Creaks, Squeaks and Outright Embarassment....

 Well having praised my Super Acciaio in previous posts I'm harbouring a dark secret.... Hmmm it all started after around 500mls. I've fitted a Campag Athena groupset to which I've had to use the Campag BB30 adaptors. Throughout the various internet forums you'll find many discussions about this topic namely creaking bottom brackets! Now from day one I've lived in fear, bordering on paranoia, of the inevitable squeaking, creaking Campag crankset. And so it came to pass that from a beautiful virtual silence suddenly a ticking appeared which slowly became a voluminous creaking every pedal turn. This would sometimes quieten but still obviously there, other times it would announce itself to everyone in earshot. Theres nothing worse than riding a beautiful bike whilst passing bystanders and emitting a sound akin to honeymooners bedsprings. Well it does make you ride faster to save your embarrassment, always look for a positive in bleak times. 

 Well I started investigating beginning with the main suspect the BB. I'd installed the whole crankset according to Campags recommendations ( also viewed their video several times ). Correct torque was applied to the crankbolt with the BB30 cups greased and press fitted. One thing I had noticed over the first 100mls was the drive side cup migrating out around 1mm. I believe this is why many suggest using loctite to lock the cup, I'd avoided this as it could cause problems if I wished to remove the cup at a later date. In hindsight it may have been a non-issue as the driveside bearing is on the crank rather than embedded in the cup so the cup could be fixed more permanently. I'd run with this small 1mm gap for many miles prior to the creak so it didn't make sense. Next suspect hauled in for question was the chainring bolts, the recommendation here ( from the internet ) is to undo all the bolts thoroughly grease and re-torque as appropriate. I checked the torque of all the bolts and all was well, the mystery deepened. Every time I'd hold the bike and stand hard on the pedal pushing downward I'd hear an audible creak. The pedals threads were already greased but I removed, checked and regreased to no avail. Anyway whilst out riding last week I unshipped my chain when multishifting on both levers, not my normal method but circumstances forced me, including a bus. I went home and checked my front shifting on the bike stand, in doing so I started adjusting the front mech cable tension. After 15mins of tweaking my shift was back to square one, no perceptable change still spot on. The rear hasn't been adjusted since fitting, still indexing fine on 11-speed. I took the bike out for a ride and silence. This had me worried, was it going to rear it's head at any moment?  Well I've now done just over 100mls and still silent. Unless the problem re-occurs I believe the root cause of the issue was the tension in the front derailleur cable and its interaction with cable housing, down tube adjuster and the down tube amplifying the sound on every pedal stroke with the consequent flexing of the frame. This may well be correct as the issue was worse under high torques i.e. pushing up a hill or hard acceleration. In my adjustment I must have reduced this tension enough to stop the interaction whilst maintaining the fast front shifting. Campag is very nice in that respect.

 Creaks and squeaks are difficult to narrow down and normally unique to a particular bike setup but for now case closed, hopefully not to be re-opened.... anyway fingers crossed but the current silence is definitely golden! Any change and I'll update the outcome. 

Update:

 All was quiet for around 150-200mls then it returned, arrrggghh. Anyway during the course of riding after around 20mls the creak suddenly went and silence returned. I will most definitely investigate chainrings/carbon spider interface but the bb seems silent. Its difficult to narrow down whilst riding, I suppose you could mount on a turbo and get someone to locate the sound, anyway the investigation is reopened hopefully for a brief time! 

Update Number 2:       

 Well the latest, I've been riding in complete silence other than the normal nice sounds of a bike ride for around 200mls now. I removed all crank bolts except the main crank arm fixing and greased all with teflon grease thoroughly. Put them all back and initially thought it hadn't worked but then silence! The grease must have slowly permeated the whole of the metal-carbon interfaces and it was back to day one of quietude. I've ridden hilly routes and climbing in silly high gears pushing high torque and.... quiet. When the bike was in creaking mode you could hold the bike stationary, put weight on the drive side pedal and you'd hear a sharp tick this lead me to thinking it could be chainring connected, also when riding riding inner ring was quieter than high gears in outer. We'll see how this goes, hopefully it'll stay quiet and with the passage of time my neurosis will go into remission :-).

A photographic gem...

One of my other passions in life is photography. Most images I take tend to be diary pictures of whatever takes my interest on a walk or sometimes whilst cycling. If cycling I'll use a compact camera, otherwise I use a digital SLR. I've never fulfilled one aspect of photography that I feel would be a pleasure, that is candid portraits of interesting people, people with a story to tell and faces that reflect this. With this in mind one of the links I've put in the "Interesting Sites" column is for a local film/photographic collective based in Newcastle Upon Tyne. The collective is known as the Amber Collective and for anyone interested in photography and film, documenting communities, social change, industrial landscapes etc, the site is very much worth visiting. The Amber Collective have online documentaries to view as well as a full photographic collection of nearly 40 photographers, this includes a collection of photographs by the New York photographer Weegee. Its an excellent online resource and well worth browsing.

Its all in the eyes you know...

Over the years I've cycled its lead to a progression in the sorts of clothing etc I've worn. In the beginning I purchased a raleigh pioneer hybrid which now serves as my turbotrainer bike. I rode this initially wearing jeans and t-shirt as many probably do to this day. After a few weeks this was enhanced with padded undershorts, then a helmet!, then ronhill tracksters. Yes the order of priorities was most definitely wrong but the comfort of riding was improving. Nowadays I'm in standard cycling outfit, lycra shorts, Altura top, Giro helmet. It makes a big difference to cycling comfort and I like many learned this through riding experience. On top of the clothing described I've omitted one item that I actually do feel naked if I leave the house without, a little like driving the car without the seatbelt on. I feel vunerable without them partly because of several bad experiences prior to having them..... cycling glasses. In my formative months on the bike I had flies, bees, stones from passing cars, this all made me realise they're essential as you just never know whats coming next. These essential items are also traded at high prices on style, brand name etc but there are alternatives that I've been using for many years at extremely low cost yet surprisingly never appear in magazine reviews of low cost kit. The following links will give you an idea of whats available:-

Farnell Safety Glasses 

RS Safety Glasses

Now there are extremely unwieldy, unfashionable ones but in among these are styles similar to this which aren't bad at under £3!

 All tend to be scratch resistant, UV A+B protection and the critical one, impact resistant. A nice low cost option that can be happily broken without a remortgage. Definitely worth a cursary look even if you do still want those diamond studded Oakleys.

A note on FillThatHole......

 Just thought I'd point everyone to a useful site if not already known. It links in from my previous post in that it apertains to the state of our roads here in the UK. In Northumberland I find it hard to find a stretch of smooth tarmac nowadays whereas it should be the other way around, hard to find a stretch of rough tarmac. I'm sure across the country it'll be the same with the common excuses of reduced budgets, bad winters etc. That wears thin with me as there is a duty to maintain what you are responsible for. Fortunately for a number of years the CTC ( Cycle Touring and Campaigning ) have a website dedicated to reporting potholes, poor road surfaces and bodged repairs - FillThatHole, put that in your history if you dare! Its an excellent resource as it allows full reporting without you requiring to know the agency responsible. I've added the link in my Interesting Places list, I highly recommend using it so we can all get the authorities to keep on top of what in some cases are accidents waiting to happen.

A typical example of what I find sadly all too often nowadays.

Super Acciaio on the road.. some brief feedback.

 Well having described at length how I came to having a Condor Super Acciaio the one thing missing was how does it ride? Its early days to some extent but I've clocked up probably around 750-1000mls on the bike. At the beginning there was the usual procedure of getting your bike position fine tuned. I'd originally set the saddle height, reach etc to as close to my original road bike as possible. I never had geometry data for my previous road bike frame ( Ambrosio Stelvio Carbon ) so my initial rides felt different and I dropped the saddle height by about 1cm and shifted the saddle back around the same. These two small changes had me feeling totally at one with the bike and very comfortable. Tiny changes by all accounts but in my experience to date thats what I've always found. The data I obtained using RattleCad was excellent and its progressed even further than the version I used, makes me want to build up more bikes!

 

 The bike itself is the sum of the parts so I can't attribute the ride quality to simply the frame. I wanted to use 25mm tyres, partly due to the high praise and recommendations they currently receive for shock absorption and rolling resistance but could not find stock at the right price. So I'm riding on 23mm at about 115psi. The bike will move over typically frost spalled surfaces with very little buzz coming through. In fact my hands tend not to feel anything which they certainly did on my previous road bike. So the front end seems to work and consists of Easton EA50 bars,Cinelli gel tape and the Deda carbon fork. The same can be said at the rear of the bike over these surfaces. Over much harsher holes and ruts you do get a hit but.. how can I describe it? like being hit with a hammer through a pillow I suppose.. you know you've taken a hit but it was definitely softer. Northumberland county council's highways dept have certainly aided population control with their road surfaces! It is more comfortable than my Ambrosio Stelvio but carbon frames have taken leaps forward so I cannot compare to a Specialized Roubaix or similar as I have never ridden one. What I do know is I look forward to riding it, the handling is stress free not as twitchy as my other bike. The seat tube and head tube angles for my 55cm both being 73.5degrees. I suspect my Ambrosio's head tube may have been 74 degrees. Weightwise it may not be super lightweight at 18.3lbs but you could make that 16.5lbs simply spend more, it certainly doesn't feel heavy when riding it and accelerating, it just feels right. A nice alternative to many bikes and worth looking at if you're in the market for a new build.

Currently experimenting with tyre pressures using the 15% drop method. I've had to compromise as I'm so light the front tyre pressure would have been around 60-70psi! Anyway at present I'm running 90psi front, 103psi rear to try and get the optimum point for grip, comfort etc, without being too low to cause puncture issues. I found tyre manufacturers had guides along these lines as well and there are a number of online calculators.   

Image courtesy of Condor Cycles, original team colours 2012.

ITV4, The Cycle Show, Tour de France coverage.........

At present on UK television I'm enjoying ITV4's the Cycle Show ( Mondays 8pm ). The show covers all aspects of cycling so there should be something of interest for most people. To cover subjects from downhill mountain biking through to cycle trailers shows the enthusiasm and thoughtfulness of the production team. It's something I'm sure Top Gear could take lessons from. Fortunately the programme doesn't follow such a style or we'd only have one hour of £8000 Tour winning race bikes every week. So well done to ITV4 for giving us an eclectic cycling program hopefully it'll continue to be produced for years to come. In a similar vein the recent Tour de France coverage was excellent, a pleasure to watch with live coverage, highlights and a fantastic team of presenters. Gary Imlach and Chris Boardman complement each other perfectly with Chris Boardmans technical input very welcome. The main commentary of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen again being consumately professional and educational as well as entertaining. I really fear the day this team disband as they make the cycling come alive. Many sports have commentators who I personally feel simply make the sport, Murray Walker was F1, Peter Alliss is Golf, Steve Cram and Brendan Foster are track athletics. One final point is that I hope ITV4 will continue to be able to fund presentation of sport in general on terrestial television. So many sports and sporting events are sold to the highest bidder, normally Sky but now BT Sport too and it limits coverage to those willing to pay a subscription. Sport on television should be inclusive not exclusive so I hope ITV4 will be able to continue with their excellent service. Hopefully we have the Vuelta to look forward to.  

An Interesting Optical Effect

I came across this interesting effect last year by chance. I'm sure many of you may have seen similar but it was a first for me and quite unusual. It all came about as I had entered my garage in order to take the car out to be washed ( yes another pleasant valley sunday! ). The day was sunny and I'd not bothered to put the garage light on basically using the small amount of light entering the sides of the garage door to see my way. As I was about to open the garage door my eyes were getting attuned to the dim light and I noticed a patch of colour on the magnolia painted garage wall. I looked at this and realised that what I was seeing was in effect a camera obscura image of the planter,wall and drive outside. The image is inverted as expected and though soft focus it was still easy to see bricks etc. The small opening at the side of the roller shutter door created the image, in effect I was inside the body of a simple camera. So the monotony of car washing turned up a absolute gem.

Forgive the cobwebs but I share my garage with many large house spiders..... and why not its nice to give them a good home.

First Post and My Latest Bike Project

 As described in my "about" section one of my passions is the bicycle of which I'm sure I'll be posting all sorts of info and links in the future. For now I thought I'd relate the latest cycle related project that I undertook and the decisions taken on route to get the end result. It may be of interest to anyone looking to purchase something similar.

 It all began around the middle of 2011 when I decided to build a new road bike to replace my Ambrosio carbon framed bike. This bike had been built in 2001 and the lugged carbon tube frame was showing signs of delamination at one of the lugs. Not wishing to tempt providence and become a A&E statistic I felt it was time to look for a replacement ( not sure about everyone else but I get an intense guilt feeling at this point ). My initial thoughts were to purchase a low cost carbon frame, PedalForce, Ribble, Planet-X etc as they are all good quality frames and a nice start for for a lightweight road bike. My preference is to a bike that looks understated which to all intents and purposes the above frames are, perhaps with the exception of quite a number of Ribble frames which can look a little garish in my opinion. 

 As I went around in circles costing framesets, groupsets, hunting reviews etc my thoughts turned to an alternative frame material. It would mean pushing the budget but this bike would be intended to see me through perhaps 10-15 years. The material was titanium, a wonder metal to many in bike circles. The new kids on the block now were Van Nicholas, Enigma and Lynskey ( also looked at Burls as I'd read much positive on forums ). All of these companies responded promptly to my emails answering my queries and sending geometry diagrams of the frames I was interested in. Throughout my bike design I drew frames up on a Rotring drawing board but after about 6 drawings I discovered RattleCad which is a beautiful freeware program for doing exactly this. The package shows all important dimensions for comparison with any current bike setup you may already have. As I specc'ed up the design it didn't matter which frame I was looking at ( VN Chinook, Enigma Echo, Lynskey Cooper ) I felt I was going excessively over budget, as is often the case you always push further than your means. They are beautiful frames though and I'd not hesitate to purchase from any of the companies mentioned.

 At this point, whether it be sheer frustration, I started looking at off the shelf bikes in particular Canyon and Rose. So in June 2012 I became the owner of a Canyon Ultimate AL with Ultegra groupset. Low cost, very light, and many reviews praised it to the hilt. Mine sadly arrived with dings in the top tube, Canyon were fine offering discount or fully paid return. I opted for the latter and there was no replacement stock and the price went up. So now I was back to square one and feeling pretty crestfallen. It was August now and just by chance I was looking at a back edition of Cycling Plus testing steel bikes, two stood out the Enigma Elite and the Condor Super Acciaio. The flame of my original idea was relit I weighed up the costs and options of both framesets and decided to pursue the Super Acciaio. It seemed to have all the attributes I wanted, shock absorption, stiff and responsive ( I couldn't flex a stick of liquorice so perhaps that stiffness aspect may be wasted on me! ). I contacted Condor, swapped several emails with Seb and pushed the button on a Super Acciaio in Rapha team colours. I felt this was more flexible to the groupset/component colours on the market allowing more aesthetic choice. The frameset arrived and I was floored by simply how beautiful it was.. and light considering the material.

  With frame in hand all of my component decisions had pretty well been made in the intervening months. The design decisions go much deeper than my blog overview, there were some very frustrating times I can assure you! Components were chosen as a balance of weight and cost, upgrading in the future if necessary. The choices were:-

Wheels :      Campagnolo Zonda - Parker international

Tyres :        Continental Grand Prix 4000S - Ribble

Groupset :   Camgnolo Athena Carbon,50/34 Cassette 12-29 - Comtat

                  ( Levers Chorus for multiple shifting )

Seatpost :   Deda RS02 - Ribble

Stem      :   Deda Zero One - Ribble

Saddle    :   Legacy item, Charge Spoon, fantastic VFM

Bars       :   Easton - Ribble

Weight   :    18.3lbs ( I learnt manufacturers aren't truthful on weights! )

Tools : Raleigh Workstand ( £50 marvel ), cyclus headset press, KMC chaintool park cable cutters...... 

Excellent service from all of the above suppliers in particular Adam at Comtat and Seb at Condor both of whom I had many emails with. 

The result of my building ( and the long post! )

Well we got there in the end....