The "what bike bits have you just bought" thread Vol 2

[yellowjack]

MrBarry123 said:

The ubiquitous SIS bottle: does any cyclist not own at least two?

Me! Me! Me!

I don't bother with anything other than Camelbak Podium bottles, and own four of them. Two are even a matching pair...

[yellowjack]

yellowjack said:

Boom!






A pair of pre-loved SIDI shoes. Being sold by a friend of my brother-in-law. He can't cycle anymore for medical reasons, so he's selling a load of cycling kit, some of it brand new, some worn.

Okay. First ride done. I took the cleats from my Bontrager shoes because I couldn't wait for a new set. Mixed feelings. There's a hotspot on my right foot, where the 'knuckle' for my little toe is. Possibly need an insole for that. And I found that despite "infinite adjustment" they were always either too loose or too tight. Perhaps I should have tried them out on a shorter ride, though. 125 km first time out in a new pair of shoes might have been optimistic. Also I suspect there's an issue with one of the heel bumpers. I can't get the screw/bolt to stay tight. Possibly the thread is stripped. I'll try some Threadlock fluid, see if that keeps things nipped up, and get some new bumpers ordered. Managed to get a bunch of Strava PRs I wasn't expecting too. Can't say if that's the shoes, or the conditions, or I just felt good.

[MrBarry123]

yellowjack said:

Me! Me! Me!

I don't bother with anything other than Camelbak Podium bottles, and own four of them. Two are even a matching pair...

One day you’ll be sat there £2.43 (or some other small and random amount) under the free delivery limit and the next thing you know, one will enter your life.

[Master Bean]

MrBarry123 said:

yellowjack said:

Me! Me! Me!

I don't bother with anything other than Camelbak Podium bottles, and own four of them. Two are even a matching pair...

One day you’ll be sat there £2.43 (or some other small and random amount) under the free delivery limit and the next thing you know, one will enter your life.

Perhaps I'm a moron and it was user error but having spent £10 on supposedly the best water bottle ever I thought it was a piece of st. Constantly leaking. I miss the sis bottles from about 5 years ago. Don't like the new shape.

[Squadrone Rosso]

New grips for my MTB & spare pedals for my Giant gravel bike.

[defblade]

To save messing up bolt heads:

[joshcowin]

Master Bean said:

MrBarry123 said:

yellowjack said:

Me! Me! Me!

I don't bother with anything other than Camelbak Podium bottles, and own four of them. Two are even a matching pair...

One day you’ll be sat there £2.43 (or some other small and random amount) under the free delivery limit and the next thing you know, one will enter your life.

Perhaps I'm a moron and it was user error but having spent £10 on supposedly the best water bottle ever I thought it was a piece of st. Constantly leaking. I miss the sis bottles from about 5 years ago. Don't like the new shape.

I've got sis bottles and also the high 5 equivalent, the high 5 ones are decent, I always buy them as part of a bundle

[Bathroom_Security]

take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey said:

The pcr was negative

So it had its first run out. Thoughts are a bit mixed...

Pros

High idler designs really do work. I did mostly steep blacks that are mix of roots and braking bumps - baked hard now. You can really feel the rear getting out the way over roots and ruts. Many times I dropped my heels waiting for the bang through my legs - never happened. It feels way more than 130mm. Closer to my g1 (165mm) in bump feel. It's a very impressive system.

Cons.

However, I can't work out what it's supposed to be.

It uses a 150mm fork (lyric ultimate in my case - and ill be honest I've never been a fan) but it pushes the fork to its limit. My arms were way more tired than on my g1 - EXT Era fork.

But you can't fit a bigger fork... So the speed that the frame carries is wasted. The front end is the limiting factor. I need to play with fork to see if I can get it working better.

So a longer travel version (their new design is a full enduro bike) would make more sense.

So you're left with a bike that climbs worse than a normal down country bike, and isn't as good as an enduro. My g1 climbs OK... This is better but not by enough to lose the DH speed.

A 150 / 150 probably makes a better all round trail bike too.

I wonder whether a coil fork (or vorsprung / avy modded) would better suit it, but then it's a chunk of money to 'cure' it's best trait - the rear being so capable of taking repeated hits.

If anyone is interested, I'll let you know how I get on trying to balance the front and rear.

Interesting comments thanks, shame about the fork, you sure you cant actually upgrade the internals of that Lyric to 160mm or more? Nothing stopping you just because the geo will change...

What sort of trails were you on, name some? I need to buy a new bike at some point and dont know where to go over my 2019 stumpjumper 160mm/150mm. For Surrey Hills its mostly OK, I don't want to end up with a bus of an enduro bike and at the same time I think 160mm is needed to deal with the blown out trails we have here. I think even 170mm all round would be put to good use but then id end up with a wallowy bike.

Ill probably wait unitl the bike situation goes away then start testing a load. Very interested in the High Pivot stuff, but much of it is Enduro based which isnt what I do at all (even if I wish it was)

[lufbramatt]

yellowjack said:

Me! Me! Me!

I don't bother with anything other than Camelbak Podium bottles, and own four of them. Two are even a matching pair...

I think there has recently been a recall on the Podium bottles, something can come loose inside the nozzle. Worth checking the batch code

[Gin and Ultrasonic]

defblade said:

To save messing up bolt heads:

Nice! However, I managed to strip the bolt heads on a thru axle with these as they 'grab' really well giving the impression that they are properly engaged when they aren't. This is almost certainly down to my crappy mechanic skills though

[take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey]

Bathroom_Security said:

Interesting comments thanks, shame about the fork, you sure you cant actually upgrade the internals of that Lyric to 160mm or more? Nothing stopping you just because the geo will change...

What sort of trails were you on, name some? I need to buy a new bike at some point and dont know where to go over my 2019 stumpjumper 160mm/150mm. For Surrey Hills its mostly OK, I don't want to end up with a bus of an enduro bike and at the same time I think 160mm is needed to deal with the blown out trails we have here. I think even 170mm all round would be put to good use but then id end up with a wallowy bike.

Ill probably wait unitl the bike situation goes away then start testing a load. Very interested in the High Pivot stuff, but much of it is Enduro based which isnt what I do at all (even if I wish it was)

Thanks for showing an interest. So I'll update where I'm at.

I've now got the forks about as sorted as I'm likely to. I have a quark suspension widget so will run that when I can be faffed to fine tune but I'm usually 95 percent there by feel.

I still think a more basic but vorsprung tickled fork is better but the front rear balance is much better.

So impressions.

Still hugely impressed with the suspension design both DH and climbing. It's spooky how it isolates the impact through your feet - and this is a direct comparison between a 165mm travel storia on spherical bearings - about as plush as you can get. I'd go so far as to say its manages to be more plush and poppy which is no mean feet.

Climbing wise, it'll go up a house side and you just never get hung up on roots, but it's heavier than my old Evil 150mm insurgent and whilst not bad, the extra two idlers are noticeable.

It climbs faster than a heavy enduro, but if you're looking to significantly increase your speeds on the up an Evil or Yeti 'down country' offering is a better choice.

I've been riding almost as fast as on the G1, the druid only losing out on the very high speed stuff where the steeper HA and shorter length become more noticeable. But on tighter sections, it feels quicker. And I've laughed more pre-hopping into drops and popping off roots, which I rarely do on the g1.

It's also dragged me out the house the last 3 dsys, and I'm out tonight again, which speaks volumes.

It's not quite the quiver killer, as I wouldn't fancy doing an all day ride on it, but as a single analogue bike vs having an enduro, DH, trail and xc bike. It certainly ticks the first three and your mates won't be dropping you because you're under biked.

Deffo worth a demo.

Re trails I ride - YouTube and search for Yearsley, Hood Hill / Kilburn and Guisborough.

Basically, natural, steep, rooty, and slippery... Think Golfie or inners but much much shorter runs and fewer rocks.

ETA link to vids of yearsley. The first trail is a blue, the next two are shallow but fast reds.

https://youtu.be/PhdrRqll90E

Edited by take-good-care-of-the-forest-dewey on Monday 26th July 13:43

[robbiekhan]

2 months later it's finally here!

https://i.imgur.com/VPLhJjj.mp4
(sound on)

[wobert]

robbiekhan said:

2 months later it's finally here!

https://i.imgur.com/VPLhJjj.mp4
(sound on)

I have a Pro4 on the rear of the Slate, sounds like a swarm of hornets…

[robbiekhan]

The best kind of sound

[yellowjack]

lufbramatt said:

yellowjack said:

Me! Me! Me!

I don't bother with anything other than Camelbak Podium bottles, and own four of them. Two are even a matching pair...

I think there has recently been a recall on the Podium bottles, something can come loose inside the nozzle. Worth checking the batch code

They have a batch code?

I'll have a look for the recall, but I doubt mine will be affected. They're all too old. I bought them all years ago. Or more accurately I bought three of them, and found the other one, years ago. The one I found was in the woods propped against a tree the day after a race locally. The race had used "my" trails, and despite the strip-out crew doing a great job I always made a point of making some litterpicking sweeps in the few days following a race. Nobody wants the negative press from walkers/landowners finding gel wrappers and innertubes, etc, spoiling woodland. So I took it home, dunked it overnight in a bowl of Milton fluid, and use it regularly.

I also strip them down to clean the one-way valves regularly (again soaking them in Milton), so I think I'd spot any loose items in them. If not cleaned regularly they do get a bit manky behind the "bite valve" bit. Especially with blackcurrant or berry flavour squash going through them...

Edit:

Thanks for the 'heads up', but looking at Camelbak's site my bottle caps don't look at all like the affected batches. Mine have no obvious batch codes either. I think they redesigned the bottles after mine, to make the valve wider to allow more fluid out. I've always been happy with the ones I have and never find myself wishing I had new bottles...

Edited by yellowjack on Monday 26th July 14:59

[lufbramatt]

https://www.camelbak.co.uk/recall-notice-i225#:~:t...

[Mars]

Mars said:

Mars said:

Mars said:

I totally agree with you, in particular your last statement and now I know a bit more about them, when it comes to replace it, I'll change both the BB and the crank for the Shimano standard. I mean, the SRAM GXP works OK but it's needlessly different and it just pins me to a number of non-compatible components like their weird PCD chainrings and that BB. I also bought a SRAM chain because of other forum members' perceptions that you need to with SRAM chainrings but I've never had such reluctance for the middle gears of my cassette to engage when going up sizes (faster to slower). My hangar is spot-on and my indexing going down also spot-on. It must be the chain.

Anyway, I fooled myself into replacing it all with new SRAM kit this time around but I know better now so I'll have a full Shimano set ready for when it's time to replace it next time... In about a year given the miles I am doing now.

Oh, I spoke too soon.

I replaced the bearings recently and the bloody thing is creaking already. And for some reason GXP BBs are hard to get hold of. Halfords called to cancel my on-line order because they couldn't find the one they were supposed to have in stock.

I'm hoping I'll be able to "do something" with the current creaking one. Should be able to gently peel back the (laughable) seal and squirt some grease in... just to keep it going for a few days while ChainReaction delivers the two I
just ordered. Might as well buy a couple and keep one as a spare as they don't seem very durable and there's questionable supply at the moment.

Nope - didn't work. Still creaks.

It's going to rain the next couple of days which will give the post time to bring me the new BBs. At 20 quid a BB they are an expensive "consumable" but I guess I don't have much choice until I can justify replacing the whole lot with something non-GXP.

Fark..!! New BBs arrived and I upon opening the packaging my heart went cold. I thought I'd ordered SRAM originals but it seems I didn't. I made the schoolboy error of believing that because I'd searched for SRAM GXP BB that the result I got at Chain Reaction was a SRAM GXP BB. It had all of those keywords in the title but it also had the word "Prime" in there too - whoever the eff they are. Anyway, in my excitement at finding a genuine SRAM BB, I ordered two, just in case... except they aren't SRAM. bks.

The Prime BB appears to be a generic English threaded 68-73 BB, made for Shimano cranks but with the (what they must have thought) clever addition of a step-down collar inside the non-drive bearing to fit a GXP. To be fair, the GXP standard is needlessly different. It's just what was on my bike originally and because I changed the BB and crank at different times, I ended up sticking with it. I probably won't next time the crank is changed.

Anyway, this Prime collar has so much potential for problems but with no other option I went to install it, and that's when I discovered horror number 2. ALL BB cups that I have installed of late have a similar arrangement of equidistant machined-out "gouges" allowing the perfectly-tight fitment of a Park Tool BB spinner. Not so this "Prime" crap. Instead, someone in their design dept thought it would look cool if they machined a pair out at a time, reducing the number of "highs" with which my BB spinner can drive the cups into my frame. The machining wasn't even that good because my spinner needed tapping onto the cups, ruining the anodized finish. It clearly was intended to fit (it's close) but it just doesn't.

I tried photographing it but the black cups are hard to show any detail.

Anyway, I got it assembled and creeeaaak click, creak, click click.

By now I'm going slightly insane. Looked on-line at all the local Halfords to see if there were any genuine SRAM GXP BBs in stock anywhere and (after ringing three of them) discovered there was not.

Now I'm starting to think my new GXP crank might be at fault. And I'm also thinking that the hatred that Hambini has for GXP might be justified after all. I removed the crank, removed the Prime BB, reassembled with the SRAM BB, lubed everything where it should be lubed, even used the (generally hopeless) waffle washer.

Creak.

Took the crank off, put the non-drive crank arm in my vice (it has rubberised pads to protect the crank), assembled the two arms together, and twisted and turned it to see if I could detect any movement. Nothing. Reassembled onto the bike, and...

... creak.

Now I'm starting to doubt it could possibly be the crank. I know creaks travel through bike frames (note this bit) but I've replaced every single bearing on this bike recently (not related to this BB issue - just because I have started to pile the miles on it)...

... except the head bearings. But they generally don't do much so it couldn't be them. Could it? I have tried twisting and turning the head whilst not pedalling, trying to recreate the creak this way, and had failed.

Well, turns out it could be them after all. And, in fact it was. The bottom race was an open type (not sealed) and had slightly dried out. Not much but it had accumulated a bit of mess and didn't look pretty anymore. A quick clean and regrease, and...

... NO CREAK.

Yay..!!

And I'm only 50 quid down on a pair of BBs that I didn't need and don't really want but that's a lesson learned.

[hyphen]

lufbramatt said:

https://www.camelbak.co.uk/recall-notice-i225#:~:t...

How on earth can a company that has been making water bottles for decades screw it up.

[IroningMan]

Mars said:

Fark..!! New BBs arrived and I upon opening the packaging my heart went cold. I thought I'd ordered SRAM originals but it seems I didn't. I made the schoolboy error of believing that because I'd searched for SRAM GXP BB that the result I got at Chain Reaction was a SRAM GXP BB. It had all of those keywords in the title but it also had the word "Prime" in there too - whoever the eff they are. Anyway, in my excitement at finding a genuine SRAM BB, I ordered two, just in case... except they aren't SRAM. bks.

The Prime BB appears to be a generic English threaded 68-73 BB, made for Shimano cranks but with the (what they must have thought) clever addition of a step-down collar inside the non-drive bearing to fit a GXP. To be fair, the GXP standard is needlessly different. It's just what was on my bike originally and because I changed the BB and crank at different times, I ended up sticking with it. I probably won't next time the crank is changed.

Anyway, this Prime collar has so much potential for problems but with no other option I went to install it, and that's when I discovered horror number 2. ALL BB cups that I have installed of late have a similar arrangement of equidistant machined-out "gouges" allowing the perfectly-tight fitment of a Park Tool BB spinner. Not so this "Prime" crap. Instead, someone in their design dept thought it would look cool if they machined a pair out at a time, reducing the number of "highs" with which my BB spinner can drive the cups into my frame. The machining wasn't even that good because my spinner needed tapping onto the cups, ruining the anodized finish. It clearly was intended to fit (it's close) but it just doesn't.

I tried photographing it but the black cups are hard to show any detail.

Anyway, I got it assembled and creeeaaak click, creak, click click.

By now I'm going slightly insane. Looked on-line at all the local Halfords to see if there were any genuine SRAM GXP BBs in stock anywhere and (after ringing three of them) discovered there was not.

Now I'm starting to think my new GXP crank might be at fault. And I'm also thinking that the hatred that Hambini has for GXP might be justified after all. I removed the crank, removed the Prime BB, reassembled with the SRAM BB, lubed everything where it should be lubed, even used the (generally hopeless) waffle washer.

Creak.

Took the crank off, put the non-drive crank arm in my vice (it has rubberised pads to protect the crank), assembled the two arms together, and twisted and turned it to see if I could detect any movement. Nothing. Reassembled onto the bike, and...

... creak.

Now I'm starting to doubt it could possibly be the crank. I know creaks travel through bike frames (note this bit) but I've replaced every single bearing on this bike recently (not related to this BB issue - just because I have started to pile the miles on it)...

... except the head bearings. But they generally don't do much so it couldn't be them. Could it? I have tried twisting and turning the head whilst not pedalling, trying to recreate the creak this way, and had failed.

Well, turns out it could be them after all. And, in fact it was. The bottom race was an open type (not sealed) and had slightly dried out. Not much but it had accumulated a bit of mess and didn't look pretty anymore. A quick clean and regrease, and...

... NO CREAK.

Yay..!!

And I'm only 50 quid down on a pair of BBs that I didn't need and don't really want but that's a lesson learned.

I have a very smart Wheels Manufacturing BB386 bottom bracket sitting in its box because the creak I was trying to fix turned out to be down to the pawls in the freehub not liking the oil I'd used when I serviced it. A little grease instead and no creak - nothing to do with the BB.

We could have a wiki on fixing creaks, but it would basically say 'clean and lubricate every interface on the bike'.

[lufbramatt]

Very true. Had an annoying creak on my CX bike that only happened when I was out of the saddle. Turned out it was the expanding wedge bolt thingy in the carbon steerer tube wasn't quite tight enough. Only used to star nuts in metal steerer tubes so was surprised to find another bolt under the top cap!