[Closed] Your ignoring maintenance stories

Freehubs plus a few, always one of those things that gets worse, then cures itself, you convince yourself it's fine then it goes 🙁

Crank-Bros pedals, got grittier and grittier, then fell off the axle.

My bikes do tend to go through bits until I fit something reliable, then once it's there it tends to be fine, so they do tend to gravitate towards singlespeeds with Hope everything.

Changed the travel on my fork Friday night, didn't make the time to set it up. Also my dropper has been sagging for weeks, haven't fixed it.

Arrived for a ride yesterday mechanically unprepared, poorly dressed for the colder than expected conditions, which meant I really wasn't in the mood and my arms was screaming just as things got fast and interesting so I sucked on the way up, sucked on the way down and had to sit in cold, wet clothes all the way home.

No one to blame but myself, but I wish I hadn't bothered.

Greasing the headset bearings! nahhhh don't bother until it cracks when you turn.

Probably freehub pawls won't make that mistake again though 😉

Probably freehub pawls won't make that mistake again though

Ssssshhhh, i've told my wife i'll be needing a new wheel.

What happened Rocketman? I've been putting that job off for months.

Usually your testicles hit the stem at about mach 3 as you gurn up a hill and the pawls finally let go.

What happened

When the last one breaks [b]your testicles hit the stem at about mach 3 as you gurn up a hill[/b] & when you've had a lie down for a bit you have to tie-wrap the cassette to the spokes so you can ride home in fixie mode

HTH

Excellent. I've not got any testicles, so I can safely keep ignoring my sticky pawls.

Always brake pads for me, I've got a syndrome which means I have to get every last bit of use out of them. Luckily, the backing plates on superstar kevlar pads are still pretty effective for braking with.

I've left a plethora of things too late in the past and it's cost me alot of money in the early years of my riding.

I have 2mtbs and these days I basically have a permanently running schedule of maintenance to stay on top of everything. It's like chores in the house, hoovering one day, washing the next, kind of thing.

Apart from damage picked up from actual riding, mechanicals are so infrequent now I can't really remember the last one.

It certainly makes for better rides.

I've not got any testicles, so I can safely keep ignoring my sticky pawls

Not changing the timing belt on my diesel Renault van at 120,000 as per the book. It went at 120,001 miles. Who would have thought Renault could be so reliable ?

Oh yes, riding home on the hack bike, 1.5 miles from the station so an easy walk/limp home if needed...
BANG! that was a 517 rim exploding and taking out the inner tube. People came out of their houses as it sounded like a gunshot. I thought it was getting thin. Walk home...
SNAP! that was my chain snapping and ramming my knee into the shifter. I thought those out of the saddle efforts were sounding a bit granchy. Limp home...

The area about the bottom bracket is looking a bit rusty, what could possibly go wrong next...

Rocketman - Member
I've not got any testicles, so I can safely keep ignoring my sticky pawls

I imagine a stem in the slats would be just as painful

It really would depend on the head angle

I dunno how you can ignore problems. All my bikes are in tip top condition

The bearings in my road bike are sounding more graunchy than my knackered old knees...I'll get another season out of them 😆

I dunno how you can ignore problems.

The serious answer to that is cost. I know I need to replace the hub bearings, headset and bottom bracket on my road bike, but I'm skint at the mo'.

The serious answer to that is cost.

And time. I commute everyday on my bike, and need it all the time. I just hardly ever see the window in which I can spend time working on the thing (or taking it in).

It really would depend on the head angle

I had an old SS. There was "a bit of play" in the cranks. It was octalink and I'd put in a cheap BB with the plastic cup on one side not the metal. I finally got round to replacing it. Went to unscrew it and pulled it out by hand. The plastic had failed and the whole BB had been moving (the bearings were fine!) and it had destroyed the threads.

Went to Molini with Riviera 3 years ago, one of our boys was, ahem, told beforehand to get his bike a full service, as it was hanging.

I reckon he rode 1 full day in total the whole trip....

stilltortoise - Member
The bearings in my road bike are sounding more graunchy than my knackered old knees...I'll get another season out of them

The knees or the bearings

I ignored the noise and play in the BB on my commuting bike until the axle wore so badly that it snapped through on the way home one day.
I'm really lazy when it comes to looking after that bike, as I use it every weekday, whatever the weather.

I had an old SS. There was "a bit of play" in the cranks. It was octalink and I'd put in a cheap BB with the plastic cup on one side not the metal. I finally got round to replacing it. Went to unscrew it and pulled it out by hand. The plastic had failed and the whole BB had been moving (the bearings were fine!) and it had destroyed the threads.

Dunno how I ever managed before, but my latest cartridge BB (bog standard Shimano UN type) came with instructions which I actually read, turns out you're not supposed to keep tightening it until the threads bottom out. Just torque it up properly and it leaves a fraction of a mm gap.

Made the mistake first time and they were really tight, done properly and they're fine.

Have shimano changed the design, or is it just me?

Actually, the freewheel slipped on the commuter this morning and I had a bit of a tankslapper moment, which I luckily managed to save.
Should probably do something about that now... 😕

Started an epic maintenance session on my full susser last night. Needs chain, chainring, cassette, jockey wheels. Bottom bracket. Forks lowers and shock air can service. Wheels tighten & true, probably should do the bearings in the rear. Was well before Christmas I last rode that bike.

Wheels need doing on the single speed too. 🙄

My MTB pretty much always just works. I'm not pedantic about it, it never really gets cleaned, I just make sure all the moving parts are doing what they should.

My commuter is the one that suffers. It's probably more dirt and zipties than bike nowadays. Last thing that went seriously wrong was the rear rim wearing through. Somehow managed to make it home on it though. Bolts holding on the rear guard corroded away too, so it rubbed the wheel . Brake pads are another thing. They tend to wear way past where they should before I notice.

Freehub is on the way out on the SS. It's just got to that stage where it seems to have fixed itself - it wont get done until I'm walking home with aching knackers 🙂

I finally got round to getting a white board in the garage so i can keep a track of the jobs that need doing.
My worst one was being thrown to the ground with force when my chain snapped on the dual slalom at chicksands that one hurt.
Beyond that having grinding and crunchy sounds is a pain in the arse when you forget it needs doing until the next ride.

Quite a few including:
Pedal locked up due (presumably) to a bearing or two breaking and jamming against others, on a trip to the shops so easy push home.
Not really maintenance but I had some old elastomer forks with fork boots, the action went pretty shit so put em on my old commuter removed the elastomers and ziptied the brace to the fork crown. Used for a while, unbeknown to me the stanchions corroded and eventually one of them gave up, cue some very wandery steering, fortunately I was next to a train station when I noticed.
I've scored a few BB axles when I've run dead BBs too long - see also headsets and fork steerers.
Pitted a disc rotor when I ran out of brake block a fair way from the car. Several months running the rotor with sintered pads got it smoothish (still in use on one of my bikes)
Only one scoot home from a failed freehub - wouldn't engage rather than cataclysmic pawl failure.
In the rim brake years I had some rims start to split at the brake surface - never actually had one explode tho.
Tend to run drivechains too long, just removed my commuter one which was slipping badly for a couple of months. Had a few cassettes that I've struggled to remove as they were so worn a chain whip wouldn't grip.
Erm jockey wheels too:
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Surly Cross-check set up fixed and ridden to work and back every day for ages. Slightly annoying ticking noise developed over a couple of weeks but figured it was the BB on the way out and I'd get to it before too long.

CX season started and with the new race bike not fully built up yet, decided to ride the Surly with the rear wheel on the freewheel side.

Halfway through and the ticking noise no longer a mystery at the bottom of a sharp little descent as I lay there dazed with feet still clipped in and my right hand holding half a handlebar. Crack had developed between the stem and my Exposure light mount and the ticking was the crack slowly getting bigger.

I exploded 7th gear on the casette of my commuter a few weeks back. So I'm riding it around in 6th now. I should probably get a new one, but that'll mean a new chain and cranks (as they're often cheaper than chainrings) and I may as well do the BB while it's in bits...it'll wait until something properly terminal happens to the drivetrain...

My old lathe was always a bit noisy, I figured it was because it was from 1942. Then suddenly it lost all power - the motor had been up against the edge of the cabinet, and it had very slowly sawed its own motor shaft in half.

The freehub is definitely considering its pension options on the commuter.

I also noticed a bulge in the rear tyre one afternoon before hopping on it to ride home. Deflated the tube, resat the tyre, pumped it up again and there it was. No worries thinks I, it'll get me home and I'll sort it there.

There's a pothole I (almost) always manage to dodge just before Shepherds Bush roundabout heading westbound. Obviously I didn't manage to miss it that day, and the sound of an almighty bang was swiftly followed by the tire vacating the rim. Oops.

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@molgrips - I do that every year.

Every year I repeat "I must check the brake pads for wear sooner" and I end up losing a brake mid ride, around June/July time.

This time round, I replaced a wheel on my bike and was somewhat alarmed when the remains of the sintered pad dropped out.

Loads of life left in those. There's still spring left!

More concerned about the uneven pressure tbh. Could be down to the spring though, I suppose.

I serviced my FS and checked pad life, probably 50% left, and following a Swinley mud fest I was cleaning the bike. I happened to take the rear wheel out to check something and spotted some odd wear marks on rotor. On checking the pads there was nothing. It had gone about halfway through the metal on both sides 😯 . About 3000 miles prior to this on the pads to bring it to 50% and then one Swinley ride and it finished them off. Mad.

Amateur Molgrips!

I was a bit annoyed I changed the fronts slightly prematurely on these:

[img] [/img]

I wore down the piston in the rear brake and trashed a pair of Hope floating rotors by wearing through the rivets. Had to send the brakes back for a rebuild. They turned down my warranty claim 🙁

Lol!

A 'friend of a friend' story so might not be true, but I do remember hearing about a bloke who did a very wet xc race somewhere very gritty and wore through pads, backing material and by the end of the race was using his pistons as braking material.

That's exactly what happened there ^^

Gorrick Enduro in 2010. They were brand new pads, used for less than 4 hours.