Cycling UK Forum

I use cleats myself; having said that the thrill of not being able to take your feet off the pedals while stationary at a traffic light is not to be missed.

mattsccm wrote: ↑18 Aug 2021, 7:19pm A lot of fuss for nothing. My lockring tool lives on a spare ratchet about a foot long. I just snug it up tight. Never had one come loose.

My experience too. However 40NM is very tight compared to most fasteners on a bike; perhaps some people are leery of overtightening.

Marcus Aurelius wrote: ↑18 Aug 2021, 5:39pm They do tend to come loose with use. If you use blue locktite on the threads, it helps. It’s still best to check the situation now and again. Give the cassette a wobble by pinching the big sprocket between your finger and thumb, and give it a wiggle, if there’s any play, it probably needs re torquing.

In many tens of thousands of miles this has not happened to me or anyone I've been with until this incident. But I'm fairly hard on cassettes and replace them relatively frequently and always use a torque wrench to tighten the nut

My mate was rolling down the trail, a rail-trail so as flat as a pancake, and he finds the pedaling hard. So we stop and start looking. I found that when I loosened the skewer everything freed up. What had happened was that the cassette lock nut had come loose and was jamming between the dropouts. A new one on me. This is what happens if you don't tighten to the recommended 40 NM like it says on the nut I suppose.
I've wondered why they didn't put a l.h. thread on that nut so it would self tighten like left pedals do. Anybody else thought the same?

Sweep wrote: ↑4 Jul 2021, 5:35pm [I well remember going to italy in the early 80s to stay with an italian family for ten days or so.
Conscientious me had read in some official guide that you were supposed to register with the authorities within a couple of days of arrival or something.
So trotted off to the mega carabinieri HQ to find a lot of bemused folk.
They may have taken my details down (can't remember) to humour me before going back to their office gossip.

Reminds me of riding into a small Kansas town. The ACA guide said I was supposed to register with the local police. I mentioned this to a policeman in a cop car who was giving me directions. "Consider yourself registered" he said

Mike Sales wrote: ↑20 Jul 2021, 3:02pm
The trick is to cover your saddle.
You may see, tucked under the leather saddle, a plastic bag or a shower cap.

Planet Bike makes a saddle cover that rolls up tiny and has a Velcro strap to wrap round a seat rail so there's no danger of it falling out.

I'm short. I thought all bikes were designed for tall people.

There's something to be said for doing it yourself.
Yesterday on a club ride a rider's chain jammed solid when she shifted into big-big. The only way we could get enough slack in the chain to get the chain on to usable cogs was to remove a derailer pulley. A dirty messy business. Fortunately the sun was shining; I'd had the exact same happen years ago so we knew how to fix it.

This could have been dangerous if she was half way across a junction when it happened. The bad part was that she'd paid somebody to set it up like this.

Then again how many do it yourselfers know to check that a chain won't jam in big-big? (I didn't )

drossall wrote: ↑30 Jun 2021, 12:55am Generally you just keep the bike going by fixing this and that, rather than the annual service idea that, really, belongs in motoring.

Give it a go!

That's my 2p, anyway

Got to agree with that. It's also a way of generating business for bike shops.

You could well be right about the WD40 doing more harm than good. Who knows what it does to the pad material? For all I know the silicone stuff may have had a similar effect. We'll see when it comes time to get the next ones out
Part of the challenge was not damaging the pad. They wear to a taper because of the toe-in to stop squeal and you can reverse the pads to get the taper back and effectively double their life. The one in the picture has been reversed and is working just great. I've got new pads for the next time so I won't care about damaging the old ones.

Oddly enough on the rear brake the builder used the single use pads. Which is OK as I have over 11k miles on my machine and they are showing very little wear. I haven't asked them why because every time I go near them my wallet gets lightened.

Jdsk wrote: ↑29 Jun 2021, 6:09pm Thanks.

The black finned part is a pad holder?

And is there a pin or screw to hold the pad in place?

Jonathan

Yes that's the holder and unlike e.g. Shimano Vee brakes there is no pin or screw to hold the pad in which is why presumably the builder used silicone - liability and all that. Scott doesn't say any glue is necessary.

Jdsk wrote: ↑29 Jun 2021, 12:33pm Please could someone add a photo of the bits?

The builder talked me into this brake. They are designed for tandems and work really well, Scott Matthausen's pitch. These are the second pair of pads For some reason the builder glued the first pads in with silicone which made them a true nightmare to extract presumably because they worried about pads falling out. Fat chance. I even sprayed WD40 on the holder when putting these in and they still don't come out easily.

rmurphy195 wrote: ↑29 Jun 2021, 12:30pm Is there a way of using a small g-clamp as a puller?

I wondered about that myself. I was thinking of Mickey Mousing some kind of adapter for the "coming out" end so you are not just squashing the pad. You probably only need to get 5mm or so out then you can get a good grip with Vice Grips or the like.

gregoryoftours wrote: ↑28 Jun 2021, 9:21pm You can try a bit of pull with pliers and push with big flat bladed screwdriver at the same time too. Sometimes it's just necessary to take the shoe off the brake though. That is a good to about alcohol gel, I'll have to try it. How long does it take to dry out?

Good to know I'm not the only one with this problem. Trouble is if you take the whole shoe off you lose the toe-in setting and have to fiddle with that again. I thought that was supposed to be an advantage of replaceable pads as opposed to single use ones. Perhaps I was wrong about that.
Last time getting the pads out was so brutal I had to redo the toe-in all over again.