Ps. Taking it apart – plenty of blue thread lock from factory installation – which the PB BLASTER has softened by the looks of it. Maybe just that gap with a rubber mallet might be enough without the PB Blaster but hey ho

11 month old thread but people will keep finding it I guess. So I’ve just been through this process as I bought a couple of the steel bols (two bikes to do) befire winter ready for spring maintenance. Cranks are off anyway so thought I’d get on it. Ironically, for the first time ever I didn’t actually have any significant difficulty removing the cranks using the existing Alu 8mm self extractor today. But I have the teel bolts so they’re going on.

– like many, I couldn’t get the reverse threaded cap off either. Nearly gave up at that point. This is using a good Park Tool pin spanner too. Crank wedged between knee ls and protected underneath. No joy.
– got the PBBlaster out and tried that after 5-10 minutes. Tried quite a few times. Still no joy.
– pin spanner and holes are now looking a wee bit worn just from this one job. So I decided to give it one last go. Picture shows what I used to do it.
– PB Blaster to try and loosen threads if relevant. Massive knuckles gloves for the time it might slip and put a hole in my hand from chainring or from pin spanner. Cloth and foam under the crank and chainring.
Rubber mallet.

Crank between knees while kneeling.
Left hand keeping pin spanner flush in the two pin holes tight. Right hand with rubber mallet and two taps and that was it. Done.

Picture attached 🙂

Now off to clean hands from PB blaster

And then it’s clean everything up and refit with the usual grease/anti seize as appropriate.

Hey nobeerinthefridge. Thanks for that. Fort Bill here I come 🙂

And yes indeed the cap came off this morning. Seemed to be stuck but with some persuasion came out.
There was a separate thread in May about the caps not pulling through.
So all good. Easy job once the cap was off. Cleaned up and reinstalled.

Did a few things at reinstall similar to the install 1.5 Years ago. Lubed up the tube mechanism especially at the front. Got loads of mucky oil out just by getting it all loose and rotating really freely again dropping oil through. Once all rotsting really nice again greased the other bits and pieces incl tube thread, driver thread and every other contact point and job done.

Thanks for the replies.

I had exactly the same problem with mine. Was worried it was complicated, but the simple solution of pulling the post out, putting the recommended pressure in, has sorted it ever since.
I just assumed that over the years air had at a micro level been getting out … was down to some very (relative to the right number) low pressure.
Hope that works for you else it’s down the more complicated route

Octavia VRS (estate) is brilliant. Bike rolls in without taking a front wheels off (my old A4 wouldn’t take it).
So not as much ‘power’ – disnae bother me (compared to the A4).
Ride – nowhere near as harsh as a proper Subaru Impreza in Prodrive guise – i find it somewhere in-between the old imprezs’s and the Audi A4, which was ‘smoother’.
I find it almost refreshing dealing with 2WD, and a somewhere in-between ride.
Great car

Agree with davewalsh.glasgowdan

I actually tend to seat them without fluid first too, just for comforts sake. Then it’s really quick to unseat one bead for a few inches and just chuck in some fluid (usually 90ml for me) and reinstall.

To answer the later q – I am happy undoing a bit of bead to pour fluid in because i find it easier. Others will do the valve thing. i prefer not to as in my experience it speeds up the valve getting gunked up.

In short – it probably doesn’t really matter.

Have used Stans, have used Fenwicks, both to good effect.

All round good event I thought. Enjoyed it all apart from a painful S1 off.
Just got better after that 🙂
Great weekend, organisation was grand, trails great, top chat with everyone.
Cannae beat it.
Remaining very much bottom half but getting close to 50% …. maybe one day …
Jings there’s a lot of fast people out there.

Good if a bit of an odd day. Found Stage 1 just too much like tricky concrete (consistency of the mud today on A Lees). Bike so clogged up cos stoopid me had a too close fitting mudguard. Never had so much gloop clog up a bike before (or maybe need to man up and pedal harder)
Rest all good, really enjoyed the blast down Stage 5 at the end … no interruptions, mechanicals … just riding.
Strange ‘non feed’ feed station that had no water .. sidetracked by the various injuries and issues or something?
Lots of great folk about – thanks for the banter all …

W O W 🙂

Looks fab Rick. ‘Like’ 🙂

What’s not to like?

My feelings exactly. Great pic arachnidlover.

Results just aren’t posted yet mactheknife. They’ll appear on sportident here when they do come up and no fuss will link to them from the tour de ben nevis page swell once they’re loaded.
http://www.sportident.co.uk/results/2014/TourDeBenNevis/

I enjoyed it again this year – the driest these roads/trails etc have ever been – strange not having massive lochans to pedal through on the fire roads like usual.

What’s not to like (for me). A day in the mountains, chatting to a whole variety of folk going through the same experience, a couple of blasts down descents (though it is awry difficult to pass on Stage 1 if the rider in front has their own head down (understandably)). Blue Crane at the end was great fun.

And then a night in the local establishments …

All good 🙂

Great day out. Comedy falls on first half of Stage 1 (wake up, dummy) I thought might ruin any attempt at comparison with last years efforts, but quickly replaced by some real fun on the rest of Cademuir and GT was a blast.
Need to eat more carrots … the transition to the dark of Betty Blue and Broon Troot was ‘entertaining’.

Cracking event, well organised as ever, how they’ve booked the weather this year has been amazing too.

Thanks to all the marshals and organisers if they’re on this forum.

Some of these weights seem perfectly fine to me to be honest.
The difference in weights of tyre is huge.
Put a SG Magic Mary on a 650b … 1100g, put a lightweight tubeless Schwalbe on and you might be half that. That a 1lb per tyre.
Then use a fixed seatpost instead of heavy dropper, light’ish wheels and you would easily see 3lbs or more dropping off a bike, going from into the 30’s back to the 20’s.
So in short, with the right kit for what you want it’s do’able without going carbon mental I think.

Joking apart, surely most scales are close enough ….

Mine

🙂

Alpine 160 – CCDB and coil Rc2 up front too.
35lbs.
Blech 😉
Never had so much fun in my life as pointing it down EWS8 and engaging gravity.
Oh what fun ….

Was also down BT yesterday, and while the wood has gone that didn’t make a great deal of difference I didn’t think (apart from stopping and wondering where I was – dummy – having just ridden through where the first bits of wood normally were). I thought it was running ok, but maybe I never noticed all the new lines … just ride it the same way generally. Still a good run down the hill. Was pretty slidy though – the rain has returned these trails to normal 🙂

Noted that there are no closures of the Black at GT for next weekend.
Which to me means the first three EWS stages from the second day of the EWS are not being used unless we’re only doing part-bits of them (if that’s possible without having piles of riders stacking up around the Black.

Thanks wysiwyg – will ping you dosh this evening 🙂

The kids were fantastic – high fives along the start /finish straight, great fun. Great to see.
Rumour has it next year is already agreed, anyone know?

Was also great to see how much it meant to the organisers/implementers etc. Fantastic job all.

Wysiwyg – any photos of 542 at all?

What an amazing two days. As expected pretty tricky in many places which made it ‘interesting’ at times. Somewhere around 110th in the end and had a general blast over the two days. Privileged to be able to ride same event as these guys and girls. Watching them pass on Day 2 was great.

I was chatting to a couple who’d got to the top of splash and dash and were looking at the easier entry and going “that’s too hard”. I didn’t have the heart.

I often figure with these things, I’m pretty much exactly the worst rider that should do them. Here I think I’m clearly not good enough to say that! But no doubt there’ll be a bunch of people in even further over their heads.

Northwind – yeah the last bit is me, but hey. Loads of peole will find this hard who’ve joined the party I reckon. Jawburn is way beyond me, and as for the drop in to Splash n Dash – I’ve looked at that before and never done it. But I’ve always been scared of steep chutes. The ‘easier’ line would probably be described by competent people who think the steep line is ok as actually more difficult cos it’s all loose crappy rocks (had to be turned to prevent people cutting into the steep line). It’s just too steep for some folk I think.
I’d like to do it one day, but not tomorrow 🙂

Northwind/grey – thanks – squiggly line I’ve seen before. Will get hacksa out for bars later 😉 Bit steep eh, but then being a hanger on for this event can’t really expect much else 🙂

Oh, and anyone down there tomorrow (Thur) evening and fancy meeting up with a view to looking at Jawburn?
I’m planning on going down from Edinburgh after work and seeing what that looks like and maybe other stuff too.

Does anyone know for certain whether the end of stage 3 on day 2 is the slightly wiggly trail down to the pond (newer line) or the direct (unrideable in my world) line that’s been there a couple of years at least?
Hoping someone has been up there to see which one is taped.
Not gonna get there before the event to find out. Work gets in the road wot !

Awesome thread
Great three points you raised. Suspect in identifying three things yourself you’ve done the job already 🙂
On the question you asked – I think you have a great opportunity to practice practice for now, knowing you don’t want to be going full speed. Just look at the things you think you should be consolidating maybe an do them at 80%, embedding all those skills again. Just a thought re a different goal for a few months.

Paul – pretty sure you’ll get your shock back. Haven’t read all 14 pages here in case there’s updates in the middle saying the same.
I had the same problem and a week later the shock ended up at Mojo (who by the way were very aware of this as I spoke to them on numerous occasions) but it may be a different person you spoke to or they’ve just forgotten.

Anyway – here’s how it goes:
Parcel is detected (new guidance issued late summertime to staff) and package is sent to Ireland which is the only place they deal with suspect packets now. It’s checked there. I think this all happens surface mail too.
Once it’s checked it’s often just sent on to its original destination with a letter apologising for the delay and that there’s nothing wrong with your package after all.
You have to unfortunately ignore the process crap that you go through and I know how bad it is – I thought for a week I’d lost a CCDB. No one in Cust services can tell you anything as they don’t actually know anything. Only someone in Belfast can and you can’t speak to them.
IMHO in a week or two it’ll arrive at Mojo (mebbe later this time of year).

You got my number ? PM me or gimme a call if you want. I think you should have it from the Dudes weekend?

Cheers, Martin.

Yeah. Cool. Ta both. So used 30mm either side – looking fwd to a refreshed fork….

Oh, and if you want a good all rounder mebbe less grippy, but good and solid for their weight, I always liked the Spec Eskars.

HEy there – so how light do you want them to be?

I’m also a fan of the Clutch – used two for 4 months last year. Had to move off them though as too grippy for me when away fir weekends – just slowed me down on long mountain days. I keep them for Wolftrax trips these days. Ace on rocks IMO.
Might be ott for some but I’m now on Muddy Mary’s – Trailstar F, Pacestar R and they roll ok for me.
As always its the balance between hard surface and off trail stuff so I’m erring on the side of ‘off hard pack’ Enduro type riding using these. Working for me with their only weakness, well actually its my weakness, being gravelly hardpack mebbe.

yacoby – that’s a really good point. Never thought to check individual stage times.
I thought my best would be 2, my worst 4
4 was by far the best for me, 1 by an absolute mile the worst. Hmmmm. I can handle that 🙂

Amazing day. Hopefully chatted to some of those on this thread during the day – people were really good all round I thought – marshals, organisers, considerate riders and so on. Top day all round.
I sadly stacked on Electric Blue and ended up with the first aid kit out and a knee that no longer works very well. But hey, it didn’t seize up completely till I got home 🙂 doh.
Stage 2 was a bit nervy in the slaloms, after the stage 1 crash, but actually don’t reckon I’ve ever gone down the boundary trail like that before. Really enjoyed that.
Got a wave from the family flying across Jenny’s Brae. That was awesome. And my 8yr managed to take the attached with a 12 yr old compact camera!!!!

Edit: trying to add a Flickr image link but nothing showing so raw URL.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/aviator/8857603635/
Rode Stage 4 mostly which I never thought was gonna happen last week when I walked down a lot of it. Stage 5 was a joke, tiredness.
And despite riding the drying up bog, then of course failed to corner the next turn with tyres made of mud … Smash.
Hahahahaha
37:17 totally chuffed with that cos thot 4 and 5 would get me completely.
Which seems to have me not last either 🙂

Half way round the Tour de Ben Nevis last year …. After a couple of miles getting very confused by a chain dropping off a single ring, eventually it got so bad I finally spotted the chainring flex. Had one sound chainring bolt left, one falling out (thread stripping) and two missing completely.
Got a full size motorcycle bolt and nut and ratcheted that through one hole(the sort of coach bolt you’d use to bolt a vice to a bench), put the remaining good one opposite. Zip tied the broken one in so at least something was filling another hole and zip tied the other hole. 20 miles later having zip tied another one as the last bolt failed I got to the end. I carry chainring bolts these days 🙂

Reassembling a pedal that had completely fallen apart and come off its axle and really needed an 8mm long narrow hex socket to refit.
After help from a fellow cyclist in -5C got it back together again and went riding in the hills.
I carry an 8mm socket when riding a bike with superstar pedals now.

Gave some of this a go tonight and does anyone want a free ticket for Stage 4. Off to read rules on whether you’re ok to carry hillwalking boots in your rucksack and change for the run down the hill. Jeez 🙂
Not that it stopped me mate who went thundering past like a Subaru doing a 90s rally stage, as I stood there wondering how I was gonna slide down the next random arrangement of nasty stuff.

I suspect we’ll slide everywhere but hey let’s save the bother travelling 🙂

+1 DougD and Jockhaggis.
Use the ‘car park’ just before the station. It’s sound.

Hurry up and get the kettle on Kenny.

Bottle – good idea. Single malt variety the night before !!

Yep.
BBC noting chance of light snow extending far enough west to Contin but looking unlikely now that there’ll be more snow added before the Sat start.
I guess if it gets some traffic along it in next day or two it’ll be broken up a fair bit, and lines will form avoiding any left over sheet ice.
Soon find out 🙂
Ice Spikers might come off tonight though 🙂