Bikes running sweet

saprkzz

How many of you have bikes that actually work?

When riding XC are bikes supposed to ride sweet as a nut?. I have just purchased a £4.5k mountain bike and it rides like a dog.
Rear brake dont work, Gears are a pile of noo noo (jumping, flying off the chain ring, failing to engage) Creaking in the cranks.

The bike has had the brakes fixed 3 times, in the 6ish weeks i have owned it, back to the shop twice, the cable gland has ripped off the frame and after all this the brakes still fail to work, and out of the 8 of us regular people in the group mine is the one bike that is always playing up. Should I have bought a bike for £200 from Halfords, I am begining to think i would get the same expereince.

Are bikes of yours actually changing gear when you want them to, and braking when you need them to?

Pain in the aris!

mrfmilo

My gears and brakes work fine, obviously as it is a MTB and they get some hammering things do go wrong. Sounds like your gears are set up wrong, and your brakes need bleeding or they're faulty. Take the bike back to the shop and get them to sort it out, if the brake IS faulty, get them to put a new one on.

Surf-Matt

Just had mine pretty much rebuilt by a decent mechanic and the difference is amazing - perfect brakes, smooth gears and pedalling and it appears to have been turbocharged.

What have you got? Must be something rather tasty?

I think my bike has cost around £2k.

Radioactiveman

Riding off road through mud,rain,rivers,rocks etc will cause problems with your bike.

Impacts will rip bits off your bike. It would help if you provided more information. What bike is it, why the brake doesnt work etc. Gears sound like the limits are not set properly and the cable may have stretched. All these issues should be resolved at the 6 week free service/check.

Creak can affect anyone,it is worth doing a search on the forums for some possible solutions. I suggest you take it back to the bike shop get them to check the mech limits and indexing. Ask them to resolve the brake issue or exchange it. Once you buy a bike that is only the start of the spending, if you dont keep on top of minor maintenance it will cost your more in the long run

Take a look in the workshop section

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=10004

red eye

I built mine and it runs sweet, so sweet my tools are getting rusty :? half the fun is fixing the bike

toasty

Most bike shops let you take your bike in for a service a few weeks after you've bought it, cables stretch which will put gears out of line, bits occationally needs tightening up after the initial wear or regreasing in the case of your cranks/pedal threads creaking.

Your best bet is learning how to maintain it yourself, most jobs can be done with a simple multitool, a bit of oil/grease as required. I bought a Tricross last week, it's 9 days old and cable stretch has already meant I had to hop off and sort it out mid ride. Same with the brakes.

More money certainly doesn't equal no maintenance, unless you specifically built your bike with that in mind, £1500 Rohloff hub, well sealed bearings etc. If you've spent £4500 purely so you don't have to learn how to turn a barrel adjuster and fix things, you're out of luck, it's going to be a very expensive hobby!

D-Cyph3r

saprkzz, you dont own a Lapierre by chance?


Other than my SLX shifters/XT RD needing a fettling every couple of weeks my Trek's been faultless. It did get a bit creaky after riding through the winter but after giving it a proper strip down clean with some finish line brushes and Muc-Off it's smooth and silent again.

The Northern Monkey

My P7 was built by a superb mechanic.... it works flawlessly.

When someone buys a 4.5k bike, i'd expect them to be able to maintain it themselves!

hoochylala

D-Cyph3r wrote:

saprkzz, you dont own a Lapierre by chance?

That was my first thought! I'm starting to get suspicious of all these Lapierre breaking threads :roll:

FWIW my front brake has always played up and is a constant pain is the ass, but if I didn't have it that way I wouldn't have anything to blame my crap riding on

.blitz

saprkzz wrote:

How many of you have bikes that actually work?

All my bikes and my family's bikes are fine, thanks

I ride 3-4 times a week 100% off road in any conditions and firmly believe that over-cleaning is responsible for many MTB problems. I make sure the drivetrain is sterile and the suspension is lightly lubed but other than that, the only water my bikes see is rain.

The Big Cheese

My bike was built by me, is maintained by me and works perfectly (I would even go to say that my gear indexing is now better than my LBS - but it does take me ages LOL)

Im about to build a new one, and hopefully that will be sweet too.

MacAndCheese

My IFT is running sweet at the moment, brakes nicely bedded, forks nice and smooth, gears all working....intermittent problem with F100s sorted.

The wolf ridge has been in the shop for over a week now waiting for warranty replacement levers on my brakes, but once they're on it should be all good and running smoothly.

Surf-Matt

Anyone had their Fox forks serviced? Mine need doing but I don't want to wait years. How much and how long? Or can a decent mechanic do them (I know one)?

They compress fine but there's almost no sag so they are a bit skittish. It's the only thing that could be improved.

tsenior

me.

in a year i've learnt to do all the regular (cleaning, lubing and brake adjust) and occasional a (changing consumables) tasks.

Biggest PITA was indexing the gears but once i got a stand and had done it a couple of times not so bad....still my least favorate job though.

< 10% the cost of yours BTW: are you overbiked?

bomberesque

to continue the car theme that is running today on more than one thread;

get a Golf it'll run for '000s of miles, all you have to do is fill it up
get a ferrari and you'll need the engine retuned every few hundred miles

at 4.5k you definitely bought a ferrari.

we want our bikes light, fast and shiny, that means they need care and proper setup to continue running smoothly. ofc you could build a bombproof, no maintenance to speak of bike, but then it'd weigh a ton. (edit; or be singlespeed )

learn how to clean adjust and set up your own kit or, as Matt says, put some investment into a decent mechanic to do it for you. you sent 4.5k, so it's got to be worth it.

If I were to offer a single piece of advice for keeping a drivetrain working nicely it'd be; Keep it clean like it's new and lightly lubed. Trouble is, that takes a lot of effort, depending on where you ride.

El Capitano

Surf-Matt wrote:

Anyone had their Fox forks serviced? Mine need doing but I don't want to wait years. How much and how long? Or can a decent mechanic do them (I know one)?

Give Mojo a ring.

All of my bikes work properly (and run sweet). Like others, I built all of my bikes (including the 'off the shelf' ones, which were stripped down and rebuilt by me). I've been tinkering with bikes for well over 40 years, so know my way around them (and which tools to use...). Like others, I'd put my bike mechanic skills against pretty much any LBS employee. Anything I'm unsure of, I'll google for exploded diagrams and youtube videos. There's a lot of information out there to help you.

Surf-Matt

I hear what you all say about DIYing it - my issue is the price of decent tools (can't "do" cr4p tools) and the time it takes - time I'd rather pay someone else for that can do a top job.

Sure many tasks are fine - cleaning, lubing, tyre changes, puncture repairs, fitting some parts, most trail repairs, etc - but I'd rather get someone with all the right kit and knowledge to do the major stuff. Could probably do everything myself but just not all that bothered about it. The person must be good though - no Halfrauds work experience monkey is going near my bikes at any stage.

Thewaylander

Mat send your forks to the official service center, Its up the road from me in Newport.

Your work is factory approved then and has a warrenty, Did all my shocks last year well worth ahving done. 3 day turn arround on the work had mine in 2 and i could pick um up

P-Jay

Surf-Matt wrote:

Anyone had their Fox forks serviced? Mine need doing but I don't want to wait years. How much and how long? Or can a decent mechanic do them (I know one)?

They compress fine but there's almost no sag so they are a bit skittish. It's the only thing that could be improved.

Mine always go to Mojo, it's about £90 I think, but more for TALAS forks, 40's etc, but not much.

You're looking at 1 day transit, 1 day at Mojo 1 day back.

They're the official UK importer and have excellent ties with Fox. I've had complete new internals and stearer/crown/stanctions for my 36's replaced on warranty and didn't have to wait a single day for parts to come in, almost same story with my DHX air.

Surf-Matt

Cheers all - I was expecting a massive wait! Will find out more - mine are only Fox 90RLs (a bit like floats but made for Specialized) so fairly basic. Still very good though.

I think it might be prudent to wait a week or so - I'm rather pushing my like with all I've spent on my bike in the last week or so!!

P-Jay

My Enduro's forks are getting sluggish time for a Mojo. The front brake produces only the merest hint of deceleration and both levers rattle about like mad.

But the gears all change sweetly and all the bushes bearings are like new, wheels are totally true, tyres are very much 'summer use only'. Not bad for a 3 and a half year old bike that takes such a battering - not that much is original.

Cove's perfect..... Apart from the shifter is cracked and occasionally the release button comes out and you can't shift.

They're not faults, its character!

cat_with_no_tail

Is this still the Fuel ex 9.9? The one that the frame fell apart on?

Send it back, it's obviously a duff one.

At £4.5k, you will of course have to keep it properly maintained yourself, higher end parts do tend to be a little more "highly strung" and therefore require more attention to keep running perfectly (same as with the car analogy used earlier) but poorly set-up brakes, and sloppy shifting is something I'd expect the shop to fix for you FOR FREE.

Also, did you ever get the frame replaced?

El Capitano

Surf-Matt wrote:

I hear what you all say about DIYing it - my issue is the price of decent tools (can't "do" cr4p tools) and the time it takes - time I'd rather pay someone else for that can do a top job.

You are definitely right about the tools. As I said, I've been doing this for over 40 years. Over that time, I've spend a small fortune on getting the correct tools for the job. If you have a decent mechanic you trust with your bike, then I can see the point in getting the work done by them.

furby

Most of my bike runs perfectly, the only bit I have have trouble with are the brakes which are the only part that I cant fix myself :roll:

RealMan

Mines usually perfect. Have a few problems with the engine now and then though..

richg1979

mines been runing sweet for the last couple of months but now noticing a bit of play in the 18 month old xt bottom bracket. time to chuck the hope in i think.

Northwind

saprkzz wrote:

How many of you have bikes that actually work?!

Both of mine now work! But last week was a fiasco, went to put the dropper on the hemlock for a trip to glentress, went out for a testride and explosively chainsucked all over the place, so bad I bent the chainrings :oops: And also twisted the chain in about 8 places. Then, on the way back the rear shifter stopped working properly. So after fannying about for an hour I gave up and put the dropper back on the Soul, and then found that its front brake had totally died and it wasn't shifting right either.

But USUALLY they both work fine :oops:

MrChuck

More money certainly doesn't equal no maintenance, unless you specifically built your bike with that in mind, £1500 Rohloff hub

+1

Keep the moving bits clean and tweak it small and often. But if it's playing up more or less from new then the shop should sort it.

That said, even when my MTB is running OK there always seems to be something I'm aware of that either needs doing now or will need doing very soon.

RealMan

My dad has a rohloff hub, but he got it when they were only £600. The thing just bloody works.

loamy

in my case iv found i magically seem to remember something thats "broken" when someone sudgests going for a ride in the rain or cold or sun or night or any other time i feel like an excuse to stay inside and eat food instead. when i forget about all this and actually go for a ride i am pleasently surprised by how nice my bike is actually working. i dont know if others are like this but i just thought i would tell a little story.

im sure that obviously things do go wrong with bikes and things do need fixing but i do agree with the advice about keeping things clean and well looked after to hold back wear and tear. some people i know seem to have a fear of doing any work on their own bikes and feel they need someone with "skills", i think this is a matter of practice and investigation. the more small jobs you do then the less scarey big jobs will seem.

lawman

tbh mine very rarely runs as sweet as it could, the gears are never usually perfect, there is pretty much a constant squeek from somewhere, but i do i give a rats arse???? do i fook as like its all about the riding, yer its better if the bike works perfectly but tbh id rather be out having a ride than constantly in the workshop with my bike in the stand.