Supercommuter?

[mig]

would you say the transmission has been eaten more readily than normal give the endless deluges this winter?

[Brucey]

actually, local me this winter has been warm and (very) wet which (unbelievably) is kinder to chains than the usual winters we have hereabouts. There has been much, much less gritting than normal and my chum's bike has suffered far less than normal.

My chum's normal route takes him for several miles long a single carriageway urban A-road which is a key route for the gritters. Oftentimes you can hear it scrunching under the tyres if you ride along there in the morning and if my chum works late they can easily have gritted it again in the evening before he goes home. This is absolutely devastating for chains; they wear out, rust, you name it. Most lubes need reapplying once every day or two in the wintertime. The best you can hope for is that the worst of the dirt drops off with the excess chain lube.

BTW I have carried out a waxoyl chain lube experiment. My Subway 8 got a full whack of black waxoyl (run in with a heat gun) on the chain in November. I rode it about a hundred miles in November and December but then got bored with the punctures (mostly flints, straight through the Kevlar...). So I guess the bike has only been used a few times this year. However it has spent all that time stood outdoors, getting rained on, and I've done nothing with the chain, which is fully exposed. The chain is hardly rusty; obviously the rollers have very little waxoyl on them, (since it gets taken off by the chainwheel and sprocket) but only a few rollers show any signs of corrosion. So, OK, the chain hasn't seen a full dose of dirt/salt etc and I don't know how quickly it would wear with more miles, but it does show that the waxoyl slows corrosion down considerably, which is half the battle. Any other chain lube would have succumbed to the weather for sure.

cheers

[Mike Sales]

I am surprised that a man with such a knowledge of bicycle engineering as yourself leaves a bike out in the rain for days.

[Brucey]

actually if you have the right bike it doesn't seem to do them any harm. I normally have a couple of utility bikes ready to go and leaving them outside means I never have to wash them down. If I pack them away undercover in the wintertime, they rust worse, because the road salt stays on them longer. Since I often use a bike several times every day it genuinely isn't practical to wash them after every ride or every time they get dirty (although I do do this with my 'good bikes' which I might use on a weekend).

If a bike is manufactured using corrosion resistant materials and coatings, good seals etc then assembled and maintained using the correct lubricants and treatments, there is no reason not to leave it outside in the weather, any more than (say) there is a car.

A bike you can leave outside without worrying about it is genuinely practical transport; one that you can't do this with.... well, it probably isn't that.

BTW the spot I leave my utility bikes is exposed to rainfall, but it is quite breezy there too; stuff usually dries off pretty quickly there once it stops raining.

cheers

[mig]

is there any modification to the handlebar / stem interface? this always seems to me to be the most likely place to get affected by water.

[Brucey]

is there any modification to the handlebar / stem interface? this always seems to me to be the most likely place to get affected by water.

yes, with quill stem there is an additional plastic seal (as per photo earlier in thread), a coating of waxoyl, or both. I put waxoyl round the wedge bolt top too. I still think it is a good idea to redo all this lot once a year; I can't be 100% sure that water doesn't get in.

My efforts with A-Head arrangements have not yet been similarly successful. I think that (for practical, all weather bikes) the design is basically hopeless in its normal form. There are just too many places for the water to get in.

cheers

[mig]

holy thread resurrection.

how is this bike getting on now?

[Brucey]

holy thread resurrection....

...how is this bike getting on now?

nothing much to report really; as expected in the main it has simply consumed tyres, chains and freewheels, during which time it has gradually looked worse and the brakes have got better and better. I don't think it has had a spanner on it much otherwise.... it certainly hasn't been cleaned or anything crazy like that....

Oh, except that the lock bracket broke, some NDS spoke nipples needed some threadlock and an aluminium rivet corroded away in one of the mudguards (all as predicted might happen). I think that is the sum total since the bike was built.

cheers

[mig]

good stuff.

how are the rims standing up?

[Brucey]

the rims are holding up OK, so far. My chum is not a big chap and he knows every pothole on his usual commuting route; also any small buckles would be tolerated. On the minus side the rims have single eyelets and see quite a lot of road salt; normally I'd not reckon that rim to make a really robust rear rim for a dished wheel that sees all-weather use.

To give the rims a fighting chance I dosed the eyelets with melted waxoyl and I didn't go nuts with the spoke tension. I realised that this meant that the NDS rear spokes might be in danger of slackening unless locked, and my chum was amenable to trying without and having me add the threadlock later if necessary. It did turn out to be necessary after a year or so. Possibly the waxoyl (which wasn't intentionally applied to the nipple threads themselves) might have helped the nipples back out. Pleasingly it demonstrated that even if one or two spokes went completely slack in the rear wheel, the wheel would still run through the frame OK.

So the conclusion is that a single-eyelet rim can be made to work in a dished rear wheel that sees road salt etc, but that it requires a particular approach. I have seen no end of similarly constructed rims that have been built (factory or handbuilt) with much higher tension (certainly in excess of Mavic's specified maximum tension on the DS) and no corrosion protection; these have failed by rim cracking. On the basis of what I have seen (this and other wheels) I don't think it is possible to build a dished rear wheel whilst respecting Mavic's tension limit, unless threadlocking is used on the NDS nipples.

cheers

[BrownBear]

Reading this thread just emphasises to me how far standard builds are from meeting the eminently practical requirement. I suppose, to be fair, not many of us would pay for the 'hidden' work that would be involved. But I do unfavourably compare the constant bike tinkering to the annual car service requirement. And I remember as a kid BB lube points were standard issue.

The Halfords Subway 8 got a mention. Funnily enough, I got one of those in the hope of low maintenance, but the whole rear hub/gear/brake unit failed after 6 months. I got a replacement, but that didn't fair any better and I gave it up as more hassle than it was worth. Pathetic.

Ever considered a chain oiler? I have my hope pinned on a belt, but we'll see how that works out.

[mig]

most bikes in this country aren't specced to do a transport job, they're loosely aimed at 'sport.'

i wonder if this bike was the result of several prototypes? maybe brucey has a production line on the go.

[mjr]

But I do unfavourably compare the constant bike tinkering to the annual car service requirement.

Why unfavourably? Small jobs done often or a clanking great annual bill - I know which I prefer!

The Halfords Subway 8 got a mention. Funnily enough, I got one of those in the hope of low maintenance, but the whole rear hub/gear/brake unit failed after 6 months. I got a replacement, but that didn't fair any better and I gave it up as more hassle than it was worth. Pathetic. .

What was the unit and the failures? Could it be a result of the standard lubrication being inadequate for the UK as speculated over in the "smoking gun" thread?

[Gattonero]

Reading this thread just emphasises to me how far standard builds are from meeting the eminently practical requirement. I suppose, to be fair, not many of us would pay for the 'hidden' work that would be involved. But I do unfavourably compare the constant bike tinkering to the annual car service requirement. And I remember as a kid BB lube points were standard issue.

Standard builds are to meet a broad spectrum of users.
Many people won't have a limited range of gears as shown by the OP.
Also, the labour involved in making things "right" means a higher production cost.
Pretty much all the "off-the-shelf" bikes are badly assembled in the first place, most of the threads that will need to, are never greased; and loose-bearings are substantially under-lubricated with just a thin amount of low-quality lubricant
Let alone poor fastenings/fixtures made out of materials prone to rust or corrode.

You can't really have a well-built bicycle for £500, and to be fair it has never been: BITD, a good bike would cost a good few week's wage, and if kept well you will hand it to your children. I get the feeling that in today's day, some people is expecting to pay £300 for a bike that will last forever with hardly any maintenance

Ever considered a chain oiler? I have my hope pinned on a belt, but we'll see how that works out.

You should consider more a chain scrubber, if such thing would exist. To simply apply oil over and over and over, will result in a messy muck

[Samuel D]

The solution to the chain problem is a Dutch-style full chaincase. In fact, traditional Dutch bicycles withstand huge amounts of use (and abuse) without much attention. There is no real comparison between one of those workhorses and my lightweight derailleur-gear bicycle with everything running like a fine Swiss watch but about as delicate.