Cycling UK Forum

Brucey wrote: ↑13 Jun 2024, 12:21pm

NickJP wrote: ↑13 Jun 2024, 11:09am On a couple of bikes I'm using stainless steel granny rings from 8-speed days with 11-speed chains - no problems at all.

ah, but how thick are they? Sometimes it can really matter if your chainrings were designed for 3/32" or 11/128" chain. Ask me how I know....

I haven't measured them, I just checked when thinking of using them that an 11s chain fitted on the chainring okay. One is a 74 BCD with no maker's mark that I can see, and the other is a similarly anonymous 58 BCD ring.

On a couple of bikes I'm using stainless steel granny rings from 8-speed days with 11-speed chains - no problems at all.

Our old touring tandem has 140mm spacing and had a Bullseye tandem hub that took 6- or 7-speed freewheels. As it's no longer possible to get high quality freewheels, I converted a Phil Wood 145mm tandem cassette hub that I had to 140mm in order to be able to use modern cassettes on the touring tandem. I did that by taking 5mm off the non-drive side endcap of the hub in a lathe. The endcaps on Phil hubs are broached to take 5mm allen keys, so you just stick an allen key in each end of the axle and twist to undo the endcaps. Here's a photo of the endcap I took before shortening it. The endcap is in two halves because it's designed to take an Arai drum brake if wanted. The part that looks like a nut is just a keeper that is the same thickness as the drum brake housing, and sits between the two halves if you don't have a drum brake installed. p.s. I just looked at the Phil Wood website, and it appears that they no longer make tandem hubs, as their web shop doesn't list them.

Brucey wrote: ↑5 Jun 2024, 5:50pmrear hubs are about the same width as they always have been (well, since 8s anyway). But chainstay widths will increase with the use of lower density materials, unless design changes (such as curved chainstays) are made.

Cowled or socketed dropouts (don't know if this particular frame has them) can increase the width of the chainstays at the dropout by up to about 1cm each side compared to the older style of dropout. I ride with my heels in/toes out, and have had to bypass several frames over the years that I would have otherwise purchased because they had such dropouts, which caused my heels to brush the chainstay during the pedal stroke.

Old style dropouts Cowled dropouts

gregoryoftours wrote: ↑31 May 2024, 11:09pmTPU tubes in my wheels I found it quite hard not to pinch them while fitting, even on a not particularly tight tyre/rim combination, as they are so thin and crisp packet like they tended to get in the way more than butyl tubes.

When installing any tube in a tyre, whether it be butyl, latex, or TPU, I always inflate it slightly before fitting it inside the tyre, which largely eliminates the tendency of the tube to creep under the bead of the tyre as you're fitting the bead.

TrevA wrote: ↑26 May 2024, 4:07pmI remember in the 1980’s British Cycling (BCF) getting quite uppity about you having logos on your clothing in road races, I know a few riders who had to go over the Scorpion logos on their Castelli shorts with a black marker pen.

It was the same here in Australia - I can remember having to black out the logos on knicks for open races in the 1980s.

As for obliterating the logos on a C-F frame, I'd get some vinyl car wrap in the same colour as the frame and apply it over the offending logos. If you want to sell the frame down the road, you can remove the wrap.

On bare metal titanium frames, the job is easier. This is a Lynskey frame that had what I thought were very ugly manufacturers logos on it. I removed all the logos with acetone, leaving just the Lynskey head badge, and applied my own.

axel_knutt wrote: ↑25 May 2024, 1:01pmIt's so easy to check with a ruler I've never bothered with a chain checker. What does a ruler say?

Ditto here. I've never used anything but an engineer's rule. 1/8" over 12" is just over 1%, so when 24 links measure 12-1/16" with the chain under tension, I replace the chain, and after the third chain on a cassette reaches that elongation, I replace both chain and cassette.

I'd look for some BMX tyres intended for road or bitumen track use. Maxxis make a few in different sizes. I'd go for something considerably larger than the 28mm you say you are presently running. Schwalbe also make their Kojak in 35-406, if you want something smaller than any of the Maxxis tyres.

https://www.maxxis.com/us/tires/bicycle/bmx/
https://www.schwalbe.com/en/Kojak-11600046.02

Drummer wrote: ↑16 May 2024, 1:46amSorry!!! Me again!!! I'm sure OP knows enough already, and I'm teaching my granny to suck eggs, but for anyone new to this kind of gearing, this is imperative: When pedalling, DO NOT CHANGE GEAR!!! This can totally lunch your SpeedHub!

I think you mean "relax pressure on the pedals" rather than "stop pedalling". My Rohloff hub has now lasted over 25 years with zero problems, and unless I'm coasting down a hill and not pedalling, I don't stop pedalling when I change gear, I just relax the pressure on the pedals so that there is minimal power input to the hub during the gear change.

We had that same problem with the tyre rupturing just above the bead on our tandem once during a tour. This was with 26" balloon tyres - the tyre that failed was a made in Indonesia cheapie that I'd fitted when I could no longer source the Avocet 2.1" slicks we had been using. We'd had no problems previously on that bike, and on examining the brake blocks, I couldn't see any way that the blocks had been rubbing on the tyre. I fitted the fold-up replacement tyre we had been carrying, and we had no further problems that tour, nor have we had anything similar happen in the years since, so I concluded that it was just a faulty tyre.

When I converted my touring bike to use a Rohloff hub, I removed the two small chainrings from the existing triple chainset, replaced the existing outer chainring with a narrow-wide 38t ring, and used some track chainring bolts to fasten the single remaining chainring onto the 104/64 BCD spider.

JerseyJoe wrote: ↑5 May 2024, 2:42pmI've heard Elon Musk is planning solid (or semi solid) tyres for his new range of EV cars, could it work on a bicycle?

Solid bike tyres are one of those inventions that re-emerge from hibernation every so often. They come with problems such as the tyre and rim width having to be matched, as having the width of the tyre matched to that of the rim is all that holds the tyre in place and prevents it rotating independently of the rim. I can remember some solid bicycle tyres that were being marketed about 30-35 years ago, and a friend bought one to test. It was really difficult to fit, and he said that the ride was terrible (all the imperfections in the road surface were far more noticeable) and that it was also harder to maintain his normal speed on his commute.

He didn't get any punctures, though...

cyclop wrote: ↑2 May 2024, 8:05amIs this a 1st?(Apart from Robert Millar)

No. Back in the late 1970s, when I was living in Perth, Western Australia, a young Canadian cyclist who was riding around Australia passed through Perth after having ridden across the Nullarbor from Sydney, and came on a couple of our local touring club rides with us. He carried on up the WA coast and on to Darwin, and sent us back an account of riding the Gibb River Road. The road conditions were so bad that he and the cyclist he was riding with had to stuff one tyre inside another to try fending off the multiple punctures.

Here's his account from our September 1978 club newsletter (mention of the tyre stuffing on the second page):

TheBomber wrote: ↑24 Apr 2024, 3:24pm

rareposter wrote: ↑24 Apr 2024, 11:11am

TheBomber wrote: ↑24 Apr 2024, 9:02am Surely the most economic way is to just buy a 110 bcd chainset with your preferred ratios? The workaround solutions for putting smaller rings on than the design intended are rarely cheap.

As discussed earlier in the thread, it's about the least economic way given the BB (and the need for adaptors), the need to drop the front mech down (more adaptors) and the fact that the OP specifically stated he didn't want to change the chainset.

The OP already has a 110 bcd chainset - this comment was for pebble who is looking to fit a smaller inner ring to a 130 bcd chainset, when there is a widely available alternative for all bottom bracket types - a 110 bcd chainset.

You can get triplizer rings for 130BCD that replace the 130BCD inner chainring and have additional tabs to allow a 74BCD ring to be fitted. So you can either convert a 130BCD double to a triple, or fit a chainguard in place of the outer ring and have a double with smaller rings. That would be cheaper than replacing the existing crankset.

eg: https://www.xxcycle.com/1896-148415-str ... e-sh-.html

BikinGreen sell 46/30 chainring combinations that fit on a 110BCD five arm crank (though it can't be used on crankarms with the hidden fifth bolt). They manage this by faffing with the chainring mounting so that both chainrings are slightly inboard (about one chainring width) of where they would normally be: