Well that was different

[Danny Colyer]

I've had an interesting weekend for bike maintenance. At first I'd just planned to change my front
brake blocks. For the past 2000 miles I've been looking at them and thinking "they've got a good few
hundred miles left in them yet". They've done just short of 2500 miles, which I'm happy with.

While I was at it, I checked whether the back blocks needed changing. They didn't, I just sanded
them down a bit and put them back on. But while I was readjusting them, I noticed a lot of sideways
play in the rear wheel at the rim.

I took the wheel off, had a fiddle in the jig and concluded that the bearings needed tightening. So
I did, then noticed a dreadful rattle when I spun the wheel. I tried to get at the bearings to
grease them and possibly change them, but I just couldn't access them.

It looked like I'd be needing a new hub, so I started researching hubs, trying to figure out the
difference between a GBP10 hub and a GBP110 hub (about all I managed to work out was that the Sram
9.0 hub that I'm currently using is no longer made). Anyway, in the process I also found several
useful articles on freehub maintenance. 3 more times I went down to the workshop, removed the rear
wheel and cassette and tried to access the bearings.

The final time was after reading Rumpelstiltskin Brown's advice on how tight to tighten the hub.
While doing that, I noticed that the rattle seemed to be coming from the rim rather than the hub.
The only way I could be sure was to remove the tyre, so I did that and found that my inner tube had
a rattle. It seemed that whatever had caused the last puncture in that tube was still floating
around inside!

Anyway, I found it and used a corner to puncture the tube again and get it out. It's a piece of
glass, roughly an equilateral triangle with 6mm sides. I've never had that happen before.

I'm glad I found it (it would only have been rattling around for a couple of days, I fitted the tube
after a puncture on Thursday morning), and I'm glad I don't need to go to the trouble of replacing
the hub just yet.

--
Danny Colyer (remove safety to reply) ( http://www.juggler.net/danny ) Recumbent cycle page:
http://www.speedy5.freeserve.co.uk/recumbents/ "He who dares not offend cannot be honest." -
Thomas Paine

[Garry Broad]

>I'm glad I found it (it would only have been rattling around for a couple of days, I fitted the
>tube after a puncture on Thursday morning), and I'm glad I don't need to go to the trouble of
>replacing the hub just yet.

Bizzare!

But goes to prove the truism of 'Zen and that Art of Bicycle Maintenance' - check everything, in
order, carefully and methodically, and the job will be done.

gb <often a bull in a china shop

[Trevor Barton]

Danny Colyer <danny@jugglersafety.net> wrote:
> The final time was after reading Rumpelstiltskin Brown's advice on how tight to tighten the hub.
> While doing that, I noticed that the rattle seemed to be coming from the rim rather than the hub.
> The only way I could be sure was to remove the tyre, so I did that and found that my inner tube
> had a rattle. It seemed that whatever had caused the last puncture in that tube was still floating
> around inside!
>
> Anyway, I found it and used a corner to puncture the tube again and get it out. It's a piece of
> glass, roughly an equilateral triangle with 6mm sides. I've never had that happen before.
>
> I'm glad I found it (it would only have been rattling around for a couple of days, I fitted the
> tube after a puncture on Thursday morning), and I'm glad I don't need to go to the trouble of
> replacing the hub just yet.

I came off my bike as a mid-teenager and badly grazed my arm on the inside of my elbow on a patch of
gravel. It healed, but there was always a lump I put down to a bit of scar tissue.

10 years later the lump cut its way out of my skin from the inside. It was a piece of glass about
the same size as yours. That was strange!

Trev

[Jim Price]

Trevor Barton wrote:
> I came off my bike as a mid-teenager and badly grazed my arm on the inside of my elbow on a patch
> of gravel. It healed, but there was always a lump I put down to a bit of scar tissue.
>
> 10 years later the lump cut its way out of my skin from the inside. It was a piece of glass about
> the same size as yours. That was strange!

Ouch! That reminded me of the (much smaller) number of years I've spent removing bits of glass from
my scalp as they've emerged. The causes were car windscreens I smashed during accidents...

--
Jim Price

http://www.jimprice.dsl.pipex.com (http://www.jimprice.dsl.pipex.com/)

Conscientious objection is hard work in an economic war.

[Simonb]

Jim Price wrote:

> The causes were car windscreens I smashed during accidents...

Precisely how many windscreens have you passed through?

[Jim Price]

Simonb wrote:

> Jim Price wrote:
>
>
>>The causes were car windscreens I smashed during accidents...
>
>
> Precisely how many windscreens have you passed through?

Two. One front, one rear. Not in the same accident, I hasten to add. Only one was on topic.

--
Jim Price

http://www.jimprice.dsl.pipex.com (http://www.jimprice.dsl.pipex.com/)

Conscientious objection is hard work in an economic war.