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| Buddy, a Couple of Years Back.... |
Anyway, after 8000 miles, I guess I'm not surprised I need more than simply a new chain. This is going to cost some coin. My estimate - a Jaguar unit or so.
In the meantime, I'm riding my wife's bike. It is a bike with uncounted mileage. When I asked her when that bottom bracket was last rebuilt, the response was "you need to rebuild that?" That bike, while more than 40 years old, still keeps on running. So, what is YOUR definition of a "beater bike?"
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| 40 Years and Counting. Pay NO ATTENTION to that thing that LOOKS Like a Kickstand! |
11 comments:
Oy! The more I get into roadbikes, the less I understand how you can "commute" on Buddy! That creature looks like it belongs in a paceline. Also, what on earth is a Jaguar unit?...
Hold on, I'm supposed to change my chain every four months? Uh oh. I only hope my bike is more like your wife's than like Buddy.
Other than the ten speed drivetrain, Buddy is very well suited to commuting, though it is optimized for the longer commute (40 miles per day) for which it was purchased. A Jaguar Unit is $500. Any work done on a Jaguar turns out to be some multiple of Jaguar Units. My wife's bike is far from perfect. Old, 27" wheels have definite disadvantages. And I miss the commute convenience of the Topeak system.
Still, bike builders have traded bullet proof reliability and end-user repairability away in their drivetrains.
Beater bike: Any of a number of bicycles obtained at yard sales, flea markets, or from private sellers which are still usable. They have straight frames, good wheels, and low-mileage drive trains. Often, the tires are rotted from disuse and the cables desperately need lubrication. Likewise, the grease in hubs and bottom bracket may be dried out. When parts are unobtainable or expensive, convert the beater to a fixed gear or single speed.
Measure the chain wear with a ruler, Steve. A new chain is precisely 12 inches between centers. The wear limit is 12 and 1/8. If you replace it before it exceeds the limit, you can extend the service life of the chain rings and cogs.
I was at a bike shop buying a new chain for Gilbert when I rebuilt him a year or so ago (I had bought the wrong size when I was at Harris and didn't have time to trek back out there). The newbie mechanic opined with great authority that I needed to replace the cluster every time I replaced the chain. I'm afraid I looked at him blankly, because a) there is no cluster, and b) the time horizon on replacing a chain on an IGH with chaincase is effectively 20 years or something ridiculous like that.
I did overhaul the BB on him, but I don't imagine I'll have to re-do it for several years..
I used to think there was such a thing as a beater bike, but now I'm not so sure.
Hmmm...a Jaguar unit. Seems to me the chain, cassette and pulleys could be had for less than half that, even using high end stuff. Surely you haven't worn out the front chain rings as well. Hope they don't charge you an arm and a leg for labor.
I finally broke down and bought a chain checker this summer so I could more proactively monitor chain wear. Without it, I tended to get too far gone on the commuter bike before thinking to check it. But...1,000 miles is probably overkill unless you never lube your chain.
Re Jaguar unit: I'm having a fair amount of other deferred maintenance done in addition to the drivetrain work. My first chain went 4000 miles and the shop I took it to told me I brought it in soon enough to avoid excessive cassette/chainwheel wear. I neglected, however, to consider that subsequent chains would wear quicker due to the gears not being "new" any more. I compounded that error by failing to take action on symptoms I noticed as early as last spring. I did not take my road bike to the Cycle Savvy course in September only out of fondness for it. Tracy, the cassette is Ultegra and they are charging $100 for it.
Ed's advice to check the chain with a ruler is good, but that presumes I could actually FIND a ruler in a house with four women that do artsy craftsy stuff.
Y'all can bet a chain checker is on MY Christmas list.
Pay no attention to that kickstand behind the curtain!
A Jaguar Unit sounds a tad like a Porsche Unit, i.e., you can't fix anything without dropping serious bucks. We used to equate Porsche units with Punahou School units back in Hawaii, when one of my colleagues had a 944 Turbo almost identical to mine and another colleague was putting two kids through Punahou, a private K-12 school in Honolulu. Or as my wife used to say, just different names for huge money sinks.
Ed's def of a beater bike sounds good to me. My best beater bike was a nearly unused Miyata 310 I purchased in Hawaii for about fifty bucks at a garage sale. The 310 was a nice, middle of the road bike meant to be ridden fast. Aside from an ant colony living in the tubeset, it was practically brand new. That bike spent many a year as my primary commuter when I lived 12 miles from the U of Hawaii and rode that commute pretty fast.
One can get a Park CC 3.2 chain checker, which makes checking chain wear pretty easy.
I have forsworn using a 2x10 or 3x10 as a daily commuter due to the fast wear of ten speed chains and components coupled with the expense of that stuff. A 2x9 with a compact front crank works pretty well, and 9 speed components are not as pricey.
Of course, YMMV.
Lately, I've been riding my wife's 2X5. My road bike is 2X8. The 2X5 lasts for decades. The bike shop also didn't like my tires. Sigh. Luckily I already had brand new ones in reserve, so all that means is I have to change a couple of tires to put the old ones back on. Actually, I'll probably only put one of the old ones back on. The other has 4k miles and the sidewall is suffering sun damage.
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