We all get told how "green" cycling is yet every time I need to change something, I have to throw a big chunk of bike away.

Shot hubs (on mine and wife's bikes) = cheaper to get a Hope Hoop with hub than get a decent hub.

Worn chainrings and BB – cheaper to buy a whole chainset.

Now have loads of stuff gathering that's mostly okay with one or two worn bits – Deore chainset, SLX chainset, a DT430 rim with dead M525 hub, a still reasonable Alex (if there's such a thing?!) rim with slightly worn Spesh Stout hub, etc, etc.

Bit of a shame really – if the prices to replace individual bits made sense (or got near it), I'd go for it but they are massively more expensive. I thinka Hope Pro2 hub is MORE than a Hope Hoop for example!!

Means lots of nice new kit but a mountain of barely worn stuff in the garage.

Well rather than sitting on all them barely worn bike parts….

http://www.re-cycle.org/

If you have enough,buy a frame, a handful of bits and you've got another bike, s'what I've done in the past.

Quite agree Matt, it's v frustrating.

Thing is stuff like good chainrings are way better then shimano so it's not always so cut and dried.

eBay?

What condition is the SLX chainset in? I may be interested in recycling it for you.

I give stuff like that away to juniors/kids etc – why not do that?

Coyote – sorry I missed this!

Chainset – inner ring almost unworn, middle and outer quite worn. BB pretty much shot, cranks arms totally fine and almost unmarked.

br – not sure if giving a half worn chainset/rim with dead hub is really going to help kids!

Anyway, it just seems a shame to ditch so many parts when one component wears out. I think I have a total of four chainsets in the garage, two rims that are fine (with dodgy hubs) and all sorts of other part worn kit!

I'll take the SLX chainset if your selling, not sure it helps the environment as it will just displace another crank arm into my spares drawer.

I dumped all my junk on ebay recently, lots of photos clearly described as junk, sold for lots of money. I'll take all our rubbish off you if you can't be bothered, but I'd recommend putting it on ebay.

If you feel so bad about it just fork out whatever it costs for the direct replacement? Or are you denying your favourite manufacturer the right to make a decent margin, forcing them to keep discounting wheels and chainsets?

Try the classifieds?

There's a local bike repair charity project thing that recycles old bike bits – things that can't be used they use for art projects etc

Follow this link to ease your green conscience.
GREEN NIRVANA

I dumped all my junk on ebay recently, lots of photos clearly described as junk, sold for lots of money

Yep I've done that before. I've sold worn out cassettes (honestly described and photographed as such) and chains etc, even if I get £5 for it, it means it's being used and not cluttering up my spare room!

You could always service the hubs so they don't die…

I agree with you surf mat, and I think it's getting worse as people get more fussy.

Remanufacturing would be the best way of getting more use out of our stuff, but you are always faced with the cost of UK labour, vs the cost of labour where it's manufactured. Plus the hassle and time involved in inspection etc.

There are interesting techniques that can be used, like spraying metal back onto worn gears, remachining critical areas, 3d scanning & laser sintering to fix broken areas, reconditioning bearings etc…..but these are only ever done on large, valuable components.

Al – both are M525 cup and cone hubs – they really are very dead indeed.

Now got sealed Hopes for mines (and ordered one for wife's bike) so hopefully (bad pun) we'll get a lot more life out of them. I all for "modular" stuff that can be replaced such as sealed cassette bearings, etc.

BigY – will have a look.

TBH I'm not worried about getting money for any of it – just seems a bit of a waste chucking aways so much part worn (and even barely worn) stuff when one bit goes wrong.

For such a "green" form of transport/sport, I seem to be ditching a lot of metal.

Would it be worth taking it to the local metal recycler would they part cash for these parts as most of it will be aluminium? I also have a box of chains, rings and cassettes just sat there. Will have a look at the links above to.

Penrod Pooch

What he said. Just buy the parts you need and accept it's not always the most cost effective solution, but at least your conscience will be clean.

Hobby cycling is anything but green.
Lomg live the fluoro'd, adidas rucksacked commuter on his/her way to work.
Too much dosposable income is the problem…

What he said. Just buy the parts you need and accept it's not always the most cost effective solution, but at least your conscience will be clean.

Fine if it was a bit more but it costs MUCH more to do this.

Take the SLX chainset that went – worn outer and middle rings and knackered BB – new decent BB – £100, new chainrings that last – £50. Then add fitting. New XT chainset (that's better) – £130.

Take the rear wheel I recently binned – new Hope Pro2 hub – £150, wheelbuild – £30-40 so not far off £200.

New hand finished rear Hope Hoop (Pro2 on xc717) – about £130 and I get a brand new rim and spokes.

Now you have to be a pretty dedicated greeny to take the "replace only the worn bits" option.

I'll see if I can get the metal recycled.

Take the SLX chainset that went – worn outer and middle rings and knackered BB – new decent BB – £100, new chainrings that last – £50. Then add fitting. New XT chainset (that's better) – £130.

£100 for an slx level bb?

I tend to just trickle down parts to other bikes until they're totally U/S

Al – both are M525 cup and cone hubs – they really are very dead indeed.

You can just buy identical hubs and use them as a 'donor hub', swap all the internals and have a brand spanking new set of wheels. Get a spare pair of skewers too with the hubs.

seen hope bulbs front for £35 front, £70 rear. learn how to re-lace and true wheels and you'd have saved £150 over hope hoops, bit less if you wanted ProIIs but still significantly cheaper.

should be able to find a Deore BB £20 and £15 for 22T and 36T Deore chainrings, ditch the big ring altogether, can't really see anyone needing bigger on an MTB for off road use. don't think you can get a whole deore chainset for £35 can you?

Al – I'm slightly cheating here – I killed the SLX BB so quickly that I wanted to get something better. Admittedly an XT one is the same (I think) but when it dies, I'll Hope it.

njee – bit beyond my level of non expertise. To me they are just useless bits of metal now.

Again it's not the cost, it's just wasting lots of bits of barely worn bike that irks me.

seen hope bulbs front for £35 front, £70 rear. learn how to re-lace and true wheels and you'd have saved £150 over hope hoops, bit less if you wanted ProIIs but still significantly cheaper.

With new spokes you wouldn't.

njee – bit beyond my level of non expertise. To me they are just useless bits of metal now.

Get your LBS/race mechanic friend to do it? It's a quick job frankly, those hubs can be had for next to no money, and you could then keep the wheels for winter/road use or flog them. Rather addresses the whole point of this thread!

njee – could be a plan. Cheers!

To the person suggesting I ditch my outer ring – it was equally as worn as the middle one. The inner was almost totally unworn – 'ARDCORE.

njee – bit beyond my level of non expertise. To me they are just useless bits of metal now.

Again it's not the cost, it's just wasting lots of bits of barely worn bike that irks me.

Surely a big part of why to you they're just 'useless bits of metal', is because you don't fit / maintain things yourself. If rather than spending loads of money on replacement parts, you spent a little time reading how to build wheels / rebuild hubs etc. then you could do things without having to pay people to fit things*, pay for wheel building etc. If you know about how things like hubs work and how to maintain them properly, they often last longer too (with the exception of rings etc. which obviously just wear out unless you remember to change chains frequently, which I know I forget to do).

For most maintenance jobs, the Park Tools website is great. For building wheels, sheldonbrown.com is great, and tells you how to build them without needing a fancy workstand, tension meter etc. which Park Tools will suggest you get.

Joe
*by the way, did I misunderstand you, you don't seriously pay someone to fit a bottom bracket or chainrings do you?

With new spokes you wouldn't.

why would he need new spokes, it was the hub that was ****!

To the person suggesting I ditch my outer ring – it was equally as worn as the middle one. The inner was almost totally unworn – 'ARDCORE.

That'll be me then 😳
it's the other way round tho! if you're pedalling a 44-11 gear on an MTB the only 'ardcore in your ride is the tarmac!

Perhaps he just has stronger legs than you?

Anyway, these SLX cranks. Can I recycle them? I'll pay postage.

Gearing debate has been done any times. Ditching the big ring and going to a 36 loses you 1 1/2 gears off the top.

36 / 11 can be pedalled to 25+ mph easily. Few of us pedal at more than 25mph offroad.

why would he need new spokes, it was the hub that was ****!

Because spoke lengths going from a Shimano Deore hub to a Hope Bulb would not be the same.

Coyote – could you use them?

Joe – loads of XC riders ditch the granny ring. I do occasionally use mine but not often, and yes I do use the big ring off road quite often.

All very well trying to have a go at me for "not looking after my kit" but I look after my stuff (in terms of keeping clean and correctly lubed) very well. I just don't have the time or the inclination to build wheels – the kit needed is a big outlay and the bike mechanic charges less than a third of what I charge for doing my job so it makes perfect sense – job done properly with the right tools, I can get on with my own job.

I do a few thousand miles a year so stuff just wears out, hence now getting sealed hubs that will hopefully last longer. Not only were the hub bodies shot, the bearings were also munched from simple wear and tear.

How do hubs fail?

Cones get munched, bearings die, becomes more expensive to sort than to replace. Both got very "rumbly."

It can all be easily fixed for buttons apart from the races.

Which can also be swapped out of a new hub, despite what Mr Shimano says!

At the end of the day though, he's gone from a budget set of wheels to something a lot nicer, whether it was done purely because he wanted new wheels or because the old ones were buggered is fairly irrelevant!