My nightmare of an evening..

sancho_uk

So after 4 weeks of owning my road bike and getting some pretty decent (i like to think) rides in for my early fitness stages...

60km on Saturday and 40km on Sunday, I was feeling rather pleased with myself but a couple of my gears were starting to tick..

Quick search brings back gear indexing.. So i watch several videos, set up the work stand grabbed the tools and completely fluffed it up!

First off i adjusted using the barrel (which in hindsight i now realise is all i should of touched).. However things got worse and then i really could not find the sweet spot for my gears again.. So i thought right i will start from scratch.. Unhooked my cable from my rear mech.. Reduced the tension on the cable got the tension set nice and fitted it back to rear mech.. Jobs a good un!

Then however as i clicked up the gears.. click.. out pops the cable.. off comes the roller and spring and cable cap! brilliant! (my fault obviously not tightening the cable enough to the mech, but this didnt help my mood)....

Anyway no biggy i will just refit everything.. go to put the cap back on cable frays!! ARRRRRGH!! At this point i spat my dummy out.. Got the bike cable hooked up to the mech temporarily and placed all the bits in a bag.. It is now currently in the cycle shop probably going to need a new cable..

Plus point is i tried.. Downside is i probably fluffed up one of the easiest jobs on a bike in a big way! Still you live and learn!

Im just sharing as a way of venting really, but if anyone has any of their own stupid stories to share to make me feel a little less idiotic that would be great

supermurph09

I really admire people that are willing to have a go at their own maintenance but I know my limitations, everything I touch seems to fall apart, sure I could practice and get it right but its not something I enjoy!! I removed that plastic thing from the rear cassette because I was sure it was dragging on something. Took me and age to rip it off and then once the back wheel was back on, the noise remained and it was like I had a dynamo on the rear wheel!!! Luckily for me the 6 week checkup was due and the lbs sorted it. I hope to improve in the future, but for now I'm happy to let someone else do the maintenance!!

sancho_uk

I thought i would give a whirl Supermurph but got even angrier after the whole episode with myself by thinking.. Had i just gone to the bike shop in the first place they probably would of adjusted the cable in a matter of minutes and little to no cost...

I think for now i will be taking the route of if anything isnt behaving as it should head to the shop.. maybe one day i will be able to adjust something on my bike without it falling apart..

supermurph09

:shock: I think we may have been separated at birth!

freebs

Don't write off doing your own maintainence! It's a good skill to have. Practice makes perfect, I should know!!!

Freebs.

ashleydwsmith

Gears are not the simplest thing to do. So no worries there. I cock it up regulary. But sometimes I can just do it.

Good on you for trying though its the only way to learn.

mrbubbaman

Just read your post and you could well have been describing my own efforts a few nights ago.
This was my thread http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40020&t=12903583

I read through the tips and checked out the YouTube videos on adjusting the gears and I too managed to fuck it all up!
My cable pinged through, but I managed to get it back nice and tight, but no matter what I did I couldn't get the gears adjusted and I had chain rub in almost every gear.

I took it to my local bike shop (refuse to let Halfords touch it again, they're worse than me ) £12 later, both front and back gears adjusted and back to normal (they even tightened my headset which apparently was quite loose)

I really should learn from previous mistakes (I have messed up the maintenance on my car enough times), that I should just have someone else do it for me

Give me a computer and its a different story!

sancho_uk

Wow scary its almost the same story.. Although I am convinced i will need a new cable

I am exactly the same though DIY / Maintenance and general hands on work I am a walking disaster...

Technology of any kind be it Computers, Gadgets etc etc I can tinker with and fix almost anything..

My wife kindly pointed this out to me after the cable pinged, which led to a few expletives. Dont worry i didnt admit she was right

ademort

Many years ago when i first started cycling i had fitted a new gear cable to my Campagnolo nuovo record rear mech for the first time. On the Saturday i went out for a run to test it. I had a divisional road race on the Sunday and wanted to make sure all was well.I had very little experience of bicycle maintainance so i also was on a learning curve. I got to a very steep hill about 5 miles from my house and started the climb. I then tried to shift into my largest rear sprocket when i heard a rather loud crunch and came to a very quick stop.
I stepped off the bike and looked to the rear of my bike and could not believe my eyes. The rear mech had gone right into my rear wheel and the right drop out of my Mercian King of Mercia frame had bent almost 90 degrees. I was gutted.It was the old fashioned shoe plates in them days but i still faced a 5 mile walk home.On getting home i told my Dad what had happened and although we realised it could not be fixed for the race on Sunday we set off down to the LBS to see if i could buy a new frame and rear mech and i could at least take part.
As i said i was inexperienced, and didn,t have much in the way of tools either, but having called a few of my buddies managed to get all the tools i needed to fix the new bike up. It was an early set off in the morning and i didnt have any time to check that gears etc were ok,but on just spinning the rear wheel all appeared to work well.
We arrived at the event and started the race. After about 2 miles i could hear a sort of jingling noise around the rear wheel so i stopped.I could not believe it but the outer sprocket of the cassette had come loose and was just bouncing between the next sprocket and the frame chain stay. Race over for me.I learnt some very valuble lessons that day. God loves a trier, but certainly given the amount of money that even some beginners give out on a first road bike i would say if you dont .know for sure how to repair or install any part then go to the LBS. Yes, they will cost mony and it may take longer than you would like but at least the job will or should get done correctly
Ademort

Rigga

Know matter how good you are with a spanner you can pretty much guarantee that something WILL go wrong,it's just a case of staying calm and being patient, which isn't always easy i know!

ic.

Yep, been there myself. Keep at it mate, you'll learn where you went wrong. Bets advice is take your time. I also take pictures/video clips of how things looked <i>before</i> I started fettling, that way I at least have something to refer to after I've a***d it up again

Azhar

Hey sancho! How are you? Good effort on trying to repair the bike. I've messed up a couple times trying to fix my bike but now I just take it to the lbs and then I know I don't have to try and fix anything for months and months. I haven't got any stories to share about fixings bike all i know I'm cr,p At fixing stuff. Maybe you should get yourself one of those bike maintainance books and swot up on that sort of thing.

I bid u good day

smoggysteve

Hats off to you for trying.

Gears can look hard to do but once you understand how the derailleurs work its simple. When I first started doing my own maintenance many years ago I was shown by my dad the best way to understand how gears change is to take the chain off and move up and down the gears. looking at where they line up and then figure out what the adjustments you make actually look like. Its hard to get an idea while spinning a pedal and changing gear and looking at the gears all at the same time. So remove two out of the equation and then see what is happening. This is difficult to notice on the rear, but on the front chain ring you can get a good idea if the derailleur is sitting centrally over the ring. Also for the more technical thing of aligning the end stops so you dont throw the chain off which can happen when the cable stretches a bit too far. When you get a better idea what the mechanism is doing replace the chain and try fine barrel adjustments. I like to start off with big ring front and smallest cog (highest gear) rear and move up through the gears looking for when it starts to jump a bit, qtr turn at a time then move back up and then down. do this for every gear until you reach the largest cog (lowest gear) before doing it from small ring front working the opposite way from lowest gear to highest. Do not worry if you get a bit of noise on lowest gear rear to largest ring front or vice versa as realistically you are not going to be using this combination when cycling if you go through your gears correctly.

Many people go so far into saying never go further than barrel adjustments, but if you want to learn to do it yourself you are best learning how to do it all. The satisfaction of getting gears bang on on your own is massive.

Reane_Machine

If I do maintenance it goes wrong probably 50% of the time.

First time I tried a chain linking tool the tool broke (my fault for buying cheap), then I eventually got it linked and after three miles the chain snapped like string.

I love the though of being able to tinker and fix everything, I really do, I just doubt my ability and I think I would always be questioning how good a job I've done.

Plan is to buy one of those technical manuals that tell you how to do everything, study it hard and THEN try and fix things.