Cycling UK Forum

I am very happy with a digital torque wrench adapter.

There is indeed less danger with metal mudguards. The mechanism of wheel lockup is of the stays bending, the bottom mudguard edge catching the tire, and then the mudguard crumpling and packing the space between what remains from the mudguard and the tire, with the overall space contained by the stays. A metal fender would likely crack somewhere on the way if it even managed to initiate the process.

Brucey wrote: ↑22 Oct 2023, 5:55pm I have never been a big nokon fan for this very reason

To the blasphemy level, I will add that in one of the Nokon-type housing applications I drive a derailleur with a brake cable. The circumstances calling for the stronger cable included pushing the derailleur over a wider range than originally intended, shortening the lever arm, and complicated routing on a folder. I use it because it works, and I use it without checking my pulse.

slowster wrote: ↑21 Oct 2023, 12:50pm The force to keep the cam in the SM-CB90 closed is provided by the brake caliper spring. If the device opened by itself, that suggests that the brake caliper spring was weak and/or that the caliper or cable friction was so high that it interfered with the caliper spring returning to its relaxed position.

2_i's Brompton had Nokon type cable outers. I think a benefit of Nokon type outers is that they are able to cope with much tighter small radius bends than ordinary cable outers. On the face of it that would appear to be an advantage on a folding bike, but I wonder if the inner cable and the plastic liner tube might themselves not cope well with being frequently flexed and tightly folded by the Brompton fold, and cable friction might be increased as a result of damage to or inside the liner tube and/or to the inner cable. In contrast the Brompton's standard Bowden cable will resist being put into a very small radius bend.

I still have those Shimano CB90 devices, and below is their current close-up photo. The photo I posted earlier is from 2021, and the second device, I think, shows it edge there on a cable behind. I found a receipt for one of them, and it was from 2019. To be closed, they indeed rely on the tension in the cable. I would not blame Nokon. I think the problem is that the tension is transmitted in a mechanical wave along the cable and can even change locally. (That's what we use when we want to snap a thread.) When the heavy device bobs around on the cable, I think the tension increases at certain moments and decreases at other times. At times, it is decreased enough for the device to open. Presumably, securing those devices to the frame, as suggested by Brucey, could help, but for me, they do not provide enough gain of any sort to be worth investing in.

As to the Nokon, my experience with this type of housing is great. I do not use any other housing at this moment. Even family bikes get converted to this type of housing when an occasion arises. No deterioration in operation over time that I observed. The gain is, of course, the greatest on folders.

peetee wrote: ↑20 Oct 2023, 5:25pm That’s put a different slant on the conversation.
I thought for a moment that Shimano had produced something inherently dangerous and didn’t own up.

I absolutely stand by my claims of them being both next to useless and dangerous and warn about concluding that one's person good luck with them and company reputation serve as evidence of devices being safe. Below is a photo of when I still had them, presumably for a couple of years and a few thousand miles too - I use other bikes besides Brompton.

Brucey wrote: ↑20 Oct 2023, 3:43pm if so, that is quite un-Shimano like

I would say the case of over-engineering. A chunky piece of steel dominates them, apparently there to ensure the high braking force gets transmitted. Yet this piece of steel has significant inertia, making the gizmo bob around on the cable and contributing to the random opening. The short cable release they provide might have some lever arm-length motivation behind it. I vaguely remember that some Dahon model had some similar device mounted, but I could not find it anywhere as a replacement part.

I used these on Brompton brake cables, hoping for enough slack to remove the wheels without deflating. In practice, these are junk. The slack you gain is minimal, less than 5mm or something. You could hardly put the wheel back on even if you managed to take it off without deflating. If you managed, the deflating seemed like little effort. Most disturbing was that these gizmos would open during riding, and suddenly, you would find that there was no brake - fortunately, usually one at a time. Finally, they weigh a ton relative to what they do. It was a relief when they came off.

Folder cable woes can be largely solved by getting bamboo-type housing. In my own experience, the housing by TRLREQ, such as here on AliExpress https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832853241651.html, has been a good price-quality compromise. Their lining is low quality, so I get one from Jagwire. You do not need any ferrules or other special endings on cable ends. I just spread out the lining to a mushroom with a heat gun. That housing works with shift and brake cables and is in practice indefinitely reusable. The gain is that you can have long, awkward routing with abrupt turns, and the shifting stays relatively smooth.

CRG, manufacturer of motorcycle mirrors, offers bar end mirror adapters, but their adapter costs about as much as your mirror.

In the long past, I had their rear light fail, and they sent me a replacement board that was easy to exchange. At that time their rear lights were not sealed like today.

It is a nice compact light, bright with a uniform beam. I had it for a while on Brompton, before switching to Edelux II. If I were to go back, it would be fine - with various factors I do not consider the switch to have been a major jump.

edocaster wrote: ↑22 Sep 2023, 12:16am It would be interesting to see. I have a Cyo 80 and have never taken it apart. That's presumably the hard part, although after that the capacitor is probably easy to remove compared to other components.

In my memory, you need to unscrew the bolt in the bottom. The real hard part is screwing the bolt back - you need to fit it into the hole in the heat sink on the other side through random tries.

zenitb wrote: ↑21 Sep 2023, 7:24pm My old 60lux Cyo standlight failed after I inadvertently filled it with water cleaning the bike upside down. After drying the Cyo out everything worked fine except for the standlight. It's still working in this reduced functionality mode!!

I did it with the rear B&M TopLine (?) in my Brompton. When the bike was mudded to the limit, I put it folded under the shower. The standlight never fully recovered - you can never shut it off anymore with its button.

GuyBoden wrote: ↑23 Aug 2023, 1:15pm Is this the ultimate reusable sealed bearing square tapered bottom bracket?

The major advantage is that I can buy new sealed bearings when they wear out and install them, so the BB is reusable.

The cups do not seal the interior here. I use TA Axix/Axix Light for everything and their cups provide decent sealing. Moreover, their cups and spindles can be interchanged with World Class and two or more other brands. TA developed internal spacers to facilitate a fit, that I was never able to get hold off, but just knowing of the possibility allowed me to make my own spacers of this type.

No, you cannot. The gearhubs for Brompton are made to fill the space between dropouts together with a freehub such as offered by Brommieplus. The AW gearhub fills such space on its own - there might be some wiggle room there, but it would be way too narrow.

Steve wrote: ↑4 Jul 2023, 9:39pm Is there a "correct" position for the pins on a chainring, in relation to the cranks? I thought there was, until I replaced a ring with one of a different brand, on which the pins were differently placed relative to the bolt holes.

If the number of crank arms is not a divisor of the number of teeth for none of the adjacent rings you work with, then you can change the shifting quality by rotating one of the rings relative to each other. You can, e.g., fix the orientation of the smallest chainring and then work on the orientation of the next one. What you want to arrive at, is that the shifted chain climbs naturally onto the pin and teeth of the next ring. After you are done orienting all chainrings relative to each other, you can carry out their overall rotation relative to the crank to get the outer logo where you want. You can, of course also go from the top, fixing the largest chainring first.

The above is for upshifts. For downshifts, some teeth on the larger ring should be shorter and you can trim with a file if necessary. No more than two are needed and, most likely, your new ring has already some teeth shortened.