Shimano R55 C3 brake pad inserts for road caliper brakes

I don’t even own a caliper brake road bike any more!

Only product from Hope I would not touch with barge pole, based on previous experiences, and those of customers.

Perhaps they have improved more recent versions, I’d hope so.

Shimano’s boring Q/R skewers cannot be beaten for clamping torque and ease of use at reasonable price. I’ve also found DT Swiss RWS skewers and Salsa very good, if prepared to spend a little more.

Di2 mech is tougher, but derailleur hanger is still a weak point, and the Di2 mech is bulkier than mechanical, meaning its going to get hit more easily in a crash or collision

685 mechanical shifter with hydraulic disc are fantastic!

Hi Andy

I would not pay more than £500-600 for that frame (I work for a Giant store)

check you have routed the chain correctly through the cage of the rear derailleur, if not it will make a horrible racket and you will feel drag.

and as others said, the directional chain is fitted with “shimano” writing facing outwards on driveside of bike.

As a previous poster mentioned, the shop does not fit the chain during the pre-sale build (PDI). It’s fitted on an assembly line in Taiwan.

The PDI on a Specialized bike involves cabling the brake/gears, fitting front wheel, seatpost, pedals, bars into stem, and setting up the bike.

You would be within your rights to ask the shop to change the chain for a new one (as the original failed) perhaps KMC, and the shop can easily get Specialized UK to credit them for this cost.

The mark to your frame is one of those things. Again you’d be within your rights to ask to have the bike replaced, but its going to get scratched sooner or later..I would not bother.

I’ve seen a large number of road bikes with integrated bearing headsets only last 2-3 months in wet weather before the lower bearing starts running rough, clicking or creaking under load. If buying the bike in the Summer and it stays dry, this problem does not occur until it starts getting wet.

The lower bearing will take a real hammering from being sprayed off the front wheel as you ride in the wet.

Manufacturers will often save money by fitting cheap ‘sealed’ bearings, and often the stock replacements are no better, unless you can find an aftermarket bearing manufacturer that makes the same size / style but of better quality.

With my own road bikes, I will pop the shields on the headset bearings before building up the frame, and pack thick PM600 marine grease in there, before refitting shields and putting bearings back into the frame.

I’d also do this if I bought a complete bike.

BB life on BB30 and PF30 bikes can be pretty poor too, as often these are cheap bearings fitted hidden away where you can’t see

probably not.

If you can, try installing larger rotors and adapters, and get some fresh brake pads. But first, check your existing brake pads – are they organic?

some of the less expensive Shimano brakes come with softer organic pads, and the brake may be designed only for organic pads due to inability to deal with higher heat generated by metal sintered pads

If the brake can handle a metal sintered pad, this offers more “bite”, especially in wet weather.

Typically increasing the size of the rotor (i.e. 160mm to 180mm) makes 20% difference to the leverage the brake has.

Getting a good balance between lateral/radial to within 0.5mm and more importantly even spoke tension checked on Park spoke tension gauge.

Then, critically all re-checked and adjusted once tire inflated as road at 100psi or MTB at 35psi places large loading onto wheel which always affects wheel build

Whether wheel built for customer or myself, always to same quality that I’d be happy using on my own bike.

We had lots of trouble with formula c1 brakes on specialised last year whilst I was working in a concept store. Eventually a technical bulletin was circulated claiming the dot fluid in the brakes had been contaminated with assembly grease (?) in the factory.

I’d take the current model with shimano brakes, or buy the 2014 and swap the brakes out.

Our store holds 17 demo bikes in stock in common sizes split across performance road, aero road, endurance road and MTB including hard tails and xc fs. We also have access to 90 bikes from our brand supplier.

We try our best to accommodate demo/test rides but simply cannot meet all customer demands.

The demo bikes we hold are bought on an extended invoice, come august it has to be paid. Thankfully we are well funded, as most lbs cannot stomach such a stretch.

Tricky thing for a ‘brand store’ is offering FOC demo/test bikes, customers often say ‘thanks, but getting the bike from my local dealer as he’s cut me a deal’ ( the kind of deal that will see the distributor cutting ties if it regularly occurs).

Makes for an interesting conversation as the customer is unaware the brand stores are actually Lbs, despite being ‘branded.

Interesting times in retail…

we use this Park one for holding bikes above our parts washer

not cheap but worth the money

they make a big difference.

you won’t know until you buy some, have them fitted and go ride hard. If you then try putting your SPD back on, you will be surprised at the difference.

the biggest differences I found was foot stability and power transfer, especially when climbing steep hills, or sprinting full gas.

education and enforcement for all road users, especially motor vehicles

This morning I’ve been cycling in regent’s park, London. This is heavily used by many cyclists at the weekends.

On 3 occasions this morning, motorists (black cab and 2 private cars) have driven into the right hand side of the ASL bicycle box, long after the red light changed, and cyclists were in the bike box on the left side.

The taxi driver did not think he had done anything wrong, when challenged by the 20 or so cyclists queued up into the ASL.

Its shocking how many motorists are completely ignorant of the law, especially the ASL, and how poorly its enforced by the Police.

Apparently TFL are attempting to have this offence decriminalised so they can use the camera network to start applying automatic penalties. At the moment, it actually has to be witnessed by a Police officer, which means there is little effective enforcement.

if your 42cm bar is right for you, sell the spare bar and put the money towards a new 42cm if you need one?

This is of course, assuming you are riding the right width bar to start with!

We do a lot of road bike fitting, and bar width is one of those things that makes a massive difference on a road bike, arguably more than on a mountain bike

It’s not uncommon during fitting sessions when a customer buys a bike, to swap out the bars to suit the customer, we would not charge to swap the bar for same quality, our workshop time and bar tape, the bike needs to be right

@dirtyrider

I suppose so, but its one of those things you easily forget as the light seems bright when you initially switch it on.

I currently use rechargeable USB lights which give 5-6 hours, and make sure to charge once a week

@Ampthill

your point about seatpost flexure (compliance) is very true.

I’m currently riding this on the road

The ‘D-Fuse’ seatpost has a reported 11mm of fore/aft movement, its extremely comfortable in real world use on rough roads, and actually makes the front of the bike feel slightly harsh in comparison.

You can feel the post moving in use, and if you “grab” the saddle you can easily move the seatpost.

I also test rode the Specialized CG-R seatpost when I worked in a concept store, and it had a similar effect, but to less of a degree

had this in aluminium alloy

problem with the machining of the BB shell, it kept chewing PF30 bearings, so Specialized warrantied it and gave me this:

rebuilt with exactly the same components, riding the same trails.

Night and day difference, the carbon fibre frame was stiffer under power, yet strangely more comfortable. This was my first CF frame, and I’ve had a number of CF frames ever since.

can’t say I’ve ever been impressed with the bearing life of Hope’s original bearings?

I’ve always used a local bearing supplier (engineering firm) who supplied good quality SKF or NMB bearings at reasonable price (typically £4-6 each depending on size)

I used the same supplier when I worked for Freeborn, as many of the suspension frames started coming with short lived, super cheap unbranded bearings, as manufacturers tried to cut money, including Ellsworth whose frames were not exactly cheap at retail price!

see too many riders in London at night (during my daily commute home) with very dim rear lights, lights obscured by other items, lights at wrong angle (i.e. mounted on backpack sticking 45 degree up into sky when rider on bike) and a good number just with no lights..at all

many of the replaceable battery lights seems to chew through batteries really quickly? Cateye always seemed the worst offender based on my ownership of a number of their front and rear lights. You could turn the light on, it would be bright, and within 1 mile its gone dim. Had to replace the batteries every 3-4 weeks to keep it bright, and only commuting 30-40 minutes 5 days a week.

guy I worked with regularly brought his read copies of ‘cyclist’ into our bike shop, enjoyed reading it as it was well written.

Could not see myself buying it, as I stopped buying bike magazines years ago.

Only ‘print’ mag I buy is “Empire” for movies and cinema. There are also lots of quality free magazines and newspapers given out in London, which fulfill my reading needs

Most of these hubs coming from novatech, joy tech,etc. Use a massive 12/13/14mm Allen key to remove the retaining bolt.

Probably best to buy some new wheels as a replacement free hub can be very hard to find aftermarket, for an OE wheel set.

On a xc hard tail, so the fork is just locked out riding 2 km on tarmac (includes a very steep hill) to trailhead and fork is left open for the actual off road riding 🙂

Free hub and rear hub bearings are covered under warranty, no matter what type of b.s. they try and pull on you.

Its actually 2 years on goods sold in the EU, not the 1 year many will claim. Can easily be argued goods not fit for purpose, unless customer has clearly abused the goods or attempted modifications / self repair.

If an issue develops within 6 months of ownership, it should be taken care of under warranty by the retailer.

After 6 months the onus is on the customer to argue the goods have been defective from new, as 6 months is considered reasonable. However, buying a mountain bike designed for use on mountain i.e. wet/mud very easy to claim goods not fit for purpose.

The reality? They use cheap hubs on many bikes, and they are not good quality to start with, throw mud/water/regular cleaning into the mix and bearings plus free hub are quickly shot….

my bike has a Specialized Stout front hub with their OS24 (oversize 24mm) hub end caps and DT Swiss’s RTS with a true 9mm through axle.

Specialized claim this combination has the same strength / stiffness as QR15 in their tests despite being lighter, obviously I cannot verify their claims?

But I will say its bomber solid and tightens with reassuring force, cannot say I’ve ever felt any issues even under hard braking or bad landings, and was previously riding bikes with 20mm through axles and QR15

I know when I sold Hope QR skewers to disc brake customers, we’d get them coming back with complaints of wheels moving in the fork under heavy braking, they’d put Shimano steel QR back on, and then have no issues! Don’t know if Hope sorted out their design, but it did not seem to generate much clamping force even when fully tight.

Been to Whistler for 3 different vacations (once as the winner of a MBUK Freeride competition, once as the winner of a £3,000 holiday competition in an IT magazine where we went for 3 weeks with 2 weeks in Whistler and 1 week in Vancouver, once as a fully paid up tourist)

From the MBUK trip.

Awesome experiences, but not cheap. Have never regretted going there.

First two vacations on DH bikes (Kona Stab Garbanzo rental, Devinci Ollie), third vacation on single crown FR bike (Banshee Chaparral with Totems)

From the first MBUK trip – brrappp!

From the second trip – technical (this show is from Vancouver)

From the third trip – stunts!

The only regret I did have was not getting to explore the non-bike park trails in the Whistler area, due to having bikes we could not pedal with any ease.

Its a known problem.

It was worse on my pro iii mono road wheels, than any of the MTB wheel sets I’ve owned. Smaller cogs on road cassette = more load on splines?

Hope were great and replaced the alloy body foc 2 times (total of 3 bodies from new). Finally they gave me the steel body foc, cannot fault their customer service.

Always fitted cassette lock ring at 40nm using torque wrench, and anti seize on body before fitting. Dressing the damaged splines makes it easier to refit the cassette but does not help the situation as once the splines are damaged the cassette can move under load, creaking and accelerating wear..

Best solution I’ve seen is American classic with their alloy body with steel strips on leading edges, as the hope steel body adds a huge chunk of weight leading to the hub not being ‘light weight’ by any means.

Guy who bought an entry level hybrid 2 months back, keeps coming in claiming gears don’t work and wants a refund.

We check the bike on a work stand, its all as normal.we ride the bike on the street, its all as normal.

We show the guy its all working normally. We show him how the gears work. We tell him you need to keep pedalling when changing gear.

Still keeps coming back….

Down to 2 bikes in my stable.

Hydraulic disc brake road bike (giant defy advanced pro 1)

and this for mountain biking:

No complaints, easily the 2 best bikes I’ve owned and I’ve had 100+ bikes including many different fs bikes. Only had hard tails since early 2012, never missed having a fs bike.

I have radar locks with 4 different lens and the polarised is the go to lense for summer road cycling, especially out of the city on long flatter roads where sun glare is an issue

I certainly get some weird 3d effect on drain covers, tarmac repairs, car windows; although the way they eliminate glare makes that inconsequential.

For hard tails 29″ makes a lot of sense, although for shorter riders it can cause fitting issues, trek seem to offer some of their bikes (same model)in 650/29 depending on frame size.

For full suspension 650 makes a lot of sense

I am happy with my carbon fibre 29’er for trail riding, its very fast, surprisingly capable on rough ground and also very fun to ride. When you get used to the larger wheel, you learn to really exploit the momentum

I’ve borrowed a 650 carbon fibre hard tail with similar spec for a week, rode on my usual trails and the only thing I found was it slower than my 29’er whilst not being any more ‘fun’ to ride

@gavstorie

tarmac (macadam) rakes are awesome kit, but you need to be built to use one properly for trail work

I’ve had a couple and was not “light” at the time (I am on the left of the image), but still found them hard work whenever snagging roots as the pegs would grip the root and cause a sudden jam which was uncomfortable to the shoulders

We tended to use regular hand tools as seen below, the best tool I’ve owned is seen fourth from left, the “grave digger” imported from a supplier with US connections:

I rode my “new” mountain bike properly for the first time this morning

I cracked my previous frame and it took a few days to get it sorted, and then Christmas happened.

It was blooming freezing this morning, but I was well wrapped up and really, really enjoyed being out in the woods on my own, after several weeks of shouting at clueless **** in cars trying to run me over on my road bike!

not a ruin as such, but an old memorial in NW London

brake should be fully bled and ready to go

@radioman

as pitcherpro mentioned, definitely try the 29’er first before ‘writing it off’ based on leg measurements

I am 5’10” with 32″ inseam

I find my medium (17.5″) Specialized 29’er is a great fitting bike.

I would not say the 650 is sh*t but it just didn’t feel right, and Specialized is one of those brands (whatever people say about other aspects of their business) that generally have the geometry very dialled

@eightyeight

I doubt you’ve done any damage

all that has happened is that you have reduced the volume of brake fluid in the master cylinder (brake lever) by allowing the brake caliper pistons to close, without any disc brake rotor being present

when you reset the caliper by pushing the pistons home, all you are doing is pushing that displaced fluid back up into the master cylinder

it might be worth having a look at your brake levers after sorting your brakes, to make sure you have the reach adjust (distance between lever blade and handlebar), and pad contact adjuster (dead stroke adjuster i.e. how far you pull the lever before the brake works) in the right place, assuming your brake has these adjustments.

Many budget brakes will have the reach adjuster (sometimes a twiddable knob, often an allen key fitting), its generally the more expensive brakes that have pad contact or dead stroke adjusters

@br

I am right in thinking this was to allow fitting of non-ISCG chain devices (i.e. BB mounted or ISCG adapter under BB cup) without potential damage to BB shell threads?

@slimsi

do you keep your bikes inside your house (I notice you said an internal garage)

I’ve always kept my bikes inside my house, and have not noticed much difference in my Fox forks in cold weather because it only takes 10 minutes to ride to my local trail. the bike is going from warm house to being ridden straight out the door

My friends who keep their bikes in unheated garages, or transport the bikes on cars during cold weather, have commented on the same thing you experienced?

really odd bike?

looked odd, and rode even more odd – something was “not right” and normally I am a fan of Specialized mountain bikes