R: Tape Loading Error

Like many boys of my generation, I spent a large proportion of my youth fiddling with cassettes.

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Building the bike has required fiddling with cassettes of a different kind:

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The cassette above is a Shimano Dura ace, whereas I fitted a Shimano Tiagra cassette to my bike. It fits onto your back wheel, and is the part that your chain hooks on to, providing the "drive" that moves you forward. My cassette has 9 rings - the largest ring is the lowest gear, the smallest ring is the highest gear.

Here's my back wheel, before fitting the cassette:

The rings of the cassette slip over the larger grey spindle on the right-hand side. As with all cleverly-designed things, there are different-size notches on the inside of the rings, which correspond to matching notches on the spindle. That means you can't put the rings on in the wrong alignment.

Once all the rings are on, it's secured with a "cap" that requires a special cassette tool to tighten:

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The narrow end fits onto the cap, and you can use a normal spanner to do the tightening.

With the cassette fitted, you're now ready to fit the wheels and put everything together!