Our first bike baby. It's a Dolan: Bike time 4-2-2014

Last night's bike time was busy.  Very busy.  We had four bikes in, either for show, or repair.  So busy, I didn't even get pictures!

Justin's Fuji is in for a major rebuild.  It's eaten it's bottom bracket bearings and rear wheel bearings.  So while he's hunting down parts, he's got a bike on loan from another frequenter of bike time.

Tac brought his IGH (internal geared hub) commuter, to sort out a front wheel issue.  We got his tube installed and his front brake adjusted. 

Another member, brought in a bike frame they'd built.  From scratch. It was nothing fancy in the tubing department, but he'd done a great job on the seatstays, and the welding.  It looked almost store bought!. 

Joseph is working on an instructable.  He rides a long, long, 'bent with a big sturdy rack in the back.  We sat down and made a template so he can reliably make boards that mount to his rack.  When he finishes his instructable, it'll be posted here.

And finally, to the big news of the night.  NegativeK got wheels on his Dolan single speed frame, and was able to roll it around the shop.  Bike night had it's first birth.  We were all very excited!

... So we'll see you in two weeks.  :-)  Where hopefully the crowd gets bigger, and more bikes get spruced up. 

Bike time 11-27-13

Well, we were there... And some bikey stuff happened.  But it was of the emergency repair sort, rather than lets do awesome things variety. 

Justin hit a bump and cracked the pedal spindle of his nice old pedals.  He tore them down, and straighened the spindle as best he could.  He did end up with a functional, but delicate pedal, and he made it home safely. 

NegativeK also picked out a bunch of parts for his new bike.  He's got plans on building a Dolan fixed gear bike.  Just cuz he can. 

Fold, Spindle, Crankulate. At bike time, 2013-11-13

Something about a shalow depth of field just makes me happy.

Tonight at bike time, we were doing a lot of crank work.  Justin replaced the bearings in his classic Fuji's bottom bracket.  Sadly, it seems the races are toast.  I swapped the ISIS Bontranger triple on my Penna for a Raceface double.

To get cranks off a bike.. you need to remove the bits holding them on.  In this case, with an 8mm allen wrench.

If everything is right with your bike, that won't actually get the cranks off.  The fit between the spindle and the crank arms is everything short of interference, and it will be very tight.  They sell crank pullers to deal with that.  Here's mine.

To use one, you thread that outer nut into the crankarm, then you twist the lever (or inner bolt, if you have a cheap one) until the crankarm pops off the spindle.

Pop goes the crankarm.  That kind of spindle interface is the old style ISIS.  It's got a bunch of scaloped surfaces providing a huge number of places for the crank to index and support itself off of.  square tapers only have four faces, and are subject to wiggling and if they're ever overloaded they will continue to get looser.  I suspect an overloaded ISIS crank would just crack..

And the non drive side..

Next to be extracted is the bottom bracket itself.  This is a sealed bottom bracket, with the modern instalation drive splines.  That's what the funky socket is designed to work with. 

The non drive side on my bike was... we'll say firmly stuck into my frame.  It only took a minor grunt to get it loosened once I had both wrenches on the socket. 

And then comes the drive side.  It too was in there really freaking tightly.  I think the specified torque is something like 50lbft, but it took way more than that for the cups to come out. 

Here's the new bottom bracket that's going in.  It's an external bearing setup.  The black bit in the middle is just a plastic tube to keep crud from inside the frame getting into the bearings.  The red stuff on the threads is a pre-applied thread locking compound. 

You install the cups seperately.  Which does pose some problems.  By being short and wide, making sure the threads are lined up is somewhat difficult.  With conventional sealed bottom brackets, the spindle keeps the cups aligned and cross-threading is a much smaller issue.  ...  I'm bring this up, becuase I did manage to cross thread the drive side. 

The pre-applied threadlocking compound is what really did me in.  It causes about the same amount of drag on the wrench as if you've cross-threaded it.  Knowing this, I ended up spinning it almost two full turns.  Yeah... not good.   I think the next crank on this bike will need to be a spindle setup, so I can have deeper threads than you find on external bearing cups. 

Next up is to install the crankarm.  External bearing cups have rubber seals, and those ride on the shiny bits of the crank.  To get those seals to slide over the spindle, you should use some grease.  you should use some grease anyway so the seals can slide.

And here I'm fitting the new drive side crankarm.  This crank has something called a captured bolt.  So it won't need a crank puller.  The captured bolt, has a small cover over it, as you unscrew the bolt, it pushes on the cover, and pulls the crank out for you. 

Because the bolt sticks out a little bit, getting the crank on the splines can be a little hard, as you need to align the splines, and turn the bolt at the same time.  It's only a "little" more work.

And Viola, new cranks. 

These cranks are a LOT stiffer than the last set.  Not that I found the ISIS spindle particularly flexy.  The frame is a Fetish Cycles Penna, which uses some really big tubing all over, so it's really stiff too.  It makes any flexible components really stand out. 

Once again, thanks to NegativeK for having patience and taking good pictures.

Putting it on Tape. Lets wrap some bars. 2013-10-30

NegativeK's bar tape was looking.. uh.. shabby.  (I'm being gentle.....)  I offered to show him how I do it.  And I had some yellow bar tape hanging around that needed to go on this abomination:

Yellow saddle?  Black bar tape?  .. that won't stand.  And I have some yellow tires to put on there too.  But that's for another day.  How about let's fix that.

Black, on black, on black.  Why black?  "It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none." *pulls out the tap*  

Okey, enough of that.  Lets turn this to 11.  Actually, inside out.  Ergo brake levers usually have a rubber cover that comes down over the bar tape.  You'll need to fold this up and out of the way.  Don't worry, you won't hurt it.

Now you should pull out the bar plugs.  If this is a really old install, you might not have them anymore.  :-) So you can skip the step.  There are some fancy bar end plugs out there that need an allen wrench to release them.

Peel that finishing tape, and unwrap those bars.  If you are really unlucky you might have adhesive backed bar tape.  Removing the used adhesive is.. generally speaking not worth the effort.

If the tape you pull off isn't adhesive backed, it's worth saving.  Wrenches are a lot nicer when wrapped in bar tape.  I usually wind up the tape as I remove it.

This is what you get inside most packs of bar tape.  You get two rolls of tape, some bar end plugs, some bits of finishing tape, and some adhesive backed strips to hide your brake lever clamps.

This is how I start bar tape.  I hold onto an inch or two, and wrap the tape over the end of the bar.  The direction MATTERS.  (And apparently I have it backwards...)  You'll see i'm working on the left bar, and the tape roll is in my right hand.  The tape hanging over the end of the bar is needed to make the bars look finished, and give the bar end plug something to grip.  You should do it the other way around.  Going this direction may lead to your tape getting loose over time. 

I wrap to the inside, under and back to the outside.  I like to have the tapered edges overlap, leaving a mostly smooth appearance.  The deeper the overlap, the lumpier the bar tape looks, but you also get more padding.  Wrapping the way I do, leaves almost a foot of unused tape in the end.

I aim to keep the wraps even, and neat, and I let the outside of any turn of the bars dictate the spacing between wraps.

Here is where that sticky backed bit of bar tape is used.

I usually trim it a bit, as the supplied length tends to be half or three quarters of an inch to long.  I stick it to the inside of the brake lever clamp just before I wrap the area.

The adhesive is usually not that strong, so wrapping over it soon is a good idea.  This also where most tape jobs fall apart.  When reaching the lever, you reverse the direction of wrapping the tape.

I wrap the tape around the outside of the bars.  This makes the grip a little bit fatter where your palm would be.  I like the feel.  If you want it fatter, leave more of the sticky backed tape in there too!

And the rest of wrapping your bar is just like the bottom half.  Round and round.  Under the bar, over the top, and down..

I stop wrapping the bars, where they change diameter.  Handlebars usually have a fatter section in the middle.  My goal is to have the finishing tape, and tapered edge of the tape just before the bars fatten up.

To cut your tape when you're done, you need to cut it at an angle.  a very steep angle.  Something like 75 degrees.  I am holding the tape at the same angle as the tape is on the bars, and cutting straight along the axis of the bike.

I don't use the finishing tape that comes with Forte bar tape.  I use matte electrical tape.  I like to have a solid 8" of tape to finish bars.  I put  the tape on with some tension.  If it starts to look skinny, you're pulling it to tight.  If there's any gaps in the tape, you're not pulling it hard enough.

Doesn't that look pretty?  Burnishing the tape down isn't a bad idea.  So rub I rub my fingers around the tape a few times to make sure there aren't any air bubbles.  You should too.

Go ahead and fold down the brake lever covers.

Finally, put in the bar end plugs.  Don't forget to do this.  Bar end plugs prevent ... well lets call them core samples.  Handlebars are sharp, your flesh is soft.  I used to have a scar on my chest from a incident on a bike without it's bar end plugs.

I think it looks pretty good.

Questions?  Comments?  Ideas for future articles?

Once again, thank you NegativeK for taking the pictures.  And your bike looks much better now.

Upgrades are my Fetish. Erm, the Fetish gets upgraded.

Tomorow is Bike Night again.  Bike night this week is going to include replacement and upgrade of the crank and bottom bracket on a 2006 Fetish Penna. 

The crank that's on the bike is an ISIS drive crank.  It's pretty stiff, but being a small diameter spindle, it's pretty heavy.  The replacement crank is GXP, so has a very large diameter spindle, and should be a bit lighter. 

It's also going to get some double sided pedals.  I'm kinda tired of the "road" SPD pedals on there. 

In which we repair a bicycle tube. 2013-10-03

Hello Everyone,

Tonight, we're going to be repairing bicycle tubes.  Tubes are "fairly" cheap.  But patch kits are a whole lot cheaper.  And it's a great thing to do while watching your favorite youtube videos at night. 

What you'll need is:

1. A bicycle tube with a puncture in it.  (Tears are not something I'd try to fix.)
2. A bike pump, with a head that matches your tube.  (Schrader, presta, etc..)
3. Tube repair kit.  (Not those nasty no glue scabs.. we want this to last.)
4. Something hard and round to burnish (rub) the patch with.  (The back of a caribener, a keyring, the handle of a wrench..)
5. Something flat and heavy.  (A dictionary, your laptop, something like that.)

 So lets dig in! 

Here's my popped tube and patch kit.

To find the hole, I filled the tire, and listened.  If you overfill the tire a little the hole gets bigger, and will show itself.  It's very rare you can straight away find the hole in a deflated tube. 

I'm holding the tube on either side of the puncture.  The contents of the patch kit seem to have exploded on the table.  This is as good of a time as any, allow me to introduce you to the contents of a patch kit. 

Inside the patch kit, you'll find some patches, a tube of glue, and a patch of sandpaper.  Oh, and a set of instructions.  Since you're reading this, you can probably throw out those instructions.  Go ahead, throw them out.  I'll wait. 

Tubes are quite textured on the outside.  There's mold lines everywhere.  Those mold lines are what make patching a tube a "task." That's also why the sandpaper is in the kit.  You use the sandpaper to sand off the ridges and mold marks on the tube.   You need to sand flat the entire area the patch will cover.

Since rubber is stretchy, and wants to get away from you, it can be a bit difficult to sand.  I wrap a little bit of the flat tube around my finger.  I use very light pressure and only sand the "middle" of the area wrapped around my finger.  You'll need to do this a few times, as the size of the patch is a lot larger than your finger. 

There we go, sanded nice and flat.

Now you get to prep the surface.  Prepping the surface is another phrase for "cover it in glue."  So put a small dab of glue down, and spread it around. 

Like that.  The glue needs to be bigger than the size of the patch.  Give it some time to dry. 

While you're waiting for it to dry, get your patch ready.  In this case, I just needed a little dot of a patch. 

Patches are packaged sandwiched between a foil layer, and a celophane layer.  This is to keep them fresh.  Go ahead and peel off the foil layer.

That brown/orange stuff is the stuff that bonds to the rubber cement you used earlier.  It's soft, and pastey.  And quite sticky.  Do not touch it, or let it touch anything but the tube. 

I re-inflated the tube, to verify where the hole in the tube was.  And you'll notice the tube is shiny again, I put a little bit of glue on there again to refresh it.  Now we're ready to apply the patch. 

Make sure it's centered, and put that patch on.  Now we burnish. 

I'm using a plastic caribener to rub the patch against the tube.  This squeezes out air bubbles, and ensures a good bond between the patch and the glue beneath it. 

And that's what a properly done patch looks like.  I leave the cellophane on the patch.  Tubes are happier if they can slide and move, and when you put a patch on a tube, it gets a little stiffer, so I figure the cellophane helps.

Now, here's the bit that I learned from doing motorcycle tube repairs.  Clamping a patch, and leaving it for a few hours (ideally days..) does improve the quality of the patch.  I fold up the tire around the patch a few times, then I stick it under something heavy. 

Oh look, something heavy.  In this case, a UPS battery.

And forget about your tube for a while. 

After a few hours, you can come back and inflate the tube, to check the job you did.  This patch is doing it's job nicely.  I can now stuff this tube back into my seat bag and trust I'll have a good replacement in case I have a flat again.

Thanks for visiting.  And thanks to NegativeK for taking all the pictures.