G-Usain Bolt

In the last year there really has been no time for riding or for working on bikes. So apologies that everything has been very quiet. Having said that being back on the bike has shaken a few things loose. The first bolt to er.... bolt was a crank bolt on "I should Coco". I finished the section holding the crank on by force of will and foot. Now call me stupid, but I would have thought that with a simple machine like a bicycle the range of methods for attaching the crank arms to the bottom bracket were pretty standard. So stopping in Peaslake, I popped into the bike shop for a replacement bolt. Howard he say "No" - apparently no high tech enough for the bikes he sells. Fair enough.

At home I start a search on the internet for a replacement. There on the page is a veritable smorgasborg of crank bolts, all with about information on size, fitting and suitablilty missing or phrased in some sophisiticated arcane manner that makes selection impossible.

One of the beauties of the internet is its accessibility and the range of information available - this time it fails miserably. My nearest bike shop is miles away (to the extent where I think opening one up would be a good business move, if I was incilined that way). Eventually, I make a trip in the right direction and pop in with the other bolt. It takes 10 mins of rooting in the spares draw, but eventually they find one that matches (visually) to what I need. I still have no idea what size, configuation the bolt is.

The process of fitting a new crank bolt is simple - especially when you have put everything together from scratch. Everything is fantastic and I make the next ride some months later it has to be said with no bike failures. However, I don't follow the simple advice that I should clean down and check the bolts etc at the end of each ride. I forget that I have not tightened to precise torque settings and that a few things may have shaken loose from the last failure. So I am out riding solo across some trails and feeling goof about how the bike is handling in the summer sun when clank, clank, clank. Pulling up I discover the bashguard is hanging off to one side. A closer inspection reveals that 3 of 4 bolts that hold the chainring and the bashguard together have gone AWOL. Perhaps that should be LWOT (lost without tightening).

A familiar story on the internet - but here just a bewildering array of choices. A trip to a bike shop that deals in high end gear is unproductive in walking out with desired product, but helpful in learning about variations in chainring bolts and lengths. I am able to order parts and replace.

Oh arse!!

There are always times of frustration in the progress of any project, today the P3 project encountered another one. The bosses arrived in the post and I went outside to fit them in a spare 5 minutes at lunchtime. They looked a perfect match, the thread an exact match for the screw in mount housing on the forks. The the first grrr moment. In order to screw them in I was going to need a 9mm spanner - I had 7,8......10, 11?!!! What the? Where? Resigned to not finding the missing spanner I walked up the road to the local hardware store and bought a cheap replacement.

Almost, all in and the bosses are getting tight. Wondering how much further I slide the XT brake arms on to the bosses, only....they won't reach. Not they won't reach because I need to screw the boss in further. They won't reach even when screwed in flush. Arse!!!

I unscrew one, extra time wasted, and extract one of the brake arms from the old bike out of the shed. This slides on perfectly. I go and check the XT arm again, no dice. There is a ridge on the boss which allows you to tighten the boss in the mount. It is also where part of the brake arm locks in, it is too bid for the XT arm, but not for el cheapo fitting. I'm left with a quandry, do I fit el cheapo and look for an alternative? Do I file off the excess? Perhaps a little chat with the suppliers and a chance of an exchange? First though, I need to get the other boss off the forks, and its stuck! The cheap 9mm spanner is bending under the force. I give up and get on with living the rest of my life. I can have a real crack at it some other day.

Who's the boss?

Well not me it seems. I had expected small hiccups in the process of putting this bike together, but really I didn't expect them all to come at the end. I feel like I am at an evolutionary dead-end. The forks arrived this week, and yes they are all they were descrived to be. Certainly not the forks to sit on the machine forever, but good enough for some casual cross-country/downhill riding. They are also dual brake capable, that is you can fit disc brakes or the more low tech V-brakes (also known as side pull cantilevers). There is a snag. I could fit disc brakes to the forks, but the hubs I have are not designed to take the disc. I can't bolt on V-brakes straight away because the forks lack the brake bosses needed to fit the brake arms. This would not be a difficult proposition if there was a surfeit of brake bosses on sale. I think I might have found a kit for the forks, but it only mentions forks produced from 2007 onwards. This leads me to some concern as I am worried that my local bike shops will not stock the spare parts I require.

This is what leads me to feel at an evolutionary dead-end. The trend is towards disc brakes on sports mountain bikes, and although V-brakes are common on low end leisure bikes, no-one takes a high spec sports bike and puts V-brakes on it. A problem for all those retro-bike builders out there. Soon the spare forks will only be off leisure bikes, which are not capable handling the punishment or a more aggressive riding style, and we will no longer be able to ride some of these classic frames. The bikes will not be superceded because they were unable to compete in the environment, but they lack the input of the manufacturer's resources. The world has changed and moved on.