@jsinglet

PF30 is actually really easy to work on, which is good because its a PITA

once the crank is off you can remove the entire cup using a drift (aka socket bar or piece of wooden dowel) if you don’t have the ‘rocket’ tool that many tool brands make.

if you just want to refresh the existing bearings to buy some time, pop the bearing shields with a sharp blade and pack lots of thick grease in there, before pushing shields back into place.

long term get a decent aftermarket PF30 BB with quality bearings and sealing, the SRAM stock BB are absolutely terrible.

I managed a workshop in a busy Specialized Concept Store and constantly dealt with BB30, PF30, OSBB and other ungodly creations 😉

in the photo below you can see a sachet of 3M DP420 epoxy, used to bond the nylon cups into the Specialized carbon frame to stop the cups “walking” out of the shell under load. If the bearings got contaminated and dried up they would start to rotate inside the nylon cups.

Shimano RS81 C24 – the non groupset “ultegra” carbon laminate wheelset

Sits below Dura Ace but above 6800 Ultegra

Check out these:

Got mine for just over £300 off Wiggle, touch over 1500 grammes, very fast rolling and stiff laterally but also a degree of vertical compliance not common in factory wheels (the reason Shimano have their carbon/alloy laminate rim)

We did the bike park / shop very successfully at Freeborn Esher. Shop open 9 years, bike park 8.5 years. At its peak 250 riders a week visiting from all over UK. Park built by passionate volunteers with cash support for material from Specialized UK and Freeborn.

Specialist retailer focused on gravity / enduro / dirt jump markets also UK importer of brands Ellsworth, Banshee, Stan’s, Devinci.

Tiny premises and 2 staff plus access to exclusive brands and oe stock meant very profitable. Shop rammed full of frames/forks/wheels, body armour, full face helmets, dh tires and so much other kit. I’d typically have 30 pairs of disc brakes in stock on any day. I could sell 4-5 dh bikes a week. Loads of custom builds, riders from London visiting to get all the kit we stock that London shops didn’t.

Ironically the landlord killed us. When we knocked down the north shore (freeriding had its day) all the dirt imported and heavy plant got the land owners nervous and our landlord panicked. Our lease was then subject to weekly (!) review, no basis on which to continue trading.

Park flattened by land owner, shop following a month later.

A unique circumstance, probably never to be repeated.

SLX for the win!

insanely good value, so simple to setup and just keep working extremely well

A wide range of industry sources claim that sales between early summer and end of 2015 were very poor, suppliers over ordered stock based on brisk trade in the first month’s of 2015, now a glut of stock on sale dumped into market.

Oversupply with too many shops selling similar products to same customers(enthusiasts). Road bike market flattening out, some activities in MTB market but not enough to offset decline in road. Customers making groupset or wheel upgrade (purchased online on price) rather than swapping carbon fibre bike

Industry going through ‘correction’ with convergence of circumstances coupled with acceleration of Internet retail beyond most retail analysts projections.

Considering the bulk of turnover in a bike shop comes from selling bikes, its going to be interesting to see if the proposed new model of coffee/service/fitness actually provides any proper revenue

I looked at this carefully and chose 350’s for my roval traversee 29’er rebuild.

350 are Taiwanese made with same guts as 240’s but regular steel bearings and less modular options for future proofing axle standards

Weight difference was minimal and comes from intensive machining done at DT Swiss in Europe hence the cost, the 240’s have stainless bearings

The main thing in favour of 240’s if you look at the compatibility chart on the DT Swiss site is the ability to run all kinds of setups with adapters.

Price difference between 240 and 350 was hard to swallow…

@Sancho

good luck with your future!

my friends at Bella Velo (Surbiton) closed their shop end of last year, after trading less than 1 year. It’s getting really tough out there for the LBS

Expect to see a number of LBS close as the bike industry is going through a somewhat brutual transition at the moment, perhaps LBS owners don’t actually want to run a yoga/coffee/training “hub” but just want to sell good bikes to good people!

3T do some great MTB kit which is regularly discounted online. I picked up a stem for £25 and wide flat bars for £35 both heavily discounted. Both are light but stiff/tough, 3T certainly have experience with aluminium alloys.

Went with Easton for a full carbon seatpost, not cheap at £85(discounted) but money well spent, light well built and comfortable compared to the aluminium post if replaced.

I’ve had lots of Thomson elite/x4 over the years it was nice to try new kit

@reggiegasket

yes I have ridden in p*ssing rain storms on rim brakes on many occasions

its really not as big as problem as some might think, if you run good pads (swiss stop blue for alloy) and rims are regularly cleaned

I had a hydro disc brake road bike for 10 months last year

I’m on a caliper brake road bike now

can’t say I miss the discs?

I really prefer the lighter / simpler / quieter ride of the caliper brake bike

I ride a mountain bike with hydro discs (and have for years), I can’t say the caliper brakes in the wet are as bad as I assumed it would be after road discs

@ton

my previous job had me riding 90 km a day to work and back 5 days a week, in all weathers, and then standing all day working in a super busy bike workshop

after 6 months I looked ‘unwell’ like all the body fat had been sucked off me using a vacuum cleaner

people used to say “you must be really fit from all that riding?”

“no, just good at riding 90km a day at a steady pace…”

subtle difference, but the devil is in the detail 😉

had a Reverb on my last 26″ FS bike

not had a dropper since ditching FS bikes and getting 29’er hardtail

on my 29’er the drop between saddle and bar is much flatter than my 26″ FS bikes, I’ve never felt the need to put the saddle down as you don’t feel like you are going to go over the bars

Shimano only make their 140mm freeza in centrelock. They claimed their testing showed 6 bolt did not have enough mass in the spider to act as heatsink.

That is why giant’s Defy disc bikes with hydro brakes have custom tektro 140mm 6 bolt rotors, which giant tested and found worked well despite shimano’s tests on their own rotors

@TiRed

I agree about open tubs and latex tubes – pretty much all of the advantages of tubs with no real disadvantages. I’m really liking the new Vittoria Corsa G+ open tubs, got 3 months out of my first pair

my last experience of puncturing a latex tube was sensing it going flat, riding carefully (leaning forward) for about 3 miles and finding 10psi still in the tube when I got to work

I rode this last week

it was great fun and seemed to make much more sense than the hybrids I’ve ridden before, which seem limited by the 250w + 25km/h EU regulation 168/2013 for electric bikes.

the FS bike I rode was quite torquey and seemed to have good “low end grunt”, I could sense the assist it was giving and going DH it was quite fun

Whilst the hybrids topped out very quickly on the road at 25km/h (just over 15mph) – which is bugger all for anyone with some strength in legs; left me pedalling a heavy bike not much fun

I went through 4 stumpjumper 29’er hardtail frames in 3 years due to cracks (Spesh were great with warranty)

Depending on what was left in the warranty stock I went from BB30 to PF30 to BB30 and back to PF30 even though each frame looked identical in terms of the external mould, they had obviously changed the BB spec. at some point

the last frame with the PF30 had to have the Praxxis fitted with fibre grip friction paste at the shell was slightly oversized causing the Praxxis to creak / move when fitted with waterproof grease as was recommended by Praxxis

the top jockey wheel (G pulley / Centron) has axial float to allow the gear indexing to work properly when you shift gear

the lower jockey wheel is fixed so the chain precisely follows the cage line without fouling

light oil lubrication on the internals generally helps, the higher end ceramic G pulley benefits from some ceramic bearing grease

loctite for the pulley mounting bolts will prevent a long walk home…

ninja stars!

The praxxis MTB conversion bb will accommodate bb30 and pf30 using the supplied sleeve and reduces id to 24mm for ht2 cranks

@sq225917

SRAM oe business is considerably smaller than shimano. Shimano and Giant are the dominant players in the bike industry on a global scale.

Regarding supply to serial discounters, its not hard to be out of stock when orders are raised 😉

Some years back I was privvy to Madison’s “landed” price for xtr compared to trade (wholesale) and retail pricing. Was shocked to say the least.

Factories don’t care as long as factory is being paid and is busy producing product.

I’ve heard that aftermarket sales is no more than 5% of shimano sales with the remainder being OE customers in bike assembly plants

The rise of b2c online retailers with cash purchasing power has changed the game, without pricing parity small bricks and mortar retailers have no incentive to stock shimano beyond low value service parts

Even chain retailers who operate on bank finance for restocking (and lack cash) are struggling to make any margin when price matching against the online retailer giants

One retailer I worked for regularly placed £40’000 cash order with Dutch agent for shimano getting access to grey stock to allow price matching whilst making a functional margin

The one bit of kit I really love whether road biking, mountain biking or commuting?

A ‘buff’.

So simple but makes cycling in colder wetter weather so much more pleasant!

its being going on at the UK distributor in Chessington for some time now, so not surprised to see it affecting the American parent company

@benpinnick

in my experience Fisher (Sram tech) won’t cover the outgoing postage. They will pay for return as they use their courier. Unless its a product recall where there is a mechanism in place – for example the Specialized road bike fork recall a few seasons back.

my Recon’s failed after 1 ride (lowers full of oil due to damper seal failing) and we had to post them back at our cost £20 with insurance. Forks were returned at Fisher’s costs after being fixed FOC under warranty.

The ergon tools are poor in practice. I have a full suite of them in the fit studio but don’t use them as they have a flaw in the q factor measurement.

Best advice is to eyeball it. Spd have wide float compared to spd-sl, its the road system that needs an accurate bike fit

Park, no doubt. Relatively expensive, but not compared to DT Swiss

Waiting sucks. That’s why it’s prudent to have 2 bikes so you have 1 to ride whilst your warranty is being dealt with…eventually!

At one point I had 2 RS forks for my MTB; the lyric kept breaking and needing repair, the domain never broke. The lack of stress was more worthwhile than the £250 I spent on domain

Many times the shop eats the cost on returning warranty items, unless brand new faulty from box or bike/frame where distribution will arrange courier to collect from shop premises.

This is why often the shop will give customers new items from stock, put faulty items in box/ pile and post that lot back every few months to save postage costs

If same items constantly faulty then shop has conversations with distribution to cover costs or end trading relationship

Don’t Ritchey use true temper heat treated tubes in their top end steel frames?

Years ago I had a khs team steel frame in true temper ox ultra ii heat treated, beautiful ride feel but just 4.5lbs for a 17″ meant frame was prone to buckling (beercanning) put it into a tree at 5mph and bent top tube/down tube.

Driveside cup has longer thread than non driveside cup so you can move 1 spacer across to non driveside to adjust chainline but be aware you will have less thread engagement between non driveside cup and frame’s bb

I got given some Tahoe shoes free, but soon gave them away as they were really floppy and made my feet ache when riding hard. My 5 10’s karvers were stiffer in comparison.

crack foxes everywhere in NW London

I put a drop of wet chain lube on each bolt before installing and have never had a stuck cleat since starting to use SPD in the early 90’s

I first had the wheels one in the stumpy with the out of tolerance bb shell and it was dire; constant creaking and cups rotating.

The praxxis was gold once I swapped grease for fibre grip as previously mentioned. I did ring the distributor about the praxxis and was told to watch the installation video on you tube as they said my installation technique must be incorrect, they were insistent their bb could not creak or move with grease if fitted properly? Which was not true as my use of fibre grip then proved.

Spd-sl once you get confidence on your road bike.

Night and day difference in setup potential when bike fitting and foot stability under heavy load.

Spd you have choice of single release or multi release cleat, spd-sl you have yellow (6 degree), blue(2 degree) or red cleats (0 degree) float.

I often ride my MTB before work with spd and then ride road bike to work with spd-sl, tried spd on road bikes and its like pedalling ice cubes in comparison.

Nothing wrong with spd on road bike, if you try spd-sl or time/look with good bike fit you would not go back

It’s worth checking if your turbo wheel will take 11 spd cassette.

11 speed chain is narrower and will tend to foul 10 speed cassette cogs causing shifting issues and wear

Pf30 for MTB is 73mm shell, 68mm is for road.

Pf30 BB shell is not measured as with threaded shells

@awh

Praxxis work really well if your frame bb shell is within normal tolerances, if slightly oversized even the expanding collet cannot apply enough torque through the nylon pf30 sleeve. I had this experience with my stumpjumper 29er. I switched grease out for carbon fibre grip paste which I applied to the frame shell, then the nylon sleeve before inserting the praxxis bb. Problem solved..

Agree the bearings are nothing special, mine went rough in 3 months with mild xc riding and no jetwashing. I packed the replacement bearing with marine grease

i’ve done a few conversions for customers and it looks properly grim with the self adhesive trunking all over the frame, and zip ties to keep wires away from rear wheel.

I stash my tools out in the woodland near my trails, they need protecting with plastic as any timber will rot when left out for several seasons, this is my favourite and was recently refurbished with new handle and good coat of hammerite after angle grinding the rust off the blade.