More Maintenance & Changes

Maintenance has been ongoing with the "fleet" of bikes here throughout the end of January and early February. I thought I might take some time to detail what I've been up to and show any changes i've made of late. 

The Tamland got some long, long overdue maintenance recently. How long has this been waiting? Well, I got the chain and cassette for this repair over a year ago. That long! 

I took the opportunity to clean it up thoroughly as well. At the time I did this I was thinking we might be in for an epic "slop season" with all that snow. However; that did not materialize and now I am contemplating removal of the fenders so I can test something else out on the bike. Stay tuned on that...

Otherwise the Tamland Two is pretty much good to go. That bike is "set in stone" as far as how I have it set up with the exception of the fenders and I do have alternate wheels for it. I gotta get that out a few more times than I did last year. It's the ten year anniversary for this bike, by the way, which happens next month. Look for a special post about that coming in a few weeks.

I road the Fargo a couple of times recently for some in-town rides and I was rethinking my take on the Hy Rd calipers. 

I was pretty much thinking they were much like the TRP brakes on the aforementioned Tamland Two. That being more "on-off" with little modulation. But then I found through more riding that the Hy Rd does have a bit softer feel than the TRP full hydraulics do. 

This probably has a lot to do with the fact that my cable housing flexes somewhat and a full hydraulic set up has very little housing expansion. That would account for the softer feel of the Hy Rd right there. 

It is still a very powerful brake, and very quiet. This, more than anything else, is what I like best about the Hy Rd's. I cannot remember a time where those old Avids were "quiet". BB-7's are inherently noisy unless you have the really old and really rare single piece caliper BB-7's. Those are a lot quieter than the newer versions are. 

The Pofahl Signature Custom single speed. Notice anything different? (Ha!)

The Pofahl had the maintenance wand waved over it recently as well. I cleaned out the old I-9 hub and re-greased it with some DuMonde Tech Liquid Grease. It needed it too! It was very black and dried up for the most part inside there before I cleaned it all out with some Finish Line degreaser followed up with some WD-40 and then the Liquid Grease. 

That hub was insanely buzzy before the maintenance but afterward it was relatively quiet. I actually have to attune my ear to it now. So, that's a big improvement and a testament to what a good grease can do inside a hub. 

So, another rig ready to go and I hope to do just that with this bike and the Karate Monkey which I also did a little change to. I swapped out the 17T cog for an 18T rear cog to take the bite out of accelerating that bike. One tooth? Yes. Yes it does make a difference. I know because I have been riding it a fair amount of late. I probably will be doing some country rides on it soon to get accustomed to single speed gravel again and so I can test something on the bike I can't talk about just yet. 

That's about it for now. Stay tuned for more soon....