Slane cycles have a range of original Shimano clamp bolts of varying sizes depending on which particular cranks you have – just go to their site Slanes[/url] and type “Shimano clamp bolt” in the search box. I’ve bought numerous bits and pieces from them online and find their service good, tho’ not as fast as the big boys, but then the big boys don’t seem bothered with stocking a huge range of Shimano spares…

The shimano clamp bolts are M6 x 19mm. Madison list them as a spare part Linky Any LBS should be able to get them in for you – but if you really can’t get to an LBS then any M6 thread, hex head, stainless steel bolt, of about 19mm should do – try a hardware store!

Did that once! Took the chain off to clean it and re-fitted wrong. Rode 60k race the next day like that :oops:

It actually works quite well like that, but makes a noise like the chain is rubbing against the FD cage. In my defence, its quite easy to do on the 9 speed mechs, though thought the ten speed ones had been re-designed to prevent it…

Another positive vote for the M530. I find the extra couple of pedal strokes you can get when starting off on techy bits or uphill before you have to clip in make all the difference over the M520 I used previously. I’ve been using them for a few months now and have given them a good bashing on rocks & logs and they seem tough as anything. Don’t see any reason to pay extra for the XT version…

They’re not a replacement for platform or cage pedals though – they’re too skittish to ride more than a few pedal strokes unclipped…

I’ve tried out a pair of M530 trail pedals on one of my bikes.

I’m coming from M520, and the trail pedals give you a bit more purchase to pedal a couple of revolutions before having to clip in – useful if you’re trying to start off uphill or over a bit of rough stuff. However, I wouldn’t ride far unclipped because they’re too skittish…

Aha! Kaesae, seeing as you’ve popped back up on the thread – any thoughts on my question – ie do I just leave original bearings alone ’till they need replacing, or try and force some grease in there every now and then to extend their life…

Ta.

Hi Kaesae, thanks for the advice – and sorry about the ‘perpetual motion machine’ joke :oops:

As its a new bike, hopefully it’ll be a while before I’m facing the prospect of replacing the bearings, but in the meantime it’d be nice to know what you’d recommend in the way of regular care & attention – if any?

I know they’re sealed bearings, but I’ve read elsewhere of people forcing in some grease every now & then to keep them smooth – what do you think? Just don’t want to be posting on here with shot bearings in a year or so’s time and have someone tell me I should’ve done this or that since new to get the best life outta them!

I haven’t even tried dismantling one yet, but assume that the round silver disc with the allen key indent in the middle is just a dust cap of some sort, and that if I remove this I can get access to the bearings?

Thanks….

Thanks guys!

MarkN, it seems like I have eight very similar looking bearings (small silver plate about the size of a coin with an alleen key recess), plus one that looks quite different where the shock attaches – so I’m guessing things have changed a bit in the maestro configuration.

RustyMac – thanks will follow the link… and isn’t Kaesae the one who’s building the perpetual motion machine – hopefully that means his bearings will last forever :wink:

That’s great GT thanks! Looks like I can just forget about them on the whole then.. seeing as the bike is new and they don’t need regular maintenance/adjustment. Oh, and I don’t pressure wash my bikes, and in fact have gone from a compulsive washer to only cleaning the drive train & forks as a result of a thread on here a while back!

Anyone with a Trance X who can add any specific insights/advice about the particular bearings they use….?

For my phone I use the bike shield stuff that I bought to protect my frame Linky

Always seem to be left with a few odd shaped bits perfect for a phone/GPS after wrapping up a new frame. Seems much tougher than the usual screen protectors, and is UV resistant so won’t yellow in the sunlight.

I have the XT ring now, so its gonna be a case of fitting it and fiddling around with mech position/settings etc

Fair enuff! But if you find you’re getting chain crunching upshifts from the 22 to 36, or chain dropping off the granny onto the bottom bracket shell on the downshift (both issues of a middle ring mismatched to the granny, nowt to do with front mech), then try the SLX M665 36T instead…

Just a small point, but the XT M761/M771 36T middles are designed to work with a 26T granny, whereas the M665 SLX 36T middle is designed to work with a 22T granny. So, if you’re keeping the 22T granny (which it sounds like you are), you’ll get smoother shifting by using the SLX one rather than the XT one. What exactly the differences are, and how this improves shifting, is a bit difficult to explain in words (though I can try if you’re interested), but much easier to appreciate when you have one of each in front of you!

The new XT doubles (M785) come in 26/38 and 28/40 combinations, which when combined with a ten speed 11/36 cassette on the back should give you all the gear combinations you need. But… they don’t have anywhere to fit a bash ring, if thats important to you?

But … if you don’t want to go ten speed …

are the double and triple chainsets designed completely differently

The SLX M660 and M665 are basically the same cranks with a few small differences. The M665 has steel pedal inserts, and the ‘lugs’ on the spider arms are slightly different to take the 36T middle and the bash on the outside. This means you can fit any standard metal Shimano (& other compatible) middle chainrings, but not the new composite ones like come with the M660, without a bit of filing. Similarly, you can fit a standard big ring, but there will be a few mm gap where it fits on the spider – not a problem functionally, just means the ring is only supported on the bolts, not bolts and spider lugs.

Ch..ch..ch..changes!

Just bought an SLX M665 9 speed double from CRC – half RRP & certainly seemed to be the best deal of all the usual suspects. And, there’s plenty of ten quid off vouchers flying around at the moment (just ask on here if you haven’t got one) to sweeten the deal…

CRC M665 Cranks

Appreciate the suggestion – but I don’t want to try anymore workarounds in case I get another disaster like the peg! After the faff last time I’d rather just use the thing made for the job – its only a couple of quid, and I wasted that much in new oil last time!

I re-use them and add a dab of loctite blue, seems to lubricate them to get in there smoothly, and then sets to stop them loosening…

Although my wife rolls her eyes every time a new parcel of goodies arrives from CRC, I think secretly she’s just pleased its only cycling, rather than a nasty Ferrari/yachting habit, or banging the secretary – like other middle aged men do to get over their mid-life crisis…

Unfortunately, assuming its the 9speed M660 you’re talking about rather than the 10speed, there’s less and less demand for 9 speed stuff. Though, think of it another way round, thats good news for those of us heavily invested in 9 speed rigs, as we should be able to pick up the stuff cheap :D

Now there’s another option… but I hesitate to mention it as it’s getting complicated enough already… and that is to buy a 10 speed SLX M660, and sell the ten speed rings to someone wanting to u/g to 10 speed without changing the cranks. I understand the cranks are the same between M660 9 & 10 speed, its only the rings that are different – but you’d better confirm this with a 10 speeder, as I’m all 9speed and likely to stay that way for a while…

Edit: Damn – just noticed the 10 speed crankset is more expensive than the 9 speed, so that’d cancel out anything extra you’d get for selling the 10 speed rings :(

Either – though I found it easier to file the cranks once, than the chainring each time I replaced it.

TBH, the issue with the middle ring is not really an M665/M660 specific one, its that the new style Shimano ‘composite’ middle rings (like on the M660) are deeper at the crank fittings than the old ‘all metal’ ones. So, any crank designed to take the old metal ones needs to be filed down a bit if you want to put a composite middle on. If the third party ones you’re thinking of using follow the old Shimano ‘all metal’ standard (and I think most do) you shouldn’t have a problem.

The bash/outer ring size being different is specific to the M665. Shimano wanted to make the plastic surrounding the fixing bolts wider & stronger on the M665 bash (a good thing IMHO, as I’ve had 3rd party plastic bash guards split at this point) so just shaved a bit off the spider mounting to accommodate it. Having a gap between a big ring/3rd party bash and the spider isn’t really a functional issue – it just looks crap!

Be aware that the there’s more differences between the SLX M665 double and the SLX M660 triple than just the chainrings that come with them.

The double cranks have steel inserts on the pedal threads, which may or may not be a good thing for you, depending whether you value strength or lightness more. More of concern though, is that although the BCD is standard 104, the arms/spider where the chainrings fit are slightly modified to take the ‘special’ Shimano bash guard and 36T middle ring on the M665. What does this mean – well for example, the M660 32T middle ring will not fit the M665 double cranks without getting the file out, though older deore ones will! And, if you fit a standard shimao big ring in place of the bash on the M665 there’s a gap of a few mm at each of the spider arms.

So, It may be better to go with the standard M660 triple for greatest chance of compatibility with third party rings/bash etc., or find someonewith an M665 and try the rings you want on it first!

Here’s a nice little video for you that explains it all

Nice one rightplacerighttime.

My personal favourite about the dangers of rampant consumerism is “The Story of Stuff” – couple of years old now, but still hits the target like a laser guided smart bomb…

Yay! Something I actually know the answer to, at last…

I had a faulty valve core on my float R, and pretty sure the air valve is the same throughout the range.

You can unscrew just the valve core from the valve body with a standard schraeder valve core removal tool – couple of quid from an auto parts store. If its the valve core that’s the problem then just replace with any schraeder valve core – yes really – I checked with Fox service in the US and its just a plain old schraeder valve core, so one from a car tyre or bike inner tube will do.

If its the valve body (metal barrel the core screws into) thats the problem, there’s a hex key recess in the mouth which you can put an allen key into once you’ve removed the valve core – can’t remember the size, but its imperial not metric (Fox being a US company an’ all). This allows you to unscrew the whole valve assembly from the shock body. Replacement valve assemblies are readily available from Fox.

Over the years I’ve become a great believer that there’s a simple biological/evolutionary reason behind just about every human behavioural trait (except crying, never have understood the biological purpose of that – but then I’m a man :D ). So, I think these guys hit the nail on the head as an explanation for our current materialistic tendencies:-

we have a genetic hunter gatherer instinct, seeing as we don’t hunt for food or shelter we have to fulfil that need by buying stuff

For the entire history of the human race it has been about being better than others in order to survive and ensure your children thrive

However, understanding where those traits came from, and justifying their continued proliferation in the face of mounting evidence that its destroying our planet, are two different things.

Think about another good biological trait ingrained in our genes – the propensity for our bodies to crave sugars and carbohyrates and lay them down in fat stores. This was a successful trait when our ancesters didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, but in todays society of plenty it backfires on us and actually leads to lower quality and quantity of life. So, sometimes we’re smart enough to recognise and manage our primevel instincts, or allow governments to regulate us for the greater good (think smoking, speeding, age of legal consent etc.).

Why can’t we do the same with our self destructive impulses to buy more stuff, and go to war over resources we don’t really need? Instead we just throw up our hands and say – its human nature!

Then there’s the question of why people continue with their (self) destructive behaviours as evidence mounts around them that its trashing the planet. Sue-W makes an excellent point about people’s inability to link action and consequence, but there’s more to it than that…

Humans have an amazing ability to look on the positive side of things – and again its a good evolutionary trait, as if many of us knew what was really in store for us for the rest of our lives, we probably wouldn’t bother getting out of bed in the morning :( . So, we are overly optomistic about our/politicians/others abilities to get us out of this mess!

The human brain is also very bad at weighing up risks far in the future, or events that could be catastrophic – so that’s a double whammy for us reacting logically to something like climate change, which is both. No, our brain is wired to concentrate on where the next meal is coming from, making sure we’re not the next meal for some pre-historic carnivore, and whether that girl (or boy) we just met fancies us. It make sense in evolutionary terms – if we all sat around worrying about the end of the world coming it would paralyse us and we wouldn’t do any of the things necessary to get through the next few days and weeks – like eat, sleep, wash. By the way – this has happened to Philosophers throughout history, they’ve literally worried themselves to death!

So, I’ve huge sympathy for Kaesae’s point of view – but I have to temper this with the thought that if all he does is assuage his guilt momentarily by posting on the forum, and then gets on with the kind of lifestyle he berates, then it’s all a bit hollow. I think he’s pointed out the problem well, but now it’s time for him to say what he personally is going to do about it – or is it everybody else who has to change? :wink: Sorry if that sounds a bit harsh, but he did start the thread…

Thanks guys. Finished off the job using the pink stuff, and everything seems to be fine – lever is firm, same travel as rear brake. Just left wondering if everyone else’s Shimano brakes come with yellow or pink oil originally – ie is it praps a sign that mine have already been bled using something other than the Shimano pink stuff…

A true double will position the rings perfectly symmetrically

Interestingly, the two rings on the SLX M665 double are in exacltly the same place as the middle & small rings on the SLX M660 triple, so in this case Shimano didn’t bother adjusting the chainline for the double. Don’t know what they’ve done with the new ten speed XT doubles?

I use Isopropyl Alcohol from a hardware store, great for cleaning eyeglasses and computer screens too…

So the benefit of a “real” double chainset is that I could shift anywhere, while i have handicap with a triple chainset. Am I right?

Don’t really understand the question, maybe you could rephrase?

There’s essentailly no difference between a ‘real’ double and a converted triple. Doubles usually come with wider spacing between chainrings eg. 22/36, whereas if you just take the big ring off a standard triple you’d be left with say 22/32, but you can fix this by replacing the 32 with a 36 anyway.

Yes – thats how you convert a triple to a double. Don’t need to change chainline or anything, maybe just put a bash where the big ring used to be if you’re in the habit of going over logs/rocks. Will also need to dial in stop screw of FD to prevent shifting off the middle, and maybe shorten chain a little.

Eeek – that looks like more than a five minute job! Thought we were just talking prising up the wiper seals with a screwdriver and squirting a bit of oil on the foam rings. Might be a job to save til the weekend then..

Hmmm, got me worried now, haven’t touched wiper seals/foam rings since new. Anyone care to describe how to do a ‘lift wiper seals and inspect’ service so I can get onto it before the next ride? Ta…

I haven’t tried fitting a Shimano guard to a set of SLX triple cranks yet so I cannot comment on how much modification work is required

I have, and you need to file off about 1mm of the plastic at each arm of the crank spider for it to fit. Unfortunately this also negates the main benefit of the Shimano one – that it has thicker plastic around the mounting bolts, so you may as well use an aftermarket one, which doesn’t need modifying, and looks better too!

I’ve tried a few combinations over the last six months, and have settled on a race-face ally lite on the converted triple on the hardtail which doesn’t get bashed that often, and pucker M665 double with original Shimano plastic bash on the FS which takes a beating.

Bin a few years since I lived in Shatin, but as no-one else has answered I’ll give it a shot…

You could try those bike hire places down by the concrete open sewer thats euphemistically called a river! They do sell bikes and components as well as hire them out, but there won’t be much choice.

However, you’d be better off taking the MTR into Mong Kok where there’s a few proper bike shops near Prince Edward station, down Fish Street I think.

For a FinishLine chain cleaner you may need a shop that caters more for the expats – in which case you’re looking at Flying Ball (Kowloon) or Friendly Bike Shop (Silvermine Bay).

Out of interest – what are you doing with a fleet of bikes in Shatin – would’ve thought the rental market was already well catered for by the local hire shops?

Can you not just stick a solar panel on the roof and set up some kind of fan based cooling system

Like your thinking kaesae – especially as I’m studying renewable energy at the moment!

Unfortunately, I fall into the ‘rental trap’ that stymies so many renewable energy/energy efficiency investments – ie. no point in investing in stuff that I won’t be in the house long enough to benefit from.

Also, unless I have active cooling of some kind, ventilation can only go so far in reducing the temperature inside when its 40 degrees outside!

I would suggest asking this question more locally to you

Fair point, guess someone in California would be more likely to have the same problem! Its just that as an expat Brit I always feel more comfortable on STW than MTBR – those yanks are just so damn polite, not like the … er … ‘playfulness’ here :wink:

should I just buy a new set of ridiculously expensive cups

Shimano SLX/XT bottom bracket complete is 17 Euro from Bike-24 (but I get it VAT free), and at that price I wouldn’t bother with replacing the bearings…

Edit: Klunk – you beat me to it!

Ok, lets get this clear – are we talking heat or sunlight that causes these nasty effects?

I’m familiar with the ability of UV to break down just about anything in short order, having owned a few boats in my life, but does heat by itself have similar effects?

The difference is important to me as the bikes probably get 5-6 hours a week exposure to sunlight, and you can reduce that proportionately due to being under the trees or riding early in the morning, but – they get cooked for hours on end in the shed during the summer…

Heat and sunlight degrade rubber

Ok, worry quotient going back up again now…

I’ve noticed my tyres are only lasting about a year before they fall apart. Luckily, as you say, the tread is all but worn out by then anyway, but what about all those delicate rubber seals in shocks, brakes, hubs etc?

That’s hot! I’d happily keep the uks climate over that sort of heat!

Luckily it only gets up near 40 for a few days each year, but true – those days are pretty much a write-off for doing anything outside! Thankfully its also a dry heat – Hong Kong, where I lived before coming out here is also humid, which made anything above 30 unbearable.

Wish I had your problem!

No, really – it’s too damn hot! Only time you can contemplate riding a bike is about 6am, or after it gets dark at night.