Aluminum versus Rock

Rock won...

A Desperately Needed Dying Breed

Somebody didn 't get some BB love

Joe dropped his bike off.

Joe and the shop go back about a decade. He had purchased a bike from another shop and they could never get the shifting to be dialed in. He brought it into us to see if there was anything we could do. He was frustrated to the point that he was willing to get a new group, if we could make his shit work. A coworker took a look at it. Noticed that the shifter only had 8 clicks when it should have had 9. Disassembled the shifter and moved the plate to make it the right amount of speeds. Shifting worked perfectly.

Joe has come back ever since. And he lives 5 hours away. He dropped his bike off again. He had just had it tuned elsewhere as he couldn't get down to us and needed it to be working. The rear derailleur was ghost shifting.

Read more,

http://mooseknuckleralliance.org/2013/08/a-desperately-needed-dying-breed/

Yea, I broke my gear.

Caption this...

The World is an Imperfect Place

As a good friend of mine likes to say, "The world is an imperfect place." So shit happens.

If you are anything like myself or the folks with whom I turn the pedals, you probably like to turn the pedals hard and put your two-wheeled love machine through the paces. When said activities are taking place you rarely have time to be thinking about whether you torqued your XTR cranks to the specified 13 NM or if it was done in the alternating fashion prescribed by the Japanese God of Cycling, Shimano. Hopefully, you or your wrench of choice has done said things and you can ride into the sunset without worries.

But as I started this here post, the world is imperfect and shit happens. Anyone who rides has found themselves stranded on the side of the road with a broken bike in one hand and the look of defeat in the other. At this point you hopefully aren't praying to the Japanese God of Cycling that you remembered to restock your saddle bag or that your multi-tool is, in reality, safely tucked in your Deuter hydration pack. If any of those thoughts are racing through your mind, you are not alone. Many a cyclist has been stranded on the side of the road hoping that the red neck that just about killed them five minutes earlier can forget the middle finger salute they received and give said cyclist a ride back to town.

Seeing that I tend to ride with people who are proficient in maintaining and repairing their own bicycles, I have found that there exist two main types of trail side repairmanperson.

Not feeling too smooth, eh?

Nah, at this point I wouldn't service it. It's just time to say good bye.

This is not a drop out...

I don't think that is the right shape.

BB30 Fixing Bolt

If you still have play in your cranks after tightening the fixing bolt, keep tightening it. The key is to stop before the bolt breaks...

It may be time for a new cable...

One strand was all that was still attached. I guess we should just be happy that it held until it made it to the shop.

At least it isn't like the bike in this Dirt Rag review, which I am pretty sure that regardless of what you do it won't shift... http://www.dirtragmag.com/reviews/review-orbea-alma-carbon-29er. Pay close attention to the penultimate picture, the cable makes a 90 degree turn inside a plastic sheath. Pure brilliance... Orbea took a shitty design from their Orca and trickled it sideways to the Alma. Great idea guys!

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.

Designed to fail

The Light Bulb Conspiracy is a documentary that drags us through the annals of time via the idea of planned obsolescence. The name of the film comes from the collusion of light bulb manufacturers to set the burn time of light bulbs to guarantee a steady flow of "need" from the public. It explores the thousands of patents that have been filed that are for longer burning, longer lasting filaments. They even show a light bulb that has been burning in Fire House back east for over 100 years. For the past decade or so they have had web cams watching the bulb. Two of them have had to be replaced.



The idea of planned obsolescence is not a new idea, nor is it an idea that seems to be fading into the sunset as we have increased our knowledge of materials and industrial processes. Quite the contrary, as better, lighter, stronger materials have become available, we have seen a decrease in product life expectancy. Not only have the products become less and less durable, but the season cycle or the idea of the never ending need to have the newest and the best has replaced the consumer's desire to have a product that will last. Why would I want a light bulb that lasts forever?

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.

That's about the right angle

Broken Enve Rim

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...

But Mine goes to 11/11/11.

Hmm. That is not where that goes. Oh, you say you have play in your bb? I wonder why? You should probably stop sticking things where they don't belong. You can end up in the hospital that way...

Yup. I get about half my travel. At least that way the top section of the stanchions aren't completely worn out as well. So when things are all said and done, I can flip 'em over and get another few thousand out of 'em.

Eight Full Hours of Sleep

Today started with a Fox fork service, including the FIT cartridge. The custy was having lock out issues. I opened it up only to find the machining shavings from manufacturing still inside.

Top cap assembly, you can kind of see the shavings in the compression piston.

Ah, yes, metal shavings make a fork work Awesome!

After determining the fate of this fork, my next task was to fit an entire Di2 cabling system in the butt hole of a Venge.

I was then treated to the site of improper water bottle cage installation.

I promise this wasn't staged...

We then contacted the Newby GMC dealer to see if we could get some warranty pay for the next bike that was way sub-standard for what we paid in the bail out.

And finally, just as I was leaving, some creative cone assembly.

Not bad for eight hours of saving bikes from rape....

My bed time music, for hope for better bikes and solidarity with you all.

Another Bad Day for Bikes

When it starts to rattle, stop and see what is going on, don't just keep riding it until the shock gets stuck down.

So the story behind the photos. A stumpy was dropped off yesterday with some shock issues and seeing that the thing hadn't ever been service and it was about 5 years old, I figured it would be best to send it in. Well, then we tried to remove the shock and the details became blaringly evident. Broken shock bolt, blown bearings, blown link, and yup the lower eyelet was toast, not just the bushing the entire eyelet. Fun!

Broken Gary Fisher

It looks like Genesis had an Exodus

These were sent over from none other than Fixie Dave himself.