Cycling UK Forum

I would choose the Kinlin XR-26RTS. Although the front wheel is typically less stressed than the rear, the XR-26RTS is asymmetric, which all other things being equal I would choose over a symmetric rim even for the very low dish of a disc front wheel for touring. It is also available in 36 spokes. It is a lighter rim than the DC19 at 455g, but I suspect it can be built into a stronger wheel thanks to the assymmetry, the slight aero section and likely higher quality alloy. Spa are specifying them as standard in 32F/36R for the 11 speed builds of their D'Tour bikes, e.g. https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m1b0s225p47 ... -New-Model

NB It is apparently available in both shiny black and matt black - https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m20b0s116p3 ... N-XR-26RTS.

The likely problem with sending an email to Spa to ask for advice regarding handbuilt wheels is that there are potentially a lot of variables which will influence their recommendations, and they are easier to cover in a conversation. The wheelbuilder will probably want to ask further questions to clarify and possibly suggest alternatives. Doing that in a back and forth exchange of emails is time consuming and not very practical.

jawaka wrote: ↑15 Apr 2024, 1:58pm just noticed the tea shop for non cycle issues has gone

Thread moved to the Tea Shop.

Jezrant wrote: ↑12 Apr 2024, 8:56am A lot of people in the CTC community, especially the older contingent, started off riding road bikes with drops.

Bike fit/set-up problems and associated discomfort/pain seemed rare amongst touring cyclists then. I think that was due to a number of possible factors:

- It's possible that many more people encountered problems, and we just didn't know it. There was no internet then for people to ask advice and share knowledge, and many who joined the CTC were by that point probably already fairly keen cyclists. Most of those who experienced significant pain or discomfort early on probably soon gave up leisure/touring cycling.

- Most riders probably started when they were relatively young and more flexible.

- If you start riding in a club, you will conform to how the club rides and tend to copy the majority of other riders. That means you are more likely to acquire good habits, good bike set up and position, good technique etc. (often without being conscious of it), compared with someone who has always ridden solo.

- Typical CTC club rides were at a comfortable pace which most people could maintain easily. The harder the effort, the more likely pain and discomfort is to occur. I suspect many novice riders, especially solo riders, try to ride at too high a pace. I think that modern bikes and components can encourage this. STI shifters and 10/11 speed cassettes with 1 or 2 teeth gaps encourage riding at a higher tempo than down tube shifters and a 5 speed touring freewheel with 3 or more teeth gaps. The latter encourage and even compel a relaxed pace. Add to that SPD pedals and shoes and lighter bikes with twitchier handling, e.g. gravel bikes often have more in common with road race bikes than tourers, and it's very easy for someone to feel that they should constantly push themselves just a bit harder, and end up with pain or discomfort as a result. This may or may not be a factor in the OP's case - we just don't know.

Finally, I think that for touring cyclists there should be no need to worry about core strength. I have lousy core strength, and it never affected my ability to ride at touring pace. I cannot ever recall a club run where core strength was mentioned as important or where anyone said they did any core exercises. Young and old, we just all just turned up on Sunday and happily trundled our way around the countryside for 80 miles or more. Compared with then, far too many people are over-complicating things.

I would advise you to rule out first riding with dropped bars a little and often to cure the problem. If you are riding the bike as infrequently as once every few weeks, it may well be just a matter of adaptation. If it is and you start to tweak aspects of your bike set-up and position, you may end up going down a very frustrating rabbit hole.

Years ago I bought a bike which I found I just could not get properly comfortable on. I spent some time altering differing aspects of the fit before giving up and putting the bike aside for a few years. I then tried again, and bought one new stem after another to try to fix it. Finally I read 531colin's guide and realised that the cause was likely insufficient saddle set-back, because the bike had a steep 74 degree seat angle and a typical Brooks saddle with its short rails. Part of the problem in my case had been that there were no obvious clues, such as noticeably too much weight on my hands. A new seat post fixed it for me.

Although I advise against altering your set-up before ruling out adaptation, there is a basic check mentioned in 531colin's guide which you could do in the meantime. When out for a ride, after a while, say half an hour, try riding up a slight(ish) incline with your hands on the tops of the bars and your fingers very loosely wrapped around the bars (not significantly gripping or pressing against the underside of the bars). To maintain the same gear and pace that you were using on the flat, the incline will require you to increase your effort a bit and put more power through the pedals. If your saddle is set back sufficiently that you are at the balance point on your bike, the extra pressure on the pedals will result in your hands lifting gently from the bars, and your fingers will start to press against the underside of the bars.

I think the above is a useful indicator. It is not a particularly high precision test, but I don't think it needs to be. Saddle set back does not need single millimetre levels of precision: 5mm or even 10mm is often probably close enough.

CJ wrote: ↑10 Apr 2024, 1:21pm Cartridge bearings are so much nicer than cup and cone - until they're not!

Do you consider Shimano cup and cone thru axle rear hubs to be significantly better than cartridge bearing thru axle hubs?

I ask because Shimano's cup and cone thru axle rear hubs use smaller ball bearings than Shimano's QR rear hubs (5/32" and 3/16" vs 1/4" in a QR rear hub*), so it seems a major advantage of Shimano QR hubs over cartridge bearing hubs is significantly reduced for the thru axle equivalents.

*http://www.sjscycles.com/Drawings/Shima ... ch_Doc.pdf vs http://www.sjscycles.com/Drawings/Shima ... ch_Doc.pdf

jackt wrote: ↑9 Apr 2024, 5:46pm the retaining clip is not fixed to the the spindle firmly enough. Is it possible it's become enlarged? The first time around, I gently tapped it back on with a bit of aluminium tubing and it felt secure to my fingers, but on the bike it came loose within half a day's riding.

The drive side cup is supposed to be a permanent tight fit (it was never designed to be removed), and therefore the clip on the drive side probably did not need to be a tight fit or very strong: the drive side cup clamped firmly on the sleeve was what kept everything in place.

tatanab wrote: ↑9 Apr 2024, 5:43pm

PT1029 wrote: ↑9 Apr 2024, 5:36pm Looking at the photo, the central black spacer should be a cyclinder. The LH (in the photo) end look squidged outwards (bigger diameter), as though the whole thing has been compressed to much when the cups were screwed in. The correct set up is in the squidge free instructions photo.

That is the way they are. The single bearing is a larger diameter than the two smaller ones. I guess the squidge free in the instructions is a generic drawing since I am pretty sure the Record BB is as you say, a straight cylinder.

The wider diameter of the cartridge sleeve on the non-drive side provides a surface for the outer race of the larger cartridge bearing on that side to butt up against. Chorus and Record cartridges have the same feature.*

The bearings and spindle in the photograph of the OP's cartridge are visibly off centre. I presume that the circlip on the non-drive side of the spindle has a fit which mates with a matching concave or bevelled surface on the bearing, which keeps everything aligned and centred. With an o-ring missing at the other end, I can imagine that rotational and side to side play of the spindle would develop, and would get progressively worse.

* Edit - The sleeve is also flared on the non-drive side so that the non-drive side cup can butt up against it.

Did you use a Pedros socket holder (https://www.cycle-systems.co.uk/product ... et-holder/) or similar threaded rod/bolt and nut when removing the bottom bracket cartridge, i.e. to hold the lockring tool in place on the cup?

In your place I would just buy an identical replacement. There are currently two on ebay for £35 odd including postage, e.g. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/395314550135.

I think the Centaur cartridge is better than the those made by Token (or the rebadged Tifosi version). Different experiences in these posts:
viewtopic.php?t=137839 vs. viewtopic.php?p=1694183#p1694183.

The Token has the advantage of using Shimano pattern cups, which are a better design than the Campagnolo cups which require the same tool as the cassette lockring and are unsuited for the high torque specified by Campagnolo. The Veloce bottom brackets are another option which have flanged cups and take a different tool, but you would probably need to get the bb shell faced before fitting one of those, and they appear to be discontinued/harder to find.

There appears to be some variation in specification and/or presumably manufacturing tolerances for 10 speed chains based on the link below.

https://bike.bikegremlin.com/3555/bicyc ... ndards/#t1

I don't know if it is related, but Shimano 6700 is Ultegra, and Rene Herse state that their 5-9 speed chainsets can be used for 10 speed, providing an Ultegra chain is used (https://www.renehersecycles.com/shop/co ... ble-crank/), which suggests that the Ultegra chain is significantly better than others, possibly especially compared with the cheapest models of some other brands.

531colin wrote: ↑8 Apr 2024, 11:57am I tried 2 quality, un-worn Allen keys, and the fit is absolutely dreadful.

I think Wera allen keys are reckoned to have the best fit (the 'Hex Plus' feature is supposed to be the equivalent of an external hex spanner with flank drive which transmits force on the flats rather than at the corners). The L keys linked below might be sufficient to undo the bolt, but to tighten it to the correct torque would require an appropriate Wera Hex Plus 8mm bit for a suitable torque wrench.

I suspect that to be on the safe side the best thing is to use a Wera key/bit and also to treat the bolts as consumables, i.e. if the bolt is damaged as shown in the photographs in the course of crank removal, then it should be replaced with a new bolt before refitting the crank. Similarly if it is damaged in the course of refitting the crank, then the bolt should be replaced the next time the crank is removed.

https://www.screwfix.com/p/wera-950-9-p ... eces/358tx

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wera-Multicolo ... 009ODV0OE/

It strikes me that the bolt could instead have been designed with a large external hex, which would have been a better choice than 8mm internal hex.

Looks like the bolt has only ~5mm? depth of hex, which is similar to the SRAM DUB bolt.

Reminds me of this thread - viewtopic.php?t=156408, with photographs of similar but much worse damaged SRAM DUB crank bolts. The Praxis m30 crank/bottom bracket evidently uses a similar self-extracting bolt design to the SRAM DUB design, but the cassette lockring tool fitting for the outer bolt strikes me as better than the M10 allen key fitting of the DUB. SRAM DUB often seems to be particularly troublesome judging by online comments.

Are the M8 bolts steel or aluminium?

https://www.specialized.com/gb/en/turbo ... 620-188201

https://praxiscycles.com/product/m30-bo ... tor/#SPECS

How often do you ride the Elan? I find that if I have a long time between riding a drop barred bike, it does take a few rides for the back of my neck to get used to the leant forward position. My experience has been that I did not have any problems when I was riding a drop barred bike a few times a week, even if the distances were only a few miles, and the adaptation of my neck muscles as a result was also good enough that I would have no problem riding much longer distances at the weekend.

I would have thought that a cassette 2mm out of true was well out of acceptable tolerance, even for a large 42t sprocket. Is it the cassette or the hub/freehub that is the cause?

Also, if the wrong chainring has been fitted, I would check the chainline of the front chainring. The currently specified chainset for the bike is 'Praxis, Forged alloy M30, custom offset' (https://www.specialized.com/gb/en/turbo ... 620-188201). You should be able to find the correct chainline for your chainset on Praxis' website - https://praxiscycles.com/.

How does your experience compare with that of other cyclists in the city? Is it pretty much par for the conditions, or is it an outlier?

It might be worthwhile enquiring in some local bike shops. The mechanics should be able to say if it's just something to be expected, or tell you what measures they take to protect against corrosion.

Brucey has recommended in the past using Waxoyl - search.php?keywords=waxoyl+nipples&term ... mit=Search.