Pounds per PITA ratio – inversely proportional? (whinging content)

First world problems and all that and I suppose I should be grateful I’ve not snapped a frame in half or owt, but…

Replacing a complete drivechain on the bouncy bike at the weekend and everything is on bar the shifter. I’ve moved from SRAM to Shimano and go to mount it on to the Magura brake lever and… it doesn’t fit. Of course it doesn’t. Why would it? Like everything else nowadays its a diffferent standard. Price of new backing plate for the lever: 7 quid. Find one on stock and order it. Its still not arrived. So bike no 1 is out of action.

So I had a cheeky bunk off work today and head out for a ride on the hardtail. I get to the furthest point away from home (obviously) and my crank arm drops off. The shitty plastic Shimano crank tensioner is nowhere to be seen (again… obviously) so I limp home and find said part – price of shitty plastic Shimano crank tensioner: 3 quid. One has now been ordered

I did nip to the LBS but it seems to presently select its opening hours by some kind of lottery system

So I now have two bikes out of action for the sake of a tenners worth of parts

*sigh*

Could be worse, I know, but you know… boo hoo… poor me

So whats the cheapest, shittiest, flimsiest, most apparently irrelevent part that’s curtailed your riding?

The law of sod! I lost the Shimano tensioner screw thing a few years back so I ordered 3 as it gave me free postage and I figured I’d always have a spare or 2 if I lost another. You guessed it, I haven’t lost one since…

The plastic tensioner does not hold the crank on. It does the same job as your headset top cap.

Once your bolts are torqued up properly, you can throw it in the bin.

You forgot to check/torque your crank bolts I’m afraid!

Kick the crank on and do those bolts up tight. It will be near enough.

You’ve got bigger problems. Your crankset is toast, time to buy a new one.

So whats the cheapest most expensive, shittiest, flimsiest, most apparently irrelevent part that’s curtailed your riding?

Hopp carbon brake/shifter mounts. When torqued enough to not rotate on the bars, the bolt pulls the nut through the carbon on the first ride of a week in the lakes. Would have been better setting fire to the £150 they cost.

Your crankset is toast, time to buy a new one.

Sadly, this is probably the case. When I was slightly younger, I may have done this… The back and forth between the splines as it worked its way out will likely have wrecked them.  Is the preload cap the kind of thing that your LBS supplies? Unless it’s from the spares box – I probably have a few lying around.

https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-deore-mt512-single-12-speed-chainset-with-chainring-304463.html?utm_campaign=googlebase-GB&utm_source=googlebase&utm_medium=shopping&utm_term=MTB+Chainsets&ucpo=206864

Comes with FREE pre-load cap, too. 🙂

We had the same problem with some Shimano cranks whilst on an Alps trip. No matter what we did the crank came loose and fell off every ride. Managed to source any alloy crank tensioner in the local bike shop.
Never fell off again and was still on the bike 3 years later when it was stolen.

You can get a similar one on eBay for a couple of pounds

@Tracey – I’ve ordered one of the alloy ones off eBay, figuring it’ll probably fare better than a flimsy piece of plastic

Hopefully it’ll do the trick and I won’t be shelling out for a new crankset

🤞

Ask me how I know. I installed one of those cheap chainsets linked above recently. I replaced the plastic preload thing with an alloy hex version that’s done thousands of kilometres on an old set of XT cranks. Exactly 57km after installation, the NDS crank arm popped off the spindle while grinding up a Calderdale climb, still attached to my shoe. The clamp bolts were tight; I’m anal about nipping stuff up soon after installation, and in this case had to unwind them to get the crank back on the axle. The alloy cap was long gone (and irrelevant in any case). One kilometre of uphill later and it was already half off the axle. Slacked off the bolts, bashed back on, nipped up, and some cautious pedalling on the flat and downhill got me to the nearest train station…

It’s deliberately plastic so people don’t do it up too hard, it’s only meant to be 1nm iirc

Cant you ‘borrow’ a plastic tensioner from your new shimano setup. As discussed its only to hold on place until you torque the pinch bolts? Crank to spline interface might be rounded id but if give it a go on a few local routes before replacing a chainset.

The wee washer with the pin on the non drive side is more important than you think. Unless you’ve totally mashed the splines that might well fix it.

Replacing a complete drivechain

…train…

After running Shimano cracks for decades including on the DH bike I finally had one fall off. It went loose and I thought I’d caught it. Tensioned, torqued and was off about 8 miles later.

I think once the nds crank splines are gone it’s dead.

I bought a new left hand crank only and it’s been good for months of fairly rowdy riding and bad line choices.

My mate’s crank fell off 5 times, no matter how much we tightened the arm bolts, on our night ride last Friday. In the end I had to push him back from the pub. The chainset was toast by the end and he had to order a new one. Riding on a loose NDS Shimano crank does seem to knacker them quite quickly.

Super frustrating for a small thing like that to ruin a ride. On a ride a couple of weeks ago one of the guys had a puncture and we couldn’t get his maxle out to remove the wheel to get a tube in (the tubeless had failed).
That was a long walk home!

So I now have two bikes out of action for the sake of a tenners worth of parts

An extension of  the whole N+1 bike thing is when one of these annoying inconveniences arise you set the bike aside while you wait for either a part to arrive or until you can remember where that odd, unique tool that it requires is, and pick up another one and ride that until all too quickly you have N+1 bikes all with N+1 bits missing and zero bikes to actually ride.

Its important that all of the bikes you own have no parts other than the pedals and the saddle that you can swap between them to create a functioning bicycle

It’s equally annoying when you buy all the little fiddly infrequently used speciality tools then lose the between the very infrequent uses…

Oh ask me how I know, go on… 🙄

Riding on a loose NDS Shimano crank does seem to knacker them quite quickly.

Funny that 😉

Its important that all of the bikes you own have no parts other than the pedals and the saddle that you can swap between them to create a functioning bicycle

That was my exact rationale for buying yet another AXS mech last week and changing most of the bit on a brand new bike  🤣🤣🤣

Wouldn’t go as far as making sure everything was exactly the same. I have a mix of Guides and Codes but at least all the mounting hardware is the same.

Doesn’t alway work though. I’ve had four sets of DT wheels and despite the big tin of spares, I never have the end cap I need.

Ref: the preload caps.

I know in theory they do nothing, but in my experience if you ride without them then the crank does seem more likely to fall off. My hypothesis is that the slight distortion of the spline interface under load causes procession in the cap so everything is held together.

Unlike the end-bolted type (SRAM, FSA, RACEFACE) where the cap is just a built in self extractor for the bolt. They always seem to fall off because they’re not threadlocked and not under any load. That’s something I have a few generic ali-express spares of in the toolbox as inevitably they’ll have gone walkabout when it comes to replacing a BB/chainring.

I’ve actually got a dedicated pot on the workbench with cheap ali-express knockoff small parts. Things like bags of hose barbs, shifter clamps for bikes that came with matchmakers (because the shifter and/or brake WILL die at some point inconveniently), crank caps, jockey wheels, etc. Things that are probably not as good as OEM, but for ~£30 per bike probably saves at least a few rides a year when something fails whilst checking it over the night before.

Its important that all of the bikes you own have no parts other than the pedals and the saddle that you can swap between them to create a functioning bicycle

+1

If it can’t be swapped I’m less likely to end up with two f***ed bikes!

cheapest, shittiest, flimsiest, most apparently irrelevent part that’s curtailed your riding?

Try turning up on the start line of a road race with a missing bar end plug. There is nothing else so cheap that can negate your entry fee and ride. I carry a spare in the race bag for emergencies. Think apple corer when you crash.

My Shimano BB tool has a crank preload tensioner on the arm for easy use. Try torquing your cranks next time and you’ll probably be OK. I had one fall off once and it was fine after refitting. Road cranks have a little plastic wedge as a last resort to hold them on, do yours?

I went to go and replace the dropper post cable on my ebike yesterday as the lever had broken. No problem, easy fix, I’ve got a new lever and inners and outers in the garage.

Turns out that to replace a dropper cable on my ebike, first I have to remove both the battery AND the motor. Something that should be a 2min fix now requires specialist tools and probably an hour of my time. I’m now seriously considering whether I really need a dropper on my ebike or if I go old school with a QR seatpost!

Yay! Look whats just turned up? 😀

Try turning up on the start line of a road race with a missing bar end plug. There is nothing else so cheap that can negate your entry fee and ride.

The majority of commissaires carry a couple in their pocket at all times for this reason – no one wants to see someone miss a start.

Sounds like 100% justification for a new bike to me.

You need more bikes. Simple

You’ve got bigger problems. Your crankset is toast, time to buy a new one.

When this happened to me I put an advert on a fb mtb group for a lhs crank. A guy send me a free arm in return for my old one… He makes bottle openers from them and does not need them to function!

Magura brake lever and… it doesn’t fit. Of course it doesn’t. Why would it? Like everything else nowadays its a diffferent standard

Eh? What did I miss? Bars are 7/8″ (22.2mm) still aren’t they?

I think he’s talking about a fancy matchmaker set up

I’m now seriously considering whether I really need a dropper on my ebike or if I go old school with a QR seatpost!

You’ve accurately described my journey to buying an AXS Reverb.

Look what just landed. Looks a lot more substantial than the original Shimano plastic thingy and also matches my other orange stuff.

There’s a possibility (barring nackered crankset) that I may have two functioning bikes again. Pass me the hammer…

Look what just landed. Looks a lot more substantial than the original Shimano plastic thingy and also matches my other orange stuff.

I once fitted a flashy anodised preload cap to replace a plastic one which vanished in the garage somewhere.

It fell off and was gone forever first ride. I found the plastic one which has been fine ever since.