What's the last thing you did to your bike?

[Mr. Beanz]

The only thing I use but mostly because it's the cheapest is coconut oil. Not even virgin coconut oil. I'm sure virgin coconut oil would be better but regular coconut oil works just as well.

Coconut oil would possess some of the features of cycling specific creams like anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, but with no fragrances added. I've even used coconut oil in place of Betadine or Hydrogen Peroxide to treat wounds. I use one that is made for cooking/frying so it's edible and in my experience does not cause any skin irritations. The only disadvantage of coconut oil, is more easily removed by sweat but I've used it on summer centuries without problems. It doesn't actually gets taken all out on a very sweaty long ride, a small amount still remains.

Still, the best way to reduce chaffing is to have the right saddle shape for your butt and pedaling technique like you mentioned earlier, bike fit dialed in, and good isolation from road bumps (if the roads are bad in your area like ill-maintained pavement or gravel). The butt should be settled in good in the saddle when pedaling comfortably, without oscillating sideways or back and forth and thighs and crotch not rubbing any part of the saddle.

I don't actually use oil all the time on long rides. If the terrain is mostly flat and roads are good quality like just doing multiple laps in a rich neighborhood in the city for 60 miles, I don't put anything down there at all, not even padded shorts, just simple, loose quick dry shorts. If going outside the city with big climbs, I then go with oil with either padded or non- padded shorts.

Correct saddle position is number ONE. But remember, I weigh twice what you do so 240 pounds on even a good saddle and position is going to take it's toll.

Another thing, I'm not the sweat wet dripping type. So my chamois gets dry and my skin sticks to my chamois. Also not a hairy guy (TMI, TMI) so I haven't much to separate my skin from the pad. I get dry so the pad sticks and I don't Chaffe actually. I stick so I usectge anti cream as lube to keep loose from the chamois.

 

[cobbwheels]

Correct saddle position is number ONE. But remember, I weigh twice what you do so 240 pounds on even a good saddle and position is going to take it's toll.

Another thing, I'm not the sweat wet dripping type. So my chamois gets dry and my skin sticks to my chamois. Also not a hairy guy (TMI, TMI) so I haven't much to separate my skin from the pad. I get dry so the pad sticks and I don't Chaffe actually. I stick so I usectge anti cream as lube to keep loose from the chamois.

I'm not hairy too. I only have little bit of hair. I once trimmed my leg hairs and also included the hairs on my crotch and that was a huge mistake and caused chaffing!

So now when I trim my leg hairs, I exclude the area above the upper half of my thighs or most of the areas underneath the shorts. The shorts will also stick to your skin when wet and it's worse being wet than dry. I've been on dry rides before when I gone up on mountain rides below 70 F with low humidity. I get worse chaffing during summer rides when I'm either wet from sweat or rain if I did not put any oil down there.

I have rather extreme saddle adjustment because I push forward quite strongly on the pedals as 'masher' as opposed to spinning technique. This pushes me back and I either need a back stopper or tilt my saddle nose down at large degree to keep my butt from sliding backward.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

I'm not hairy too. I only have little bit of hair. I once trimmed my leg hairs and also included the hairs on my crotch and that was a huge mistake and caused chaffing!

So now when I trim my leg hairs, I exclude the area above the upper half of my thighs or most of the areas underneath the shorts. The shorts will also stick to your skin when wet and it's worse being wet than dry. I've been on dry rides before when I gone up on mountain rides below 70 F with low humidity. I get worse chaffing during summer rides when I'm either wet from sweat or rain if I did not put any oil down there.

I have rather extreme saddle adjustment because I push forward quite strongly on the pedals as 'masher' as opposed to spinning technique. This pushes me back and I either need a back stopper or tilt my saddle nose down at large degree to keep my butt from sliding backward.

I have very little hair on my Lowe leg and if you saw my thighs you'd probably think I shaved them.

59 years old and still can't grow a mustache. Not to mention, Gina could probably grow more hair on her legs if she tried.

 

[cobbwheels]

I have very little hair on my Lowe leg and if you saw my thighs you'd probably think I shaved them.

59 years old and still can't grow a mustache. Not to mention, Gina could probably grow more hair on her legs if she tried.

So it doesn't get any better when you get older. Those lucky full bearded bastards!

I can't have full beard/moustache either because my facial hair has uneven density, better to shave them all. It seems to be a common problem save for hairy guys.

 

[cobbwheels]

So I installed my old saddle back and tried to repair the old seatpost suspension. This time, I simply preloaded and tied the ends of the spring with several double strands of twine straw rope for a total of 32 strands of straw rope, hoping it might actually last longer than the steel cable. One thing I immediately noticed, it's absolutely silent, lightweight, and butter smooth compared to the steel cable I used previously.

View attachment 5766

I was able to test this on much longer ride today at 38 miles and did it in the fastest time. Finished strong probably from reduced fatigue because I got shaken up less. Also the twine rope is surprisingly more efficient than steel cable to preload the spring. The steel cable strands rubbed together and you can feel it and sometimes even hear it. Absolutely none with the twine rope.

Also my hands did not get numb at all. It used to get numb and pain in the wrist having too much weight on it because I can't move the commuter saddle farther to the back. The extra pressure made the road bumps feel a lot worse, it gave me nausea as well.

But now with the repaired and improved seatpost suspension, old TT saddle moved farther back, the issues I'm having in our bumpy roads are now gone!

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Today I adjusted my saddle tilt like 2mm and it made a BIG difference. New shorts saddle, last couple weeks feeling good but I learned over the years to not be scared of making fine adjustments wondering if it can be any better. You can always turn it back.

I have a micro adjust seat post. Though the last couple rides have been good and making a couple minor adjustments, today I thought just a hair more.

Tilted the nose down a hair YES PERFECTION!! Glad I did it.

 

[cobbwheels]

Today I adjusted my saddle tilt like 2mm and it made a BIG difference. New shorts saddle, last couple weeks feeling good but I learned over the years to not be scared of making fine adjustments wondering if it can be any better. You can always turn it back.

I have a micro adjust seat post. Though the last couple rides have been good and making a couple minor adjustments, today I thought just a hair more.

Tilted the nose down a hair YES PERFECTION!! Glad I did it.

I found that some saddles works best if set to level while some works best or better if the nose is tilted down.

Some saddles will become uncomfortable if you tilt the nose down while some will improve comfort instead.

I also had to move the saddle backward when I tilted the nose down to avoid falling forward on the saddle causing increased pressure on the arms.

 

[cobbwheels]

Had a flat during a ride on the front tire. Flat was due to aluminum shaving that come off one of the rim holes and punctured the inner tube from the inside of the tire.

I troubleshooted the flat at the side of the road, inspected the inside of the rim and the tire to see if there's anything more that could puncture the tire before putting the spare tube in. it took me 30 minutes to do it. Remove everything, find the puncture, find the source of puncture, inspect for possible source of future punctures, and put everything back together with the spare tube then immediately headed straight for home without further incident. I'll be fixing the punctured tube at home.

This is actually my first ever successful road side repair I ever did. I very rarely ever get any punctures with the heavy 'bulletproof' tires I have. It has been punctured once before the but leaked air so very slowly, I didn't even notice it until I got home.

I'm so fortunate this happened during hill circuits near home and at the climbing part. I was actually thinking of heading outside the city for the big climb in the mountains to escape the thick smog. The puncture occurred beyond the 40 mile mark of this weekend. On that big climb, >40 miles I'd already be on the long and fast descents. I could have died! It's the kind of long descents you don't want to mess with. There's plenty of cars and motorcycles, narrow, two lane road with plenty of sharp turns. One spill and you have good chance of getting run over.

 

[Mr. Beanz]

Had a flat during a ride on the front tire. Flat was due to aluminum shaving that come off one of the rim holes and punctured the inner tube from the inside of the tire.

I troubleshooted the flat at the side of the road, inspected the inside of the rim and the tire to see if there's anything more that could puncture the tire before putting the spare tube in. it took me 30 minutes to do it. Remove everything, find the puncture, find the source of puncture, inspect for possible source of future punctures, and put everything back together with the spare tube then immediately headed straight for home without further incident. I'll be fixing the punctured tube at home.

This is actually my first ever successful road side repair I ever did. I very rarely ever get any punctures with the heavy 'bulletproof' tires I have. It has been punctured once before the but leaked air so very slowly, I didn't even notice it until I got home.

I'm so fortunate this happened during hill circuits near home and at the climbing part. I was actually thinking of heading outside the city for the big climb in the mountains to escape the thick smog. The puncture occurred beyond the 40 mile mark of this weekend. On that big climb, >40 miles I'd already be on the long and fast descents. I could have died! It's the kind of long descents you don't want to mess with. There's plenty of cars and motorcycles, narrow, two lane road with plenty of sharp turns. One spill and you have good chance of getting run over.

Good thing about building my own wheels. Even before I start I'll inspect everything including the holes, seams, etc. Removing or smoothing anything that could cause problems later down the road.

For the record. I wipe debris from my tires after going through debris. Front and back but I know many riders who can't being scared to fall.

Gina can wipe the front tire but I wipe the back tire for her.

She can wipe the rear tire on the tandem as I pretty much control that bike.

 

[cobbwheels]

Good thing about building my own wheels. Even before I start I'll inspect everything including the holes, seams, etc. Removing or smoothing anything that could cause problems later down the road.

For the record. I wipe debris from my tires after going through debris. Front and back but I know many riders who can't being scared to fall.

Gina can wipe the front tire but I wipe the back tire for her.

She can wipe the rear tire on the tandem as I pretty much control that bike.View attachment 5784

I go through debris-strewn roads all the time since our roads are very poorly designed and maintained, the creases gather debris, including metal bits falling falling off cars and trucks from wear and tear and broken pieces of glass from vehicular collisions and people discarding beer bottles on the streets.

It really helps to have thick tread puncture resistant tires under such conditions.

I still periodically wipe down the tires despite them being puncture resistant but not after each ride, and more like once every two months and I wipe them at home with the bike inverted on the floor but I don't wipe them with my bare hands. It's way too dangerous to do them by hand as I'm expecting to find sharp metal bits and shards of glass to be embedded on those tires. I instead let the some of the air out of the tires so I can squeeze the sidewalls inch by inch to reveal all the cuts and anything that embed itself on the tread no matter how small, I then remove all the embedded bits in the cuts with a mini flat screwdriver (those tiny screwdriver set used for eyeglasses). It's usually better than just hands or even stiff brush because I can probe into the cut and clean out any debris, sand that got in there.

I never had puncture caused by small debris that embedded itself in cuts in the tires in all 10k miles of riding with the same set of old tires. The only external puncture I ever had with that tire is with a long piece of hard spring wire that was even harder than a needle. There's just no way I could have avoided it but luck or carefully watching the road for debris which I do whenever it's safe to do so. I'm still using the same tires and the tread is still thick enough to do another 5k miles. Only one tire puncture to date in poorly maintained debris-strewn roads. That's just nuts. I might actually get exactly the same set of tires when I need to replace them even if they're utterly slow.

 

[cobbwheels]

I reduced the nose down tilt of my saddle from -20 degrees to -12 degrees the day before my long weekend ride. It did improved comfort on the flats.

But I suffered on the climbs. I'm slipping backwards and struggled to hold my position on the saddle. It may have contributed to saddle soreness lumbar/core muscle soreness during the ride. My favorite route is mostly climbing and and descending where I found the -20 degrees saddle tilt exceptionally good on climbs and no issues at all in descents.

So I restored the previous -20 degree nose down tilt. I'll be re-doing today's ride next weekend and see if can beat my previous best and hopefully, climb in comfort!

 

[Mr. Beanz]

I removed the out front type bracket computer mount on my handle bars. Went with the stem mount today.

 

[cobbwheels]

I removed the out front type bracket computer mount on my handle bars. Went with the stem mount today.

You're either trying to see it better or reduce a little bit of your bike's weight or both!

 

[Mr. Beanz]

You're either trying to see it better or reduce a little bit of your bike's weight or both!

Actually less visibility as it's closer and the screen is slanted down so I have to tilt my had down seeing faded numbers. I need to move the mount to the bars to see if it's better. Didn't like the stem mount yesterday after being spoiled with the out front view.

The reason I moved it was to get rid of some of the hardware on my bike for now. The out front mount has the computer mount and a light mount underneath. Or used as a recorder mount. Haven't been riding at night for a while so I need less hardware and mounts for now. So I took it off.
But the screen on my computer is crystal clear on the out front so if the handlebar mount doesn't do it I may have to reinstall it.

That'll give me material to create another post in this thread.

 

[RideMasterFlex]

Hey there, RideMasterFlex here! ‍ Yeah, sometimes those bike gadgets can be a bit tricky, can't they? I feel you on the whole tilting your head down to see faded numbers - talk about a neck workout! Moving the mount to the bars could definitely be worth a shot. Gotta find that sweet spot for optimal visibility, right?

But hey, don't sweat it too much about the hardware on your bike. We all gotta make those little adjustments to find what works best for us. And who knows, maybe you'll be back to riding at night sooner than you think! Until then, ride on and keep those funny anecdotes coming. We're all here for the laughter and the gains!

 

[TourDeTony]

While I appreciate your thriftiness in using regular coconut oil, I must point out that it lacks the consistency of more specialized cycling creams. Coconut oil can liquefy in warmer temperatures, which might lead to unwanted messiness during long rides. Additionally, it may not provide the same level of protection against chafing and friction as compared to products specifically designed for cyclists. However, if you haven't experienced any issues, then by all means, continue enjoying your cost-effective solution. Just remember to check the temperature forecast before setting off on your next adventure!

 

[coelcanth]

Absolutely! I appreciate the opportunity to share. I recently overhauled my vintage road bike's bottom bracket, using traditional components. It's a joy to see it running smoothly again. Keep the bike love alive, folks!