anything else, he was rubbish. Although thankfully he'd usually just refuse to work on it rather than bodge it so at least we never had to fix his mistakes. He lasted less than a week...
There are plenty of people like that though who reckon they're good mechanics because they can fix their own bikes. Give them anything out of the ordinary and they're lost in seconds.
OP sounds like some fragments of cable are jamming the shifter. Had this with an 11 speed ultegra as well. You don’t disassemble but need to put shifter in highest gear to find the fragments.
And to the non-club naysayers., rules make you safe. But with your regular club mates, it’s like flying. Smooth is always fast. The test is whether you need to cover the brakes or can just relax. Final track accreditation this week. And the rules really matter when you are half a wheel behind and hemmed in on both sides on the blue line!
OP sounds like some fragments of cable are jamming the shifter. Had this with an 11 speed ultegra as well. You don’t disassemble but need to put shifter in highest gear to find the fragments.
Thanks. It's on my to do list for the weekend
I have a habit of riding with my hands on the flats on my 'curly' barred bikes, I have to consciously remind myself to keep my brakes covered when in a close group.
Another habit I have is to linger in a gear even when it would be better to change down one or two. Just laziness really, and probably a hangover over from my past singlespeeding.
I also struggle to judge my speed when moving to the front, I get all excited and can go too fast and end up gapping everyone from the front. Oops!
When the big diesel older riders ride on the front, especially up hill, can make it a joy to follow as they are so smooth.
I can even rebuild a road STI (though i’d rather not if i didn’t have to).
There's a bloke up there^ maybe looking for that sort of help. Just wait 'til next Monday... 🙃
I can even rebuild a road STI (though i’d rather not if i didn’t have to).
I bought a new STI shifter as it wouldn't change anymore. After fitting the new one, I was looking at the knackered one more closely and realised that one of the tiny springs had come off somehow. I managed to get it reseated after much fiddling, and it only bloody works again.
Oh well, at least I've a spare now.
On the subject of group riding plonkers...
What about those that sit in for ages then eventually take a turn, go mental cos they're well rested, break the group up then end up back at the back trying to recover. ****ts.🙄
There’s a bloke up there^ maybe looking for that sort of help. Just wait ’til next Monday… 🙃
I hope that all of you who are having such fun at my expense are going to be there for me next Sunday evening when I'm on my knees and weeping surrounded by tiny screws and bits of shifter...