The dichotomy of, oh fuck you! I'm making fun of racers.

Yes, I absolutely need a power meter for my bike that I ride exclusively downhill. 

The fact that ScRAM and SRM are both pursuing this market goes to show that there really are only two types of riders. And no the two divisions don't have to deal with mountain or road or CX or XC or pickles. Racers are divided by how they react to the world around them. There are those that are so uptight they have to use a heartrate monitor during the morning dump to ensure they stay under threshold and those who are blatantly unaware of the mechanical side of their sport.

Caption this...

Aero bars are.....

REAL FAST

when you can't stop

whats wrong with this picture?

Trifecta of bad shifting

Anyone else ever experience this?

I'm pretty sure I'm the only wrench in existence with this problem.

You see, I'm hairy. Like Harry and the Hendersons Hairy. When I wear shorts and I am airing up a tire I always forget that it is a bad idea to have the wheel leaning up against my leg. Using an air compressor to fill things up means the tire expands quickly catching the hair from my legs between the bead and the rim. It hurts.

If you look closely, you can see my hair.

That is all.

Santa Cruz and SRAM are officially divorced

Santa Cruz Syndicate - San Romolo Testing from santa cruz bikes on Vimeo.

I think I would have made the same decision. You all know my disdain for their parts of late, it hasn't always been this way.

I took XTR derailleurs off my bikes in the early 2000's in favor of XO. The fixed knuckle was an advance in derailleur technology that has become standard affair. As recently as three years ago I had bikes spec'd almost entirely from SRAM. Then Elixir brakes went into their 2nd year of production. I'm not sure what happened, but whatever it was, it sucked.

However, it did always bring a smile to my face to see that 2nd set of shifters in the bike boxes. You know "just in case" the first set doesn't work...

More info here. http://www.bicycling.com/mountainbikecom/featured-stories/santa-cruz-syndicate-and-sram-split

Fucking, fuckity fuck fuck fuck you Vuelta USA.

So here's a great idea for a wheel. Let's take some tiny ass washers and put them between the nipple and the rim. Just to make it better, let's make the rim deep dish and have hidden nipples. It will be rad and everyone will love us.

This has got to be one of the dumbest, asinine ideas I have ever seen realized. Zipp uses washers but they actually increase the surface area of the nipple. These little shits only cover the end of the nipple. The only use I can see is to add some flex in the nipple to rim interface. But isn't that what the rounded end of your god damn nipple does. I seriously have no fucking idea what these are for or how the fuck they are supposed to go in the rim. I've tried everything I can think of, any ideas?

Not only are the washers a bad idea, but Vuelta USA can't even get there fucking ERD right. Nope, you were off by a factor of those spokes are way too short. Did you forget to measure the distance from the outer side of the rim to where the nipple actually rests? I thought so. Thank you for wasting my time. I guess next time I know to tell the customer to send your wheels back and try buying something from a wheel company that doesn't have to contact Taiwan to get a fucking ERD on a rim they sell.

And right about now, I think Vuelta USA can go fuck themselves. Anyone interested in sending them hate mail, you can use my name. It's Moose K Nuckler.  Thank you and good night.

3 day weekend penance

You know sometimes you just ask for it....

Have a semi productive day getting bikes fixed and in a happy mood because your Friday is indeed a Friday.

Then a Cervelo p4 rolls in, owner asks can brake pads be changed? sure you need Enve pads to go with you tubular carbon rims...great have them in stock, all is right in the world

then I notice rear shiftier ferrule is f'D! so have our service writer call up customer, and he wants it by Saturday (yay for being in a shop with a service writer if you dont have one I highly recommend you get one!)...




anyways to change pads and one cable, crankset has to be removed, both wheels, and TT bar had to have tape un wrapped to remove housing.... use thin plastic tubing before removing old shifter cable to prevent a full on gang raping of the P4's innards...

Also to note had to cut rear pads to 2/3 the size to fit on the rear brake!

all in all a very big time suck... with 1 hour to close

PSA #2. How to Fucking Clean your Bike

I've seen a lot of creaky bikes with rusted out cables and hubs that won't turn to save their lives. I also happen to live in the desert. There is not a lot of rain, humidity or salt floating around. This isn't Hawaii. Remember desert means there isn't a lot of water. From where do all these fucked bikes come? You've all seen the photos, the rusted out bb's, the housing with orange radials hanging out the sides and the dumbfounded look on the owner's face when you tell them they need some new stuff. Well, in my case, of living in the desert, it comes from the method used to clean the bike.

Over the years, we have noticed a significant trend for bikes that are shiny clean but are rusted out. Bikes that should be dirty, we know they are being ridden regularly, but when they come in for service not a spec of dirt can be found. Of course, Lake Bottom Bracket is there. If you push down on the suspension you can hear the bearings grinding against each other causing that awful creak we all want to avoid. Shifting is always sub-par and often creates a similar sound as the suspension linkage.

Oh, we know exactly what happened. You fucked your bike. You took it to the car wash and paid to destroy the thing. Sure it looks clean but let me show you what is inside.

What's to be done? Well, let me teach you how to clean your bike...

Six Things to Remember when Servicing Mavic Freehub Bodies

When servicing Mavic freehub bodies (old bushing style) there are a few things that you should remember.

1. The little adjuster knob on the non-drive side of the hub is not meant to hold the hub together. The axle and the fixing bolt for the freehub body should bottom out on each other and be tight. Once this has been accomplished you can adjust out the play with the adjuster nut/knob, whatever.

2. When disassembling said freehub body, there is a good chance that at least one pawl will fall out accompanied by the washer. Oh, yes there is a washer. It goes between the external shell and the hub body, it's kind of important. Pay attention to what came out and where it went.

3. The rubber seal is the only thing that keeps dirt out. Don't cut the thing in half. It is not causing the drag your customer is complaining about. Keep the seal.

4. The drag and possible loud squeal at high speeds your customer is talking about is caused by the lack of lube on the bushing. This is why you pulled the thing apart to begin with. This lube is important. Do not use grease. Especially the green Park kind. It's too heavy for this application and will not solve the problem. Use the Mavic lube or the newer Dumonde Tech Freehub Body lube. Both are designed for this application and work great.

5. After you have cleaned all the insides, inspect the parts. If there was a lot of play to begin with you may have worn bushing. It should be yellow. Is it black? How about them pawls? Are some of the corners missing? Replace broken, lost or worn parts, there aint no reason to be puttin' broken shit back together.

6. When the customer returns and you show them that the wheel spins freely and barely makes a noise. They will be ecstatic and tell you how much of a genius you are. At this point you need to remind them that the whole problem was caused by a lack of maintenance and that they should come see you again in about 700-1000 miles to have the freehub serviced. Or sooner if the damn things starts making noise or had lots of wear on the fixed side of the bushing (the part that can't be replaced).

Tuffy and Solid tube?

when you really dont want to flat and you hate your wheelset!

Fuck the Cool Factor!

I'm gonna go ahead and say what none of you want to hear.

You know all those blingy parts you recently purchased, all those fancy colored due dads that were supposed to be so much better than last year's model, all those Chris Bling and American Crassic lightweight parts. Those are all shit. You might as well throw them away. You might as well recycle them.

Yes. I get it. There is a cool factor involved in every purchase. Having the latest and the so called greatest is a way of life and if it motivates you to ride, I'm cool with that. I'm just sick of all the bull shit marketing that goes into those fancy parts that everyone is drooling over. Fuck the cool factor!

This is how it all breaks down. The safety bicycle came out a couple of hundred years ago, or so, and not much has changed since. You have two hubs, a bottom bracket bearing, a crank, a chain, some cogs, a steering bearing, a frame and a few other miserable parts that aren't worth mentioning. If you came across one of the original safety bicycles, or a penny farthing for that matter, you would notice that all this hyped up bull shit is almost identical to what came out a hundred years ago. All of our fancy manufacturing practices have done what? Provided you with a better selection of colors.

This bike shop is fucked!

A couple months back I found myself sitting around a tall table in a sports bar sharing beers with other bike shop owner/managers. I was in California at a retail management course specially tailored to the needs of bike shops. We were out after a full eight hour day of classes. No riding, not much moving around, lots of book work. We needed to unwind and let things air out. If you know what I mean.

As it goes with these types of events, there was a lot of shop talk. The bull shit was getting so deep our server had to put on rubber boots to make it to the table. Most of the evening consisted of what do you do about this? and how are you doing with X brand? Stuff that would bore even the most passionate industry insider. However, there was one guy at the table that had a pattern to his stories.

One story would be about how hard it is to make any money owning a bike shop and how he was struggling just to make ends meet. Then he would tell stories about "dumb" customers who he had to throw out or just didn't get that he was trying to "help" them.

Fuck you! This is how to lube a chain.

Editor's Note: As many of you have noted, I see a lot of crazy shit throughout the natural occurrence of my day. I would assume that a doctor, if allowed, could create a similar blog entailing some pretty nasty human shit. It just goes with the territory that if you are supposed to "fix" something you will see a lot of broken stuff. As proprietor of this blog, I am going to be somewhat self-indulgent and post certain "articles" detailing some of the most common or biggest mistakes that I see and how to avoid them. I am not a scientist and will not provide empirical data to back up my advice. All I can offer is the constant observation of a mechanic over the past 16 years aided only by those who I would consider mentors that have tried to pass on their years of observation to me.

Choosing to jump into the abyss is my style and as such will start with the polarizing topic of chain maintenance.

Hmm.

Customer dropped this one off. And admitted that he knew the cassette had come off and then tried to go for another ride...

Christmas Brakes

I see a lot of bikes. Some make me scream in agony. Others make me scratch my head. And still, there are always the ones that should just be thrown away. But when it comes to kids bikes, especially around Xmas, you will here many a bike mechanic say, "Do they even love their kids or are they trying to kill them?" We see bikes with forks on backwards and even worse are the bikes that don't stop. Well, this isn't one of those times... She will be able to stop, for sure. We had some LX V's hanging around from a half decade ago and hooked this little ride up. Did the bike deserve the brakes? No. But at the price we gave her, it was the logical choice to make and I'm sure the little girl deserves to be able to stop.

Tis not the season for headset bearings

Destroyed

This bike had some "drag" in the headset. I pulled the top cap and I knew immediately what the problem was. The top bearing was fixable but the bottom was completely gone. Unfortunately this is an old USPS Trek with a 1 1/4" bottom bearing size with no taper on the bearing. The Trek dealer in town said he could possibly get one for me but he would have to call and find out. For now, it still has drag.

Saved someone $230

However I think I shorted my life a bit.... Pulled this Jelly fish of a cable end out of the shifter and interesting to note is the reversed "b" screw...