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It must be the wheel

09.29.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 7 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, after I groused about my warped tire, my friend David suggested I come over and borrow one of his spare wheels. He recently bought them for his five-year-old Fuji, but then he decided to upgrade and got a new Giant Defy. So the Fuji and its almost-new wheels were not being used.

After the Bike Fest, I rode over to his house, and we swapped my front wheel for his. One of the first things he noticed was the feel of my old wheel. “Feel that?” he said. “When you spin it between your fingers, you can feel the grinding in there. This hub needs work.”

We tried the same test with his wheel, and it spun freely. It’s a Forte Titan — the Performance house brand, and appears to be the least expensive road wheel they offer. To top it off, it carried a new Continental Ultra Race tire with a Kevlar belt and a red tread. When mixed with the black and blue paint of my bike, it’s a striking look.

RedwheelThe Forte Titan stands out because of its black spokes, which are flat, and the red tire — which may not be to everyone’s taste.

I haven’t been riding as much lately as I did during the summer, so the new wheel has only been on two Sunday club rides. It seemed okay, although with a 23 mm tire, instead of the previous 25, it felt a tad twitchier. I figured I’d keep it until I had a chance to get my old wheel over to our club bike mechanic, and get his advice about the hub.

Then tonight came the last time trial of the season. I wanted to ride, since no official time was posted for the last TT. My previous best time was 24:10 and 20-something mph. I wanted to beat that tonight, and get my time under 24 minutes.

The ride seemed easy. In fact, I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to beat my old time. I was well within my comfort zone for most of the ride. Over the last two miles, I pushed harder than I had during the first six.

Holy cow! My unofficial time was 23:02! I knocked a minute and eight seconds off my previous best. Speed was just a smidge over 21 mph. How was that possible? I’ve been riding less, I don’t “train” for rides like this, and honestly, I felt as though I’d left something out on the course. Sure, I rode hard. But I think I could have ridden harder.

Mrs. Noob nailed it: “No way you improved that much in three weeks,” she said. “It must be that new wheel.”

Yeah, that’s it.

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Categories // Components, Equipment Tags // wheels

Sometimes it’s not what it seems

08.30.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 7 Comments

I showed up for the Sunday morning B ride feeling somewhat apprehensive. The rear tire on my bike had a noticeable warp. It wasn’t really a bulge, but the main tread of the tire got off center at one spot. I was worried it might fail during the ride.

I put the bad tire on the bike last weekend, after I got a flukey flat. A screw had punctured the tire — maybe you saw the picture I linked to from my Twitter account. Anyhow, that tire was no longer usable, but I happened to have an older one hanging in the garage, so I put that on as a quick replacement.

It worked all right, but not great. I could feel the warp when the tire rolled, and Saturday I had to stop to re-center the rear brake, which turned out to be rubbing at one spot on the wheel. But I completed last Sunday’s group ride, and rides on Friday and Saturday with no other problems, so I thought I’d take  chance on the tire one more day.

About 10 miles into the ride, my friend David ran over a radial tire wire in the road, and it stuck into his tire. He pulled it out, but warned us all that he might be stopping to tend to a flat down the road. The two of us rode more or less together from then on.

Southwest of the small town of Buda, right after turning onto a busy two-lane highway, I felt something give on my bike. Suddenly, I couldn’t shift anymore, although I could pedal all right in the small chainring. David stopped with me, and Scott turned around to join us while the rest of group continued on. Last week, Scott broke a shift cable on our ride, and rode 15 miles on only three gears through some hilly terrain. Our first thought was that I had a snapped cable, too.

The rear tire rubbed against the front derailleur at one spot, and we couldn’t fix that. David, the most adept tinkerer of the three of us, played with the shifters while I held the rear wheel off the ground. He confirmed that the problem was a broken cable. I decided to turn around and head back to Buda, about three miles away, and have my wife perform sag duties from there.

One of our club members, who was riding with the A group this morning, is an expert bike mechanic. I contacted him after my wife got me home, and he told me to bring the bike over. He glanced at it when I pulled it from the back of the SUV, and said, “You’ve got a broken front derailleur.”

We put the bike up on a repair stand in his workshop, and he checked it over thoroughly. I mentioned that we had all diagnosed the problem as a snapped cable. He disagreed. He didn’t stock a replacement derailleur, and sent me out to get one. The local Performance store had what I was looking for — an Ultegra, on sale (the broken was a Tiagra). I bought it and took it back to his shop. He had it on and working perfectly in 10 minutes.

“Your cables are fine,” he said. “I checked them out carefully while you were gone.”

He adjusted the trim of the shifters as precisely as possible, and charged a whopping five dollars for his trouble. “The good news is, this replacement derailleur you bought is more solid than the other,” he said. “You should never run into the same problem with this one as you did today.”

I thanked him for his work and loaded my bike back into the SUV. As always, a trip to bike shop racked up more expenses than I’d planned on — the derailleur and a new tire, plus some stuff came to a round $100. But the bike is running again, which it wouldn’t be if I’d stuck to the original assumption about what was wrong.

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Categories // Components, Maintenance Tags // derailleur, repairs

More on pedals – why Speedplay?

03.13.2009 by Ray Niekamp // 1 Comment

The Speedplay Light Action pedal.
The Speedplay Light Action pedal.

The other day, when I did a post about clipless pedals, I heard from a number of Speedplay owners, both in comments and in emails, extolling their particular pedal.

Speedplay users seem to be passionate about their pedals. You don’t get that kind of reaction from Look or Shimano SPD users. How come?

One of the advantages of the Speedplay seems to be the generous amount of float they offer — altho just as in other brands, the amount of float varies from model to model. But it would be nice to have more play in the pedals I use. They have six degrees of float, and sometimes I feel that I can hardy move my shoe around at all.

With my particular knee situation — I had 60 percent of the meniscus removed from my right knee 15 years ago, and at that time the surgeon told me my ACLs (anterior cruciate ligaments) in both knees had atrophied down to stubs after they were torn in a softball mishap back in the 1980s and had never been attended to — I think the Speedplays could help me a lot.

Speedplay cleat.
Speedplay cleat.

They’re smaller than equivalent Looks or others, and at first glance, don’t seem to offer as much of a platform as some of their competitors. But the unique cleat they use probably takes care of that. Speedplay cleats are relatively large, in my opinion. The combination of the flat round pedal and the broad cleat, I’m told, give all the support a cyclist needs.

But the cleats are also the part of the Speedplay assembly that gets the most criticism, at least from what I’ve read. Note the four-bolt pattern. To fit bike shoes, which take two or three-bolt cleats, you must use a plate that attaches to the cleat. I’ve seen a lot of complaints about how easy it is to clog the cleat with mud and gunk while walking on them. Cleat covers are highly recommended.

One of the reasons I’ve never seriously considered Speedplay is their cost. Their models seem to range from about $115 – $325, depending upon their materials. My pedals cost a whopping $59, and they replaced a pair that cost around $40. Is the extra money for the Speedplays worth it?

Wait a minute. A quick perusal of a couple of online bike catalogs shows that Shimano and Look pedals run in the same price range, generally. They might have some low-end pedals that cost a lot less, but for the most part, Speedplays are very competitive with those other brands.

I’m happy with the pedals I have on my bike. They’re only a year old, so I expect to be riding on them for quite some time to come. But if and when I do replace them, I think I’ve have to seriously consider the Speedplays.

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Categories // Components, Equipment Tags // pedal

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