Bike Work

It seems like I have more time right now. I spend some of it watering the flower pots I planted this year or sitting in the hammock hanging from the pergola I built at the end of May. 

Where did this time come from? A lot of the time came from not doing RV trips. The trips, plus all the prep and cleanup really took a lot of time. 

One of the other things I've been doing with my time is working on bikes. This year I've done quite a bit more of this than other years. I've had my mountain bike for 4 years now and I've done very little work on it in that time. This year it really started to show. For a long time I've also wanted to do some work on Chelsea's bike. It's a good bike, but the fork was terrible. It started out terrible, but then when all the damper oil drained out onto the bike as it hung in the garage, it became worse. 

In the last few months I've replaced the fork on my mountain bike, replaced the fork on Chelsea's bike, rebuilt my rear wheel, replaced all my frame bearings, and replaced my shifter cables, among other things. 

I replaced a 140 mm Fox 32 Evolution fork (pictured right) with a 150 mm Fox 34 Performance GRIP (pictured left). It is AWESOME. I have to be really stingy when it comes to biking (because the kids want to eat everyday) I bought on eBay as a previous year overstock, as is how I usually do things. I can't afford to be an early adopter. 

Chelsea's bike is a Specialized Hard Rock Sport that we got for a great deal. It came with a little bitty 80 mm coil sprung Suntour fork. From the moment we bought that bike I began scheming about how I would get rid of it. Again, turning to eBay, I found this X-Fusion Enix with 100 mm of travel. It's getting hard to find forks for 26" wheels with straight steerers, so my options were limited. It is an air spring fork, though, which was one of my non-negotiable requirements. It works great, especially considering how inexpensive it was. The fork is longer and I set the handlebars a little higher to make it a little more upright (and hopefully more comfortable).  

About rebuilding the wheel...

In the last few months several younger guys at work have been bit by the mountain biking bug. This is great for me because it increases the pool of guys I can ride with and since they're young, they like to go fast. They also like to jump. With them I've started experimenting with some drops, table tops, and other trail features that would not normally be considered a good idea for a guy like me.

So for four years since I bought my bike, I always tried to keep rubber to dirt, but now the bike finds itself groaning under my landings. I was having trouble with the double butted spokes on the rear wheel that I had build about three years ago and in my research, I found out that a guy of my size should probably not use double butted spokes. It was time for a change. The rear wheel does most of the heavy lifting on a bike, so you're best off to strengthen it as much as you can. 

I found some single butted spokes that are thicker in the j-bend area (where it hooks to the hub). The spoke manufacturer said they were for things like tandem bikes, E-bikes, and other heavy duty applications. Sounded perfect to me. I now feel a lot less wheel flex on those landings. But that may also be due to technique improvements. It was my fifth wheel build. I get better every time. If you care, I used Sapim Strong single butted spokes that are 2.3 mm at the head and 2.0 mm in the body. The double butted spokes I replaced were DT Swiss Champions, 2.0 mm at the head and thread, and 1.8 mm in the body. My front wheel still has the Champions, but I'm considering switching them for straight gauge. 

This year I also really wanted to get to the bottom of a frame creak. To me this is one of the major downsides of full suspension bikes. I just can't live with creaks. It's also a reason I may never go to carbon. (Every carbon bike I've ever ridden creaked.) A few months ago I bought a set of frame bearings and finally over a period of three evenings I replaced all twelve of them. It's a lot of work. And the creak didn't go away. So I rebuilt the bottom bracket. It still didn't go away. I was starting to think I had a hidden frame crack. Then as a last ditch effort I tried something so simple I thought it couldn't possibly have been the problem: the rear axle dropouts and derailleur hanger. Of course, that cured it, and since I had also tried all those other things, and the new fork, the bike basically rode like brand new.

 After all that, the sluggish shifting finally started to rile me up, so I got out the set of shifter cables I bought back in February and got after it. I'm not sure how I lived with the situation before. It was buttery smooth after.

This year both of my boys have graduated to pedal bikes. I love seeing a 4-year-old tear around on a pedal bike. I agree with those that say it's best to start them on balance bikes. I always had lots of different bikes around so they could try different things at their own speed. It seems to have worked perfectly. I must say, though, that my second son might be a little too fearless. I'll always make sure to buy a quality helmet for that one.

Time to go play bikes.