Malmesbury Bikes

Out for a run yesterday on the tank tracks, I almost ran over a Grass Snake. To be fair, the snake was tracking out of my way at a suprising rate of knots. What was suprising was the size of the snake - I’m used to seeing small Grass Snakes, about 12-18 inches long and pencil thin - but this snake was at least two foot long and thick as a hosepipe, so considerably bigger than I was expecting. Interestingly, those friendly folks at Wikipedia suggest that Grass Snakes can grow to six foot long!

This is one of the joys of running off-road - I normally see green woodpeckers and recently a lot of Jays. Foxes and various types of deer are also quite common. It’s absolutely fantastic.

Tags: cross-country, grass snake, off-road running, Running, snakes on a plane

I know it’s not cycling, but my Mizuno Wave Harrier trail shoes have saved me from several ungainly falls over the winter in the mud and snow. Check out a review here.

Your pedals wobble and it’s not a loose crank, so it’s probably the bottom bracket (it’s “BB” in cycle-shorthand) – what do you do:

A – keep pedaling until something catastrophic happens.

B – panic and call the local bike shop.

C – fix it yourself.

When it happened to my old MTB last year I chose option “B”, which in hindsight was probably right, as they had to use a lot of heat to get the old BB out and then respray the frame to get it back together, all for the original quote.

But when my Cannondale hybrid BB started to wobble a few weeks back I went for option “C”. I’ll let Sheldon Brown explain some of the intricacies about bottom brackets – suffice to say that for the majority of Shimano-equipped bikes, the BB will have a standard diameter, so all you need to measure are the width of the bottom bracket housing and the width of the spindle to ascertain what size to order. Alternatively you can just take the old one out and check what’s written on the inside of the BB.

Removing a bottom bracket is where the panic is likely to set in, but rest assured it’s really easy. You will need the Shimano BB tool, which costs about £12, and a very large adjustable spanner (or plumber’s wrench), but once you’ve got those the job is really easy.

There’s a small caveat – if the bottom bracket has never been changed and/or the bike’s had a hard life, then this job could be considerably harder, involved copious quantities of WD40 to loosen the threads… but then, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Tags: Bottom bracket repair

The bottom bracket on the Cannondale Adventure (hybrid) started to get a bit wobbly a few weeks back. I’ve now got a frame stripped of everything apart from the forks, a tray of old dirty parts, a bin of old knackered parts and a box of new parts (including new cyclocross tyres).

The plan is to get it back together for the end of April… famous last words?

“I wore the sack for about three hours and never really noticed it was there”. . .  read more here.

The freehub on my mountain bike seized several times over Christmas - the pedals went round, but the wheel didn’t because the freehubs’ rachets wouldn’t engage - so, rather than replace the whole, I opted to replace the freehub body. This is a relatively task, apart from two issues:
1 - The bike’s hub must be pushing ten years old, so there were some compatibility issues with the new Deore hub that I used as a source for the new freehib.
2 - Getting the freehub off of the wheel was easy (using the wheel for leverage), but getting the freehub off of the hub was a different matter. I’m not sure how cycle shops resort to a two foot long plumber’s wrench to mend bikes, but it worked a treat on this little task.
I’d love to say that the result was perfect, but it wasn’t and has resulted in the bodge from hell to get me out this morning:
A - the cassette wouldn’t sit back on the new freehub, so I resorted to some inventive addition of some old sprockets and spacer - the smallest ring is now the second one in!
B - the brake set-up wasn’t quite right so, after the first few miles of feeling like I was on an exercise bike with the friction set to max and no adjustment available, the rear brake blocks were discarded to free up the wheel. The bike ran like a dream after that. . . just didn’t stop very well.
So, moral of the story - don’t mees around with old bike components, just replace the bits in bulk. . . is that an excuse for a new bike??

Tags: Shimano Deore

Managed to get the bike out on Friday. The roads outside were treacherous, but I needed to drop down to school and it seemed a good chance to test the bike. All went well down the hill but, whether the freewheel is a bit stiff or the temperatures got it, once I hit the flat the pedals spun without turning the wheels - which made for a walk back up the hill. . .  ho hum.

Anyway, it proved that there would have been enough grip to cycle properly - I didn’t crash for a change - and the new Wellgo V8 flat pedals worked a dream.

Tags: DMR V8, Snow cycling

Yay… having battled unsuccessfully with Bikely, I’ve put the first route onto Google Maps… works a dream. See the route here.

Tags: Bikely, Malmesbury Cycle route

Time to get the site updated regularly again… it’s been a busy few months, with a long commute. The commute’s still long, but I want to resurrect the site for the Spring.

The Saracen is still for sale - really need to make some space in the garage. It’s a reluctant sale, but replacing the Kiliflyer AND the Cannondale Adenture with just one more versatile mountain bike makes a lot of sense. Check out the For Sale pages.

Tags: Bike for sale, Saracen Kiliflyer