it breaks down more than my landie

[weeds]

will be dropping my Giant Defy back to the back shop for the fourth time in six months.........its only travelled around 1966km

1. broken rear spoke
2. broken rear spoke, re-spoke of the rear wheel and bottom bracket
3. last week re-spoke front wheel and bottom bracket
4. this week bottom bracket

the shop has been pretty good but they still cliam there is nothing wroung with the BB........each time i drop it off, pick it up is a 1-1 1/2 hr round trip plus i loose the bike for 2 days.

this bike breaks down more than my landie..........

[MacMan]

How much do you weigh?

Serious question.

I used to do a heap of cycling and was heavier than I am now. It's difficult being my height because a moderate increase in leg muscle size results in a significant weight increase. 90-something kg riders and MTBs are not good friends for long. Before sealed BB's were affordable and the norm I'd break them every 3 or 4 months.

I bought myself my first really good MTB (GT Avalanche) about 12 years ago and for the first time had a trouble free run.

[weeds]

90-95kg, its my roadie

[Killer]

Kelvin, your weight shouldn't be a problem, I am 120-125 kgs and haven't had a problem with spokes or BB in the time I had my Giant Defy. I did however wear out the drive train, and have now upgraded to Scallop's old Trek.

Cheers, Mick.

[weeds]

Kelvin, your weight shouldn't be a problem, I am 120-125 kgs and haven't had a problem with spokes or BB in the time I had my Giant Defy. I did however wear out the drive train, and have now upgraded to Scallop's old Trek.

Cheers, Mick.

ummm, they best sort it out this time otherwise i'm going to get cranky

[MacMan]

Sorry, immediately assumed you were talking MTBs. For road duty that's a lot of trouble in a short time.

[weeds]

Sorry, immediately assumed you were talking MTBs. For road duty that's a lot of trouble in a short time.

i know...considing my avanti only had the one trip to the bike shop in 10 years

[rainman]

Which spec level Defy is it (ie 2, 1, 0, etc)? Maybe you need to go to a higher spoke count wheelset (something like 32), which of course raises the issue of who's going to pay for it.

I have to say, as much as I hate my cheap-as-chips Shimano R500 wheelset, it's held up to a hell of a lot of abuse, and it's only 20 spoke front, 24 spoke rear. Sure I'm very light, but I tend to do things on a road bike that you really shouldn't :cool:. Two and a half years and several thousand kilometres of smashing mountainous roads and being pounded through potholes whist commuting and not one broken spoke.

What's going wrong with the bottom bracket? Are you chewing bearings?

James.

[weeds]

Which spec level Defy is it (ie 2, 1, 0, etc)? Maybe you need to go to a higher spoke count wheelset (something like 32), which of course raises the issue of who's going to pay for it.

I have to say, as much as I hate my cheap-as-chips Shimano R500 wheelset, it's held up to a hell of a lot of abuse, and it's only 20 spoke front, 24 spoke rear. Sure I'm very light, but I tend to do things on a road bike that you really shouldn't :cool:. Two and a half years and several thousand kilometres of smashing mountainous roads and being pounded through potholes whist commuting and not one broken spoke.

What's going wrong with the bottom bracket? Are you chewing bearings?

James.

its an Advance 2

the rear wheel has been re-spoked with after market spokes and seems to be holding together

re: BB, i'm not sure they have pulled it apart, each time i ask what the problem was and they say they couldn't find anything wrong and heard no noises on a test ride

the BB is making squeaking noises...it it doesn't start until say 3km into a ride, coming home of friday going up a hill i had to back off as the noise was the loudest it had made.

they reckon it could bemy shoes:angel: so i am dropping them off as well, brought at the same time i brought the bike...........

[rainman]

re: BB, i'm not sure they have pulled it apart, each time i ask what the problem was and they say they couldn't find anything wrong and heard no noises on a test ride

the BB is making squeaking noises...it it doesn't start until say 3km into a ride, coming home of friday going up a hill i had to back off as the noise was the loudest it had made.

they reckon it could bemy shoes:angel: so i am dropping them off as well, brought at the same time i brought the bike...........

They're probably not riding it for long enough to replicate the issue. It could just be the BB cups creaking in the frame. It probably just needs to be pulled out, checked over and reassembled making sure there's enough grease on the threads (or in the case of it being the press-fit/integrated type, all contact points).

James.

[JayBoRover]

Are you sure it's the BB? The reason I say this is because I thought I had BB problem for ages. Sounded like a bunch of mice having an argument or small birds fighting over something. Kind of a "twittering" sort of squeak.

I finally resolved it and it wasn't what I expected. The idler gears at the rear derailleur were torqued too tight. When I backed off the Allen bolts by 1/2 a turn the noise stopped. Thank God - it was driving me nuts! So I then removed them, lock-tited the bolts and put them back in to the reduced torque. (I didn't measure torque - just counted the turns to remove and did them back to the same number of turns).

Haven't had the squeak back for several hundred km's now ... after having the squeak intermittently for several thousand km's:).

I've ordered a 2013 Scott FO1L Premium:cool:.

[weeds]

well after no resolution i have parted ways with the bike shop......

they claim its the rear skewer as when the A Garde rider took it for a spin he adjusted the tension of the skew and all was good.......

until i was 30k into a ride the next day and the noise returned grrrrrrr

[bee utey]

I had what I thought was bottom bracket noises on my MTB when it was new, turned out the drive side crank was loose where it was splined to the chainring spider. A warranty fix, been good on that score ever since. Pedals are another good source of creaks, I suggest you lube the pedal threads and tighten.

[MacMan]

I've had an interminable and annoying squeak on my GT since I bought it. The alloy seatpost creaks in the alloy frame tube. Grease makes no difference, but wrapping the bottom of the seatpost in teflon tape does help make it less severe.

[EchiDna]

90-95kg is above the upper limit for many wheels and given you have had the majority of the problems with them, have you tried swapping them out for a known good pair, or even better swap wheels with a mate for a ride and see if he/she can replicate the problem? after that I'd swap bikes with someone and see if it is the shoes, pedals etc etc... I've had all of those things everyone has mentioned cause "BB problems" before! as an example, what I thought were intermittent BB issues turned out to be a dodgy bearing in my 404's rear hub - only successfully diagnosed after a wheel swap to test... so I guess the point is, there is a lot you can check and test through part substitution without having to resort to a 2 hour round trip drive!

[rick130]

With a heavier rider (moi :angel:) and a marginal wheelset, I use a really high spoke tension.

Seems to work.

Either that, or i ride more lightly than my lack of skill says i should :D

[EchiDna]

Rick - are you talking custom wheel builds? more spokes is the easiest way to build in greater wheel reliability for the clydesdale riders ;-)

[rick130]

I agree, you can't beat 36x3 cross, but a re-tensioned stockie can be more reliable too.

My roadie has a wheel set that was notorious for going out of true from new, radial laced DT Revo spoked front wheel, (Taiwanese hub ?) Mavic Open Pro rims.
DT Hugi 240 hub rear, radial laced non drive side, 2xcross drive side and DT Revo's.
Rims are 24/26.

Miles too light and a dumb/show pony lacing pattern for a rider my weight, (over the years I've varied between 82 and 95kg) but even little blokes used to continually have them go out of true.

The shops used to soften them even more to survive or just re-lace them 3xcross all round, my theory was that softening was the wrong thing to do.
I just tensioned the frig out of them and never had an issue till I put a stick through the back wheel.

I had to ride 6km of farm tracks and jump seven or eight cattle grids just to get to the bitumen for the first five years of riding it too, and I only had 23c's too, I've only just gone to 25's.

I've never had a DT tension gauge, just used the old 'pluck' method to 'gauge' tension so I can't tell you how tight they were, but I was scared I was going to collapse the rims they were/are so tight. Think piano string and high C :D
Never had to re-true either.

I think a small stick flicked up and jammed everything up when I wrecked the rear.
I went oh so close to face planting the bitumen, luckily I was accelerating away from an intersection at the time, so not going too fast.
I re-laced it with DT comps on the drive side, just for some more beef, but kept the radial lacing on the non-drive side as they were all still OK.

I built up my mtb wheelset many, many years ago.
Mavic X317 rims, Chris King hubs (Zzzzzzzzzzzzz :D) and Sapim CX-Ray spokes.
CX-Rays are supposed to be too light for a mtb, then factor in my weight, but again they are tensioned to the hilt and I've never ever had to re-true.

[weeds]

well after no resolution i have parted ways with the bike shop......

they claim its the rear skewer as when the A Garde rider took it for a spin he adjusted the tension of the skew and all was good.......

until i was 30k into a ride the next day and the noise returned grrrrrrr

well no noises today........

i should expand on the quote above, i did have a flat at 20k and adjusted the clamp pressure on the skewer three as per the shop advice that i wasn't doing it at the right pressure

i use co2 canisters and they don't inflate to 120psi, maybe around 90psi......it started to creak 5-10 after the flat

this morning while pumping my tyres up the rear creaked with every pump, at 120psi no noises at all at the way to work

i have come to the conclusion that it is the wheel....will have to save some dollars and invest in a new wheel set

[rainman]

I'm happy to swap wheels with you for a week or two to see if it makes any difference Weeds. As I mentioned in a previous post mine are only crumby Shimano R500s but the only time I've had to touch them with a spoke tool was when I dropped into that 3 foot deep V-drain at 35 km/h ;).

James.

[EchiDna]

yeah, sounds like a wheel issue to me Weeds...

I did a two day ride a few months ago and rode 220km on day one for which the first 160km my bike was silent, then it got a little hillier and it started to creak with every pedal revolution making me think it was BB/crank related... horribly noisy... then it started to rain... and my bike became quiet again (rain water as lube?) the next morning.... silent running again for the return ride, all the way home (160km). Two days later, 30km ride and it was unbelievably noisy! all down to the drive side hub bearing which had quite simply given up. Bits of ceramic in the grease everywhere...

[clubagreenie]

Hmmm. I rode for 9 years, including 7 years of road racing. The only time I broke a spoke was when I got hit by a car. I used to run radial fronts (back when you were special if you turned up to a race with them) and radial/4 cross rears. Used to ride average of 600k's a week, would change tyres every month, a chain every 3 and gearset annually but spokes never.