Category Archives: Bicycle restoration

Feeling Tense?

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Spoke tension isn’t something I’ve spent much time worrying about.  Mostly, I ride on wheels that I have built, and mostly those wheels have stayed true and problem free.  I haven’t ever had a broken spoke on any wheels I’ve ridden. The vintage wheels I use are usually well built but sometimes need some truing and dishing.  So, I’ve never had to re-tension a wheel…until now.

The wheel in question is the Swytch e-bike front motor wheel which I installed about 7 months ago on my Bridgestone (see previous post).  A few months ago I began hearing some strange noises from the wheel when braking hard or when going over a bump.  It was a noise I recognized as a spoke noise.  Spoke noises should not be ignored, as they could indicate a wheel on the verge of failure.

On the roadside after a particularly concerning noise, I flipped the bike over and spun the wheel to see if it was true – it was. Then I began looking at the spokes and found one spoke VERY loose – almost just hanging there.  So, I did a quick tightening job with the adjustable wrench I carry and got it up to the same tension as the other spokes, and then rode home.  Unfortunately, that fix did not cure the spoke noises.  So, once home I again examined the wheel by plucking the spokes and became concerned when noting that the right side spokes were way less tense than the left.  It look me a moment to realize that this front wheel is dished. The above photo shows that the flanges of the hub are not centered, to allow for the wheel magnets on the left side motor to have room to spin.

I didn’t have my wheel building tools at home, only a very basic spoke wrench of the wrong size (the spokes are 2.3 mm diameter  – meaning a 13 gauge nipple).  After squeezing pairs of spokes on each side of the wheel and observing a great deal of movement in the spokes, I realized I needed to up the tension to a minimally acceptable level in order to safely ride the bike over to my shop.  Using my adjustable wrench I turned each spoke a quarter turn.  I played a “G” note on my phone to aim for a reasonably correct initial tension, based on past wheels I have built.  To achieve this I needed another quarter turn on all the spoke nipples.  The wheel stayed fairly true, even after another round of “stress relieving”.

(C) Avocet, Jobst Brandt, the Bicycle Wheel, p. 57

What is stress relieving?  According to bicycle engineer Jobst Brandt (RIP) in his famed classic, the Bicycle Wheel, “stress relieving is one of the most important operations in wheel building”.  He goes on to argue that failure to relieve spoke stress is the most common cause of spoke failure.

To perform this procedure, you place your hands opposite each other on the wheel and grab pairs of parallel spokes, and then squeeze hard, continuing around the wheel until all the spokes have been stretched.  If the wheel goes out of true in “two smooth waves” after this it means that spoke tension was too high.  Brandt recommends getting spoke tension as high as possible, just short of causing rim failure.  This will create the strongest wheel.

While I have always performed the stress relieving procedure on the wheels I have built, I haven’t considered that I should up the spoke tension to the absolute maximum.  Instead, I have aimed for a musical note – somewhere between F and G – and also use a Park tension meter and chart to check my work.

When you buy a Park Tension Meter, you are also supplied with their handy tension guide which is organized by type of spoke (round, butted, bladed, etc.) and spoke diameter.  So, once I was in the shop I located a correct spoke wrench, then determined what meter reading I was aiming for – the middle range for a 2.3mm spoke – which is a reading of about 27 or 28 on the Park Tension Meter.  My initial reading was about 21, which did not even register on Park’s chart, being below the minimum recommended kgf of 54.  This was after tightening the spokes 1/2 turn while at home!  After continuing 1/4 turns around the rim, I was able to bring the tension up to the mid range of the recommended kgf of about 92, equating to a reading of 27 on the tension meter.  After this, I performed the stress relieving operation, then did some minor truing.  I checked the dish which remained correct, and then began riding the wheel again.

The wheel seemed fine for awhile but now I am hearing spoke noises again, meaning that the wheel is continuing to de-tension itself.  I am going to guess that possible causes include bad spoke threads and low quality nipples.  I’ve notified Swytch and they are sending me a new wheel.  But will this solve the problem?

Jobst Brandt had a number of strong opinions about machine built wheels, arguing that the wheel building process for machine built wheels is essentially incomplete.  An archive of his on-line writings can be found here.  I’m going to research this issue further and may end up rebuilding the old wheel with my own choice of spokes and nipples.  At a minimum I will perform the stress relieving and re-tensioning procedure on the new wheel to insure that I start out at the correct tension.  And, I may consider upping the tension to the higher range on Park’s tension chart, just to be on the safe side.

A Raleigh Alyeska Touring Bike

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During the mid-1980’s Raleigh came out with a whole touring line-up that ranged from the top-end 650b Portage to the entry level Wyoming model.  In between were the Kodiak and the Alyeska models which used 27inch wheels.  All of their touring frames were built with Reynolds double butted 555R tubing and forged dropouts, with the main differences among the models being the fork material, braze-ons and components.  All of these bikes were simply amazing in their build quality, and any one of them would be a great platform for many different kinds of riding.

When I purchased the bike 16 years ago from an eBay seller, it had gone through a restoration which involved having the frame powdercoated.  The job was well done, and the brick red color is evokes somewhat the hue of the original paint.  The lugs and lettering were highlighted with gold, a nice touch.

The Alyeska model featured so many nice touches:  a rear brake bridge, double eyelets front and rear, vertical rear dropout, 2 bottle cage mounts, a pump peg, rear rack and front low-rider braze-ons, and classy engraved Raleigh lettering on the seat stays, as well as the Raleigh logo engraved on the fork crown.

I believe this bike hails from 1986, given that the bottom bracket serial number begins with a 6.  The above scans are from a 1986 catalog I found at kurtkaminer.com.  You can also find a beautifully scanned 1984 catalog at Josh Capps’ site,The Simplicity of Vintage Cycles.

The original Sakae CR touring crankset was included with the bike when I purchased it.  However, I did swap out the middle 45T ring for a 39er, to make shifting a little easier, as not everyone is a fan of half-step gearing.  These chainrings are now 50/39/30.

I also made some other drive chain changes from the previous build to make the bike more user friendly:  a 14-28  7 speed indexing freewheel, Shimano indexing/friction bar end shifters and a bullet proof Shimano Acera rear derailleur.  The front derailleur is the original Shimano model and works well with the triple crank.  Gearing is now 29-96 gear inches.

The wheels are a new in 2007 set built by legendary Harris Cyclery (RIP) using SR M13II rims laced to Quando sealed bearing hubs.  I’ve never had to true the wheelset in all this time, and the Quando hubs are spinning perfectly as well.  The previous owner kept the original 27 inch wheel size for this upgrade, but the cantilevers will easily accept a 700c wheel.

And, the upgrade done by the previous owner included my favorite cantilevers:  Suntour XC Pro in classy Champagne finish.  There’s nothing to improve here!

I enhanced the elegance of this bike with a rando style bottle cage and some lovely MKS touring pedals.  I also added SKS fenders and removed the gigantic Surly touring racks included with the bike when I first purchased it.

Custom Meral and Raleigh Alyeska at the Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island.

We had loads of fun on the many rides we enjoyed over the last 16 years, but as of late the bike has not been ridden much.  It is time to pass it on to a new custodian.

I gave the bike a complete overhaul, and while most of the bike was in surprisingly great shape, I did find some nearly complete paint loss on the rear dropout.  A few small areas of paint loss also developed underneath the bottom bracket.  I have found similar issues on other powder coated frames I have worked on.  A bit of surface rust had developed on the exposed areas, so it was necessary to sand the compromised areas down, then apply primer and paint.  When I applied the first several coats of primer, I noticed that it was nearly the same color as the powder coat itself.  So, I called it good and added a few coats of clear coat on top.  The color difference is not really noticeable, as you can see from the previous photos.

It’s time to sell this lovely 37 year old.  It’s looking spry and should last for decades to come. The frame size is 21 inches which translates to a 53 cm seat tube.  Top tube length is 54 cm. I prefer to sell it locally ($900 firm) and not ship it, so if any Portland area readers are interested, please contact me:

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Wear and Tear

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Portland grown tomatoes

It was an extraordinarily gorgeous summer here in Portland.  We didn’t have super hot days, nor tons of wildfire smoke.  It was dry, as is true of the last several summers, but sans apocalyptic occurrences like pandemics, heat domes, and unbreathable air.  In short, this summer was a welcome relief from the past few even though we had very little rain.  While my flower and vegetable garden thrived,this also seemed to be the season of various equipment failures, including rims, tires, cassettes, an ebike motor, and my own muscles.

Deore hubs

Ritchey rims

What seemed to start it all off were the Ritchey rims that I had been using temporarily on my Terry.  These are 80’s rims that came off the Bridgestone and in a long convoluted story of wheel and tire swaps, they ended up on my Terry, replacing the wheelset I had originally built for the bike.

I never liked these un-eyeleted rims, but they were laced to a smooth as glass Deore hubset that really made the bike whiz around impressively.  So I tolerated the fact that I had to true them with some frequency, which is definitely not normal.  Finally I decided to take a closer look at the rims and discovered that some stress cracks were beginning to develop around the spoke holes.  That explained the truing problem, and made me worry that the rims were on the verge of failure.

This led to a lengthy process of trying to source either an appropriate 26 inch wheelset or a set of narrower 26 inch rims to replace the Ritcheys.  As part of this process I also noted that my tires (26X1.25 Pasela Tourguards) were looking pretty bald and worn.  And that involved another lengthy process of trying to source 26X1.25 tires, which are now nearly non-existent in the marketplace.  (Note: The Society of Three Speeds Blog recently posted about the difficulty in sourcing 26 x 1 3/8 tires and rims, which are used on many vintage 3 speed bikes.  This is a different size than used on my Terry, but also sad to note.)

I finally found some non-belted Paselas on eBay, and a set of CR18 rims from good ol’ Bell’s Bike Shop.  The regular Paselas ride a bit nicer than their belted counterparts, but offer less flat protection.  Also, they measure 28mm wide mounted to my rims as opposed to the 32mm wide Tourguards.  I was hoping they would plump out after use, but sadly – no go.  While waiting around for rims, I really wanted to keep riding the Terry so I stole the wheelset off the Bridgestone, and now the Terry is back to the wheelset I originally built.

All was well and good until I pulled a muscle during an over-vigorous and un-warmed-up climb and then had to stop riding altogether for awhile.  When I got the go ahead to cycle again, I needed to take it easy (impossible due to the hills around my house) and that meant using the dreaded…Brompton e-bike.

Ebike Schmeebike

Atop Mt. Tabor

So, am I being too harsh in my dislike of this bike?  I still own it and would happily sell it.  I think it was a mistake to to offer an e-bike version of the Brompton without making critical changes to address the harsh and bumpy ride (bigger tires, bigger wheels even?, front suspension?).  I would forgive all of this bike’s other disappointments if the ride quality could be improved.  Nonetheless, I rode around on this bike while recovering from my injury.  The one upside:  riding to the top of Mt. Tabor with energy to spare.

While my spine suffered abuse bouncing around on the Brompton, my muscles did heal, and finally I was back to riding my regular bikes.  During this time, an acquaintance let me know that he was selling his e-bike (not a Brompton but an Aventon) to upgrade to a new e-bike.  His bike looked about right for a family member that expressed interest in getting back into riding.  So, I bought his bike (which did not have a transferrable warranty) and planned to tune it up and pass it on to my family member.  Even though the bike worked fine on my test ride, it failed to operate as soon as I brought it back to my shop.  I then took it to the dealer, who though it was the controller cable gone bad that was causing the failure.  After waiting months for a replacement part, it turned out the that motor itself had failed, after only 11 months of use.  With no warranty, the cost to build the new motor into the wheel just didn’t make sense.  While I could have done it myself, at this point I didn’t want to throw good energy after bad money.  So, I gave the bike to the dealer.  So much for quality control.

Freehub too free?

1980s ALAN

During the rainless summer days, I was able to ride the ALAN with more frequency.  This bike was built as a cyclocross machine but I converted to commuting duty.  It’s got 24 inch wheels, and was built as a “Junior Racer” which may describe me as well.

11 tooth smalll cog

Wear on the splines

But yet another equipment failure occurred with the ALAN:  my gears began slipping in the higher gear/smaller cogs.  While this was happening my memory was prompted to think about the freehub:  it’s from the ’80s; and it’s weird.  I started to remember that either the freehub couldn’t take an 11 tooth small cog or that something else was odd about the freehub.

DESCRIPTION

Courtesy of Sheldon Brown

Upon getting it into the shop and removing the cassette (which was adequately torqued) I saw that it was one of those early threaded 8 speed freehubs which could accept both Uniglide and Hyperglide Shimano cassettes. I looked at the cassette and could see damage to the shoulders of the splined sections.  Then I took to the internet to read the Sheldon Brown articles about freehubs of this era.  Not only is this freehub threaded on the outside and the inside, it’s one of those non-11 tooth cog compatible hubs.  Basically, no matter how much you torque the lockring on the cassette, there will still be too much free play in the cassette if you use an 11 tooth small cog.  So, the solution is to NOT use an 11 tooth cog.  Once I figured this out, I ordered the correct 8 speed cassette and now (hopefully) I’ll never have this problem again.  Another more expensive option would be to replace the freehub, but I’ll save that for another day.

1980’s Custom Meral

On a positive note, I sold my Meral to a reader of this blog – wishing Mike many happy miles.  I’m looking forward to some splendid Fall cycling on my fun vintage machines.  And, while it can be tedious to keep our beloved bikes on the road, I think the payoff is always worth it.