Well, the good news is that he also made TV programme on the same theme, and it's on iPlayer until this Thursday. I recommend you watch it while you can - it's an enjoyable way to spend an hour, it's educational without being dull, and it's impossible not to be affected by Robert Penn's enthusiasm for the bicycle.
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Catch it while you can!
If you skip back through this blog a few months, you may remember I mentioned a book called "It's All About The Bike" by Robert Penn. It was an engaging mix of the author's own personal cycling history, the history of the bicycle itself, and the story of the building of his dream bike. It was a large influence on my choice of frame and handlebars, too.
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
I can ride my bike with no handlebars
Actually, I can't. But it's a really catchy handlebar-related tune, and I couldn't let the opportunity to mention it pass.
As well as being the bit of the bike that you hold onto, the handlebars in many ways also hold the rest of the bike together. Without the handlebars, you've got nothing to put the brake and shift levers on, and without them you'll have trouble both moving and stopping.
I've got black Cinelli Vai XL shallow drop handlebars. For those of you who have only ever ridden hybrids or mountain bikes, they're the loopy-type bars which are often the most recognisable feature of a road bike. The fact they're shallow drop bars means they're not quite as loopy as some, while the XL indicates that the centre of the bar, which is clamped by the stem, has a larger circumference than the standard Cinelli Vai handlebars. In fact, it perfectly fits my Cinelli Vai XL stem!
Following the instructions which came with the stem and the bars, I whipped out my torque wrench and tightened the bars in the stem to the recommended level.
All good, part one done. Now, for the levers. I've got Shimano Tiagra STI levers. Operating them is simple enough, but fitting them was slightly tricky.
You can't see it on the picture I linked to there, but the black covering for the "body" of the levers is actually rubber, and when you pull it back you see a metal ring. The idea is that you slip the ring onto the end of your handlebar, and slide it up the curvy bit of the bar until it reaches the top.
In theory it's very simple, but in practice it took me a little while. There's a little screw hidden under another part of the rubber cover, which loosens and tightens the ring. Obviously, to slide the lever into position without scratching the bar, the ring has to be sufficiently loose to move freely. Once it's in the correct position (find what's most comfortable for you by sitting on the bike and adjusting) you then need to tighten it nice and firmly in order to make sure the lever doesn't move around when you're riding.
(Side note: Naturally, I didn't tighten one of the rings enough, so one of my levers does slide around a bit. But not much. And it just all adds to the charm of the machine, I think. Why don't I just tighten it up now? I'll deal with that another day.)
With the levers in place, you're now all nice and ready to feed the cables into them, but before that you need to fit the bits that the other ends of the cable attach to ...
You can't see it on the picture I linked to there, but the black covering for the "body" of the levers is actually rubber, and when you pull it back you see a metal ring. The idea is that you slip the ring onto the end of your handlebar, and slide it up the curvy bit of the bar until it reaches the top.
In theory it's very simple, but in practice it took me a little while. There's a little screw hidden under another part of the rubber cover, which loosens and tightens the ring. Obviously, to slide the lever into position without scratching the bar, the ring has to be sufficiently loose to move freely. Once it's in the correct position (find what's most comfortable for you by sitting on the bike and adjusting) you then need to tighten it nice and firmly in order to make sure the lever doesn't move around when you're riding.
(Side note: Naturally, I didn't tighten one of the rings enough, so one of my levers does slide around a bit. But not much. And it just all adds to the charm of the machine, I think. Why don't I just tighten it up now? I'll deal with that another day.)
With the levers in place, you're now all nice and ready to feed the cables into them, but before that you need to fit the bits that the other ends of the cable attach to ...
Friday, 22 April 2011
Let's Torque about it
OK, let's start with a quick bit of word association.
If I say "IKEA", what do you think of first?
Personally, I think of these:
Aside from their furniture assembly uses, I was surprised to find that the Allen key is also a staple of bicycle building. In actual fact, some of the keys I used in assembling my bike were actually ones left over from furniture I've assembled in the past. They do the job perfectly.
Most of the time, anyway.
For tasks which aren't part of the standard cable-loosening-or-tightening maintenance routine, you sometimes have to take more care. Attaching your handlebars to the stem, for example - another occasion where I read my least favourite of all phrases, "catastrophic failure", a few times.
This was with reference to the over-tightening of the bolts on the clamp which grips the handlebars firmly in the stem:
As you can see from the picture, there are four of these on my stem, and from the manufacturer's instructions (Cinelli in this case), it arises that it's important these are tightened equally and, most importantly, not over-tightened, lest the bar become over-stressed and break. The equal tightening bit is easy, just give each bolt a turn or two, then move on to the next one, turn it the same number of times, wash, rinse, repeat. Simple.
But what about not over-tightening them? Other than just guessing based on how tight the bolt "feels" when you turn it (which on my scale ranges from "single finger whee" through "twiddle" to "whole body nggggghhhh"), how do you actually adhere to the manufacturer's tightening instructions?
The answer is with a torque wrench, my new favourite piece of kit:
It consists of a long "body" (the handle end is the black rubber bit), and a number of Allen key heads of different sizes. Simplistically, just attach the right size of key to the body, and it works just like a standard Allen key, but crucially prevents you from over-tightening bolts.
Through some combination of magic and engineering, you can twist the handle of the body to set a "maximum torque" (measured in Newton metres, abbreviated to Nm). Manufacturers are usually kind enough to mark on the things to be bolted together the maximum torque which should be used. Alternatively, you'll find it in the manual that came with the parts in question.
When you're tightening the relevant bolts, the wrench will make a little "click" sound to indicate that you've reached the tightening limit. It really is that simple.
The thing about torque wrenches, though, is that they're precision equipment (mine came with a calibration certificate and everything), and consequently not cheap. Mine cost me £48, and so far I've used it to tighten a grand total of 4 bolts - £12 per bolt, if you look at it that way. But hopefully my handlebars won't fall off, and I value that as worth much, much more.
If I say "IKEA", what do you think of first?
- Self-assembly furniture.
- The letter Ø or Ö.
- Vikings.
- Meatballs.
- Queueing.
- Mitch Benn's fantastic song.
- The futility of life on Earth.
Personally, I think of these:
Most of the time, anyway.
For tasks which aren't part of the standard cable-loosening-or-tightening maintenance routine, you sometimes have to take more care. Attaching your handlebars to the stem, for example - another occasion where I read my least favourite of all phrases, "catastrophic failure", a few times.
This was with reference to the over-tightening of the bolts on the clamp which grips the handlebars firmly in the stem:
As you can see from the picture, there are four of these on my stem, and from the manufacturer's instructions (Cinelli in this case), it arises that it's important these are tightened equally and, most importantly, not over-tightened, lest the bar become over-stressed and break. The equal tightening bit is easy, just give each bolt a turn or two, then move on to the next one, turn it the same number of times, wash, rinse, repeat. Simple.
But what about not over-tightening them? Other than just guessing based on how tight the bolt "feels" when you turn it (which on my scale ranges from "single finger whee" through "twiddle" to "whole body nggggghhhh"), how do you actually adhere to the manufacturer's tightening instructions?
The answer is with a torque wrench, my new favourite piece of kit:
It consists of a long "body" (the handle end is the black rubber bit), and a number of Allen key heads of different sizes. Simplistically, just attach the right size of key to the body, and it works just like a standard Allen key, but crucially prevents you from over-tightening bolts.
Through some combination of magic and engineering, you can twist the handle of the body to set a "maximum torque" (measured in Newton metres, abbreviated to Nm). Manufacturers are usually kind enough to mark on the things to be bolted together the maximum torque which should be used. Alternatively, you'll find it in the manual that came with the parts in question.
When you're tightening the relevant bolts, the wrench will make a little "click" sound to indicate that you've reached the tightening limit. It really is that simple.
The thing about torque wrenches, though, is that they're precision equipment (mine came with a calibration certificate and everything), and consequently not cheap. Mine cost me £48, and so far I've used it to tighten a grand total of 4 bolts - £12 per bolt, if you look at it that way. But hopefully my handlebars won't fall off, and I value that as worth much, much more.
Monday, 28 March 2011
Stop!
Dear reader,
It was all going so well. The bottom bracket was in, cranks attached, and I fitted the front and rear derailleurs (more on all of that later). I'd bought the wheels (again, more on them later), fitted the tyres (ditto), and the bare frame was gradually beginning to look like a proper bike.
Then I tried to fit the brakes.
First, some background. The brakes I'm fitting to the bike are caliper brakes. If you've previously ridden mountain or hybrid bikes, you may not have seen these - disc or V-brakes tend to be more popular on those. Here's what they look like:
When fitted, a wire runs down the left hand side of the brake, from the bolt on the top to the one on the left. When you pull the brake lever, the arm on the left moves, pulling the brake shoes (the black bits) against the metal rim of your wheel.
Well, that's the theory, anyway. Here's the problems I encountered, in turn:
1. Fitting the right brake at the right end of the bike
Those two brakes above look pretty similar, don't they? So you can fit whatever one you want on the back and the front, right?
Wrong.
Caliper brakes are fitted to your forks (at the front) and frame (at the back) by a single bolt right in the centre, at the highest point of the body of the brake. You can just about see these bolts in the picture above.
There'll be matching holes front and back on your bike. Here's what the one at the front looks like:
Just slip the bolt through the hole, fasten a nut on it at the other side, make sure it's nice and tight, and you're done.
Except you're not. The hole in your fork is going to be deeper than the one at the back of your frame, and caliper brakes come with bolts whose lengths match those depths. This caught me out, and I mistakenly tried to fit the front brake to the back.
No harm done, it didn't fasten properly, so I took it off and fitted them the right way round. Done yet? No.
2. Variations in bolt length
For different combinations of brake and frame, the bolts may or may not be exactly the length you need to get a good, tight fit that keeps the brake nice and steady. As it turns out, for a Genesis Equilibrium frame and Shimano Tiagra brakes, the bolts are slightly too long, which makes it difficult (if not impossible) to tighten them properly.
This problem, too, was easily enough solved. I just got some little washers from Homebase, slipped a couple on the bolts before I put them through the holes, and fastened the nuts. The brakes were fastened nice and tight, but still something didn't look right ...
3. Brake drop
When I pushed the arms of the brakes together, so that they contacted the wheel, I noticed they were hitting more tyre than they were rim. This was rather frustrating.
I noticed a couple of bolts holding the brake shoes tight, so I undid them and tried to fiddle around with the shoe positions to get more contact with the rim. No joy.
It turns out that the Tiagra brakes are just plain incompatible with the Equilibrium frame - which nicely explains why the pre-built Equilibriums don't come with them as standard. The fundamental problem is something known as brake drop.
Brake drop is the distance from the middle of the bolt hole in your fork or frame, to the middle of your wheel's rim. On typical road bikes, the brake drop is around 47mm. This is what the Tiagra brakes are built for. On the Equilibrium, the brake drop is around 57mm, which essentially means that the brake shoes on the Tiagra brakes can't ever reach down far enough to hit enough of the rim.
The solution? Stick the Tiagra brakes on eBay (still to do, I've never sold anything on eBay ... scary!) and buy some deep drop brakes, which do have a brake drop of 57mm. I've gone for Tektro 538 brakes, which should do the trick nicely.
It was all going so well. The bottom bracket was in, cranks attached, and I fitted the front and rear derailleurs (more on all of that later). I'd bought the wheels (again, more on them later), fitted the tyres (ditto), and the bare frame was gradually beginning to look like a proper bike.
Then I tried to fit the brakes.
First, some background. The brakes I'm fitting to the bike are caliper brakes. If you've previously ridden mountain or hybrid bikes, you may not have seen these - disc or V-brakes tend to be more popular on those. Here's what they look like:
When fitted, a wire runs down the left hand side of the brake, from the bolt on the top to the one on the left. When you pull the brake lever, the arm on the left moves, pulling the brake shoes (the black bits) against the metal rim of your wheel.
Well, that's the theory, anyway. Here's the problems I encountered, in turn:
1. Fitting the right brake at the right end of the bike
Those two brakes above look pretty similar, don't they? So you can fit whatever one you want on the back and the front, right?
Wrong.
Caliper brakes are fitted to your forks (at the front) and frame (at the back) by a single bolt right in the centre, at the highest point of the body of the brake. You can just about see these bolts in the picture above.
There'll be matching holes front and back on your bike. Here's what the one at the front looks like:
Just slip the bolt through the hole, fasten a nut on it at the other side, make sure it's nice and tight, and you're done.
Except you're not. The hole in your fork is going to be deeper than the one at the back of your frame, and caliper brakes come with bolts whose lengths match those depths. This caught me out, and I mistakenly tried to fit the front brake to the back.
No harm done, it didn't fasten properly, so I took it off and fitted them the right way round. Done yet? No.
2. Variations in bolt length
For different combinations of brake and frame, the bolts may or may not be exactly the length you need to get a good, tight fit that keeps the brake nice and steady. As it turns out, for a Genesis Equilibrium frame and Shimano Tiagra brakes, the bolts are slightly too long, which makes it difficult (if not impossible) to tighten them properly.
This problem, too, was easily enough solved. I just got some little washers from Homebase, slipped a couple on the bolts before I put them through the holes, and fastened the nuts. The brakes were fastened nice and tight, but still something didn't look right ...
3. Brake drop
When I pushed the arms of the brakes together, so that they contacted the wheel, I noticed they were hitting more tyre than they were rim. This was rather frustrating.
I noticed a couple of bolts holding the brake shoes tight, so I undid them and tried to fiddle around with the shoe positions to get more contact with the rim. No joy.
It turns out that the Tiagra brakes are just plain incompatible with the Equilibrium frame - which nicely explains why the pre-built Equilibriums don't come with them as standard. The fundamental problem is something known as brake drop.
Brake drop is the distance from the middle of the bolt hole in your fork or frame, to the middle of your wheel's rim. On typical road bikes, the brake drop is around 47mm. This is what the Tiagra brakes are built for. On the Equilibrium, the brake drop is around 57mm, which essentially means that the brake shoes on the Tiagra brakes can't ever reach down far enough to hit enough of the rim.
The solution? Stick the Tiagra brakes on eBay (still to do, I've never sold anything on eBay ... scary!) and buy some deep drop brakes, which do have a brake drop of 57mm. I've gone for Tektro 538 brakes, which should do the trick nicely.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
( )
Good evening.
I'm happy to say that, after the false start with the headset and stem, tonight I have eventually broken my putting-things-on-the-bike duck. I got greased up and put the bottom bracket in.
What's a bottom bracket?
From the perspective of this amateur, a bottom bracket is to your cranks (the arms that your pedals attach to) what the headset is to your handlebars, namely a set of bearings that ensure nice, smooth, consistent movement.
The bottom bracket I bought, a Shimano Tiagra model, comes in two parts. One screws into each side of the bottom bracket shell (that's the threaded hole that the bottom bracket goes into). It's an external bottom bracket - never having seen any other kind, I'm not especially able to tell you what other types you can get, or why you'd want them.
Actually, writing this blog took longer than doing the fitting. I'm fairly confident I've done a proper job without damaging the threads in the shell. What bit goes in the right and left side are clearly marked, as are the directions of rotation to fit them. Before I started work, I did my usual scouring of the web for instructional videos, and this one from BikeRadar was about the best I found. (It's the final video on the page, Install An External Bottom Bracket.)
Aside from a little bit of patience, some grease, and the bottom bracket itself, the only other thing you need is a bottom bracket spanner to tighten the two parts up properly. It's probably important to buy the spanner that fits your bracket - I think the Shimano brackets have a standard fitting, so I was able to pick up a spanner from Wiggle pretty easily and cheaply.
The rest of the assembly needs to wait until I get my wheels sorted, which I'll be doing at the weekend.
Stay tuned.
I'm happy to say that, after the false start with the headset and stem, tonight I have eventually broken my putting-things-on-the-bike duck. I got greased up and put the bottom bracket in.
 |
| My bottom bracket! |
From the perspective of this amateur, a bottom bracket is to your cranks (the arms that your pedals attach to) what the headset is to your handlebars, namely a set of bearings that ensure nice, smooth, consistent movement.
The bottom bracket I bought, a Shimano Tiagra model, comes in two parts. One screws into each side of the bottom bracket shell (that's the threaded hole that the bottom bracket goes into). It's an external bottom bracket - never having seen any other kind, I'm not especially able to tell you what other types you can get, or why you'd want them.
Actually, writing this blog took longer than doing the fitting. I'm fairly confident I've done a proper job without damaging the threads in the shell. What bit goes in the right and left side are clearly marked, as are the directions of rotation to fit them. Before I started work, I did my usual scouring of the web for instructional videos, and this one from BikeRadar was about the best I found. (It's the final video on the page, Install An External Bottom Bracket.)
Aside from a little bit of patience, some grease, and the bottom bracket itself, the only other thing you need is a bottom bracket spanner to tighten the two parts up properly. It's probably important to buy the spanner that fits your bracket - I think the Shimano brackets have a standard fitting, so I was able to pick up a spanner from Wiggle pretty easily and cheaply.
The rest of the assembly needs to wait until I get my wheels sorted, which I'll be doing at the weekend.
Stay tuned.
Thursday, 17 March 2011
Are you sitting comfortably? I am.
When I was building my list of components at the weekend, I almost completely forgot the seatpost and saddle. It's a bit odd, that, given that without those, the bike would literally be unrideable. I guess it's because there are so many more bits that are high-tech and shiny and futuristic-looking, that the thought of how I was going to sit on this bike slipped my mind slightly.
The importance of these can't be overstated, though. There's a very good reason we use the phrase "pain in the arse" to describe something we're not overly pleased with.
First, the seatpost. This is the long post which slides into the seat tube (see the diagram I posted last month) and has the saddle attached to the top. Setting the height of the seatpost correctly is really important. If it's too high, you'll overstretch your feet and legs at the bottom of each revolution, not to mention the problems you'll have getting on the bike in the first place! If it's too low (more common, from what I've seen) you'll find your legs bowing out the way a bit at the bottom of each revolution, and you won't be making most efficient use of your legs either.
The key to setting the right seatpost height is, so I'm told, to have it high enough that your legs are almost completely stretched out at the bottom of a revolution, but not quite. At least, that's how I've got mine set, and it feels good. If you've ridden a bike with its seatpost on the low side, trust me that it'll feel funny the first few times after you adjust it, but it'll be worth it and it's not too hard to get used to.
And so, on to the saddle. I've made a pragmatic but hopefully wise choice - I'm going to use the saddle I've already got on my Ridgeback. The reasons for this are, in order:
The importance of these can't be overstated, though. There's a very good reason we use the phrase "pain in the arse" to describe something we're not overly pleased with.
First, the seatpost. This is the long post which slides into the seat tube (see the diagram I posted last month) and has the saddle attached to the top. Setting the height of the seatpost correctly is really important. If it's too high, you'll overstretch your feet and legs at the bottom of each revolution, not to mention the problems you'll have getting on the bike in the first place! If it's too low (more common, from what I've seen) you'll find your legs bowing out the way a bit at the bottom of each revolution, and you won't be making most efficient use of your legs either.
The key to setting the right seatpost height is, so I'm told, to have it high enough that your legs are almost completely stretched out at the bottom of a revolution, but not quite. At least, that's how I've got mine set, and it feels good. If you've ridden a bike with its seatpost on the low side, trust me that it'll feel funny the first few times after you adjust it, but it'll be worth it and it's not too hard to get used to.
And so, on to the saddle. I've made a pragmatic but hopefully wise choice - I'm going to use the saddle I've already got on my Ridgeback. The reasons for this are, in order:
- That saddle fits my bum perfectly (or vice versa). I've had six years of service out of it with a minimum of chafing. Some saddles - particularly leather ones, I'm led to believe - need quite some breaking in. Clearly that's not an option for me, since the bike won't be all built until early May and the ride is in June.
- The seatpost fits my new bike perfectly. I was rather surprised by this, given there appears to be little crossover in standards between road bikes and other bikes, but it's exactly the right diameter.
- I'll only ever be riding one bike at a time. Given how easy it is to remove a seatpost, having two seemed a little excessive.
- The less money I spend on things I don't need, the more I can spend on things I do. That means a better bike!
Wednesday, 16 March 2011
The gathering begins ...
Good evening, everyone.
As I said last time, having been laid low and kept off my bike by a cold at the weekend, I put my free time to good use by picking out the components for my bike. Excitingly, they've already started arriving. The first part is the stem, which is quite fortunate, as it's the next part which has to be fitted.
When I had to go about choosing a stem, I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for. I've never owned a road bike before, with the loopy handlebars, and the only time I rode one I was aware that the riding position is rather different from the one you have on a hybrid or mountain bike. I was aware of being a lot more horizontal, stretched out along the frame, whereas on my current bike I'm very upright. Upright is probably better that way for negotiating city traffic and cycle lanes, but it's not especially in keeping with what I'm looking for with this new bike.
Fortunately, though, my current Ridgeback hybrid has been able to help me out. You can actually adjust the angle of its stem, so I was able to set it up at a similar angle to what I'd expect of a road bike. I sat on it in the sort of position I expect to on the new bike, judged how it felt, and made my choice from there.
I settled on a Cinelli Vai XL 100mm stem. The stem on the Ridgeback is 80mm, and felt just a little cramped for me, so I thought I should go for something a bit longer. Fit aside, as with all the components I'm putting on this bike (and as I did with the frame), I chose it based on a combination of price and reviews I read. It seemed to hit the sweet spot I'm looking for.
I've ordered the shallow-drop Cinelli Vai XL handlebars to go with it, but unfortunately they're on back order and won't turn up until towards the end of April. That may impact on the rest of the build a bit, as I won't have anything to attach the shifters to, but there's still plenty of time.
In the meantime, I've also got a seatpost and saddle, which I'll tell you about the next time ...
As I said last time, having been laid low and kept off my bike by a cold at the weekend, I put my free time to good use by picking out the components for my bike. Excitingly, they've already started arriving. The first part is the stem, which is quite fortunate, as it's the next part which has to be fitted.
When I had to go about choosing a stem, I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for. I've never owned a road bike before, with the loopy handlebars, and the only time I rode one I was aware that the riding position is rather different from the one you have on a hybrid or mountain bike. I was aware of being a lot more horizontal, stretched out along the frame, whereas on my current bike I'm very upright. Upright is probably better that way for negotiating city traffic and cycle lanes, but it's not especially in keeping with what I'm looking for with this new bike.
Fortunately, though, my current Ridgeback hybrid has been able to help me out. You can actually adjust the angle of its stem, so I was able to set it up at a similar angle to what I'd expect of a road bike. I sat on it in the sort of position I expect to on the new bike, judged how it felt, and made my choice from there.
I settled on a Cinelli Vai XL 100mm stem. The stem on the Ridgeback is 80mm, and felt just a little cramped for me, so I thought I should go for something a bit longer. Fit aside, as with all the components I'm putting on this bike (and as I did with the frame), I chose it based on a combination of price and reviews I read. It seemed to hit the sweet spot I'm looking for.
I've ordered the shallow-drop Cinelli Vai XL handlebars to go with it, but unfortunately they're on back order and won't turn up until towards the end of April. That may impact on the rest of the build a bit, as I won't have anything to attach the shifters to, but there's still plenty of time.
In the meantime, I've also got a seatpost and saddle, which I'll tell you about the next time ...
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