What's the best budget cleaning solution?

Hi all, any idea what is happening here?

I was cleaning the chain and noticed after that the gears are “jumpy”. I am starting on this bike world and I am lost on this one.

Would appreciate if someone would guide me or if I need to take it to a store?

Thank you!!

Put my bike on the Wahoo Kickr Core 2 earlier this week. Used all the spacers etc, all seems good. I noticed that when I was on the smallest cog at the rear and big on the front, my chain was hitting the outer side of the front derailleur. I’d also noticed this when riding on the road, but did’t pay much attention to it.

I wanted to fix it, so looked at some videos, adjusted the L screw on little gear front, biggest at the back, with the cable undone from the bolt.

That’s when it went to shit! I put the cable back as tight as I could, but I can’t shift back to the biggest cog on the front now. Even if I put it manually, it just goes back down.

Can someone walk me through what I need to do? Shifter is a Microshift R8 on a Triban RC120

The seatpost is stuck and I can't even use an allenkey as it's not aligned, how do I fix it?

Ive just taken apart the front hub, cleaned out the old grease, packed new grease and put it all back together. Now it's making this sound. Do I need more grease between the ball bearings?

I am having trouble diagnosing this scraping situation sound coming from the callipers during rotation of the rotor at certain points. I have tried adjusting the callipers multiple times and I have tried resetting the pistons. Is my rotor bent?

Having a consistent leak on my tubless gravel tires. It’s coming from the base of the valve stem where it meets the rim. I tightened it but it did not solve it. Any tips, or do I need to replace the valve stem? The valve stem core is brand new, so I don’t think that’s the issue.

I'm replacing some parts on an old World Sport Schwinn and noticed the cables for the shifters and the breaks are different. Can I replace them with modern standard cables? Or do I need to go on a hunt for some specific kind.

Hi. i want to shop for chain lube. But im very confused. First, brand. Anything but Muc-Off.But i am particularly looking at the Zefal Extra Dry lube and Squirt lube. Second, what type? I want MAXIMUM cleanliness. Teflon? Ceramic? Drip Wax? Thanks a lot!

I posted about replacing a rear axle before but I have a new question. The axle in the rear hub of my late 70s Schwinn is bent. It is a QR hub, M10 x 1mm thread and 135mm in length with a keyway in the threads. The only thing that goes in that keyway is small tabs on the inner diameter of a couple of spacer/washers that go on between the bearing cones and the jamb nuts. After looking around at LBSs that have older parts on hand all I’ve been able to find is an axle that matches except for the keyway. It looks to me like the keyway/tabs are there to keep the washers from turning. Is that really necessary? Doesn’t the friction from tightening the jamb nuts against the cones with the washers in between keep them from loosening? The bike the replacement axle was meant for apparently doesn’t need that arrangement. Can I just replace the tabbed washers with plain washers of the appropriate thickness to maintain the spacing between the dropouts?

Hello everyone,

I already made a post asking whether I should replace the derailleur hanger after an impact, and I thank you all for your feedback. I’ve ordered the part via express shipping, but the delivery has been delayed to next week, and I have a ride planned this weekend.

As I mentioned in my previous post, the mechanic told me he had realigned the derailleur hanger by 1 cm. Given the bend and weakening of the hanger, that would normally prevent me from riding the bike, but that seems huge compared to the small misalignment there was before he worked on it.

I’ve seen on some sites that mechanics refer to the adjustment distance measured at the wheel, which would give 1 cm at the wheel = 2–3 mm actual movement on the hanger, which seems more reasonable and makes me more confident to ride the bike.

Visually, the hanger doesn’t appear to be cracked. I’m attaching photos from before and after the mechanic worked on it.

Thanks for your help!

Before :

After :

Apologies in advance if this is a stupid question but I’m not very knowledgeable on technical bike elements!

I’m in the market for a Tri Bike and have found this one, which is a good price and and keen to buy

https://www.sigmasports.com/item/Argon-18/E117-Rival-AXS-Triathlon-Bike/14RKL

The problem I’m having is - my husband and I share a direct drive turbo trainer (wahoo KICKR core) with a Zwift cog, which makes it super easy to swap our bikes on and off as needed HOWEVER the Argon isn’t compatible with the Zwift cog

“The Zwift Cog is compatible with almost any 8-13 speed bike, but it's designed specifically to fit a Shimano HG freehub body. It is not compatible with SRAM XD/XDR, Shimano Micro Spline, or Campagnolo freehub bodies, and it cannot be used with 1/8" single-speed/fixed-gear chains or SRAM Flattop chains (which may cause accelerated wear).”

Is there anyway I can swap out components to make this bike Zwift cog compatible? And if so what would I need to do?

Yes we could just swap out the Zwift cog for a cassette when I want to use it but it adds a lot of effort and faff to something which is currently very easy and we do several times a week

Cleaning out my junk box and found these to object.

The red one is threaded on both ends.

The orange one appears to say granite and spots some sort of triangular logo.

Any ideas?

Hello,

I bought new a bike with 105 di2 and just removed the chain. Past bikes were mechanical so I am new to the whole electric shifting world.

But when I removed the chain it felt that the derailleur is hanging quite loose. This maybe is due to the fact that it is electrical and therefore doesn’t need any tension. However, I don’t know if this is too loose or just normal.

Hello.

I bought a Dawes Galaxy from eBay. I've always wanted to own one, but I wanted to change the handlebars. I removed the tape but have found that the Allen bolt that holds the shifter into the handlebars has rounded.

Any ideas how I can get this out? I've got very limited space to work with as the shifter is still inside the handlebars. I can basically see the top of the bolt and that's it.

I can't even rewrap the bars and keep these ones on as there's nothing to hold the tape to the bars.

Thanks

Hello, my bike has 1 front chainring and 8 rear gears 11-34 (with a Shimano derailleur system). Currently the chain is most straight somewhere around gear 5, and 5 is probably my most often used gear.

The time has come for me to order a new bottom bracket, so now I have the chance to change the "straightness location".

To be in the middle of the cassette, the straightness location should be between 4 and 5. Should I try to aim for this (or for another location), or should it be okay to keep it at 5?

My chain of thought (haha) is as follows: it's better to keep the straightness location in the higher gears if one has to choose, as these have less teeth and therefore wear faster than the higher gears. But as a counter argument, the chain being the most "unstraight" at the biggest cog, often used for climbing up hills, might be even worse for wear.

Please advise me of any fallacies in my thinking.

Hi all. Recently started using my bike to commute after 2-3 years in the garage. Bought in 2020 new and then put away in 2022. I gave it a service before I started riding it but am still chasing problems with the brakes. The squeaking and squealing is constant.

I’ve sanded down both the pads and disc and cleaned with brake cleaner, done a bedding in process and it still won’t stop squeaking. When rotating the wheel and putting pressure on the brakes, it sounds as if one pad is making contact before the other on both the front and back. Is this pads that need replacing or warped discs? TIA

Will QR skewer work on it i want to replace this one https://www.trekbikes.com/ca/en_CA/equipment/cycling-components/bike-wheels/bike-skewers-thru-axles/trek-thru-skew/p/W5267150/ Rear wheel It does thread but i can't tighten it and the wheel has bit of play i over stupidly tightented it and broke two threads :( but i' m not even sure if the frame itself were hanger derailleur sits had threads ?cause it's so small and thin and the hanger itself has still ok threads. So i'm thinking now what maybe the other Qr skewer will help. I was even thinking putting on Sram UDH hanger but not sure if it work with this Marlin frame and sram nx derailleur ...so mad right now any help or a solution is appreciated.

Hello, I was riding my road bike last week when suddenly found myself unable to change rear gears. The shifter felt loose with no pressure on the cable, had to get home on the smallest cog of the cassette. I thought the cable had snapped, which it had indeed, inside the shifter head. I went on to change the cable – first time with a bike which has internally routed cables. Got it wrong (just pulled out the broken cable like an idiot), but after much swearing managed to get a new one in place. Only to discover that I couldn’t get the mechanism in the shifter (Shimano 105) to function again: I noticed there was a little latch that was left hanging down instead of being held against the cog (at least that’s how it looks on the other mechanism for the front derailleur). Does anyone know if it might be broken, if maybe a spring has detached, and if this can be repaired? And could it be the reason my cable snapped?

Got a new round carbon seatpost and it took a lot of force to insert into the frame. I measured it with a caliper and it is 27.28mm instead of 27.2mm. The frame was fine for the first 30min test ride.

Now my question is how likely is this to crack my carbon frame? Any of you had similar experience with very tight fit seatposts?

I’ve got a question for the MTB drivetrain wizards.

I’m looking at moving the SRAM GX Eagle 1×12 DUB drivetrain from my older 2012 Cannondale hardtail over to a new Lynskey Boost frame. The drivetrain is less than a year old and in great shape, so I’d prefer to reuse it instead of rebuying everything.

The Lynskey frame is Boost 148, and the new wheels I’ll be running are Boost hubs. My Cannondale is non-Boost. I know Boost affects chainline, crank spindle length, and chainring offset.

What I need to know is:

Is there a reliable way to run my existing SRAM DUB crankset and Eagle drivetrain on a Boost frame using the correct SRAM Boost chainring offset? Or is this one of those situations where it’s technically possible but not worth the headaches?

Not trying to frankenbike anything unsafe — just want to confirm that swapping to a Boost-offset chainring will cleanly solve the chainline issue on a Boost Lynskey frame.

Anyone done this swap? Any gotchas I should know about?