Flat Tire Mayhem + Annoying Bike Noises + Home Mechanic Resources
The Team Chef
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I’ll kick this off with a short clip (2:36) from the 1990 Tour de Trump, which concludes with Steve Bauer going ass over tea kettle, compliments of a blown front tire. The quality of the image is pretty crappy, but hang in there for the last 30 seconds or so.
Although few of us suffer the consequences of Bauer’s flat, most of us have certainly experienced the frustration of repairing a tire, only to get another shortly thereafter. It seems like you can go months without puncture, and then all of sudden you get a slew of flats, usually on consecutive rides. These repeat offenders can be the result of a worn tire, the wrong tire for the road conditions, a hidden piece of glass, or simply shitty luck. Eventually you figure out the problem, or your luck turns, and your sanity is again restored.
One annoyance that is not so easily cured is the dreaded mystery click, tick, creak, or other unwanted noise. As I mentioned in an earlier post (Small Bike Parts) the roadbikereview.com forums, particularly the one on components/wrenching, can be invaluable. The following from prolific poster Kerry Irons, was my salvation for a noise emanating from what I thought was my bottom bracket:
“It is fairly common to have clicking noises, but ticks and clicks are very hard to eliminate sometimes. What seems like it is tied to the pedals may be coming from the seat post, etc. Sometimes things like temperature and humidity can affect noises as well. Also, things like the front derailleur cage just hitting the crank or the front derailleur cable sticking out and hitting your shoe can seem like they are clicks but really aren't. Clicks tied to your pedaling can come from the BB (grease all threads in contact with the frame and BB, and torque it to the recommended settings, which can be quite high), crank bolts (grease threads and washers), the chain ring bolts (take them all out and grease the threads, the faces where they contact the CRs, and the CRs where they contact the crank spider arms), a stiff link in a chain or a burr on one of the "break off" special links used to assemble the chain, the pedals (grease the threads, get some wax etc. on the cleats, grease the bolts into your shoes, squirt some lube into the guts of the pedal machinery if possible), the chain (clean and lube), shoes/cleats (loose cleat nut rattling around in the shoe sole, shoe/cleat interface, cleat bolts, cleats touching pedals), your seat post and saddle (grease the post, seat post bolts, saddle rails, and add some oil to where the rails go into the saddle body), your bars and stem (grease the stem, stem bolts at both ends, h'bar bolt if quill stem, and h'bar where it goes through the stem, steerer tube spacers if threadless), replaceable derailleur hangers (remove, clean, grease all parts and threads, reassemble), the nuts on threaded Presta valve stems (throw the nut away), reed switches in computer pickups, the front derailleur cable hitting the crank, and your wheels (check for spoke tension, particularly on the rear non drive side, put a drop of lube where each pair of spokes cross, grease/tighten QRs, tighten cassette lock ring, check for loose metal bits or spoke nipples in the body of the rim). Needless to say, you want to try these things in what seems like the most likely place the noise is coming from, but there are plenty of stories about "I was sure the noise was in the handlebars but it went away when I tightened up the spokes in the rear wheel," so keep trying different things until you have success."
As it turned out, my tick/click was cured when I greased the pedal threads, a solution I certainly would not have come up with on my own. Thanks Kerry.
Another fantastic resource for the mechanical end of things comes to us from Jim Langley, who was the Chief Technical Editor for Bicycling Magazine for ten years. Jim has two sites, one is a more traditional website, and the other is his blog. Here are the links to both:
Website - Jim Langley Bicycling Aficionado
Blog – Jim Langley’s Bicycle Beat
BicycleTutor.com shows us how it's done with his collection of video lessons.
RogueMechanic has both video and podcasts.
The Park Tool website also has a section for repairs.
Finally, no discussion on repair and wrenching would be complete without mentioning the website and contributions of the legendary Sheldon Brown.
Just in case you are reading this through a subscription feeder, you might want to come back and visit the actual site from time to time, as I'm constantly updating my Links section. You will find most of the above referenced sites in the Wrenching and Tech section. TVM is a work in progress, so please e-mail me at theteamchef@yahoo.com if you think I'm missing anything noteworthy.
Thanks for visiting.
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