Modern parts grumble

[legrandefromage]

Time was, you could sling together just about anything with anything. Yesterday using parts less than a year old? Nooo, no no no!

Current Deore triple front mech and matching deore chainset.

All should be fine.

No.

Chainset is a 48 36 26. Mech height interfered with the suspension settings on a Marin Attack trail.

Ok So smaller big ring, a 44t. Mech refuses to go into large ring but frame has all the settings available (a QR to adjust the swingarm).

Scratch head over why mech wont go onto big rin. Is it reach? No. Cable pull? No. Its the back plate of the mech, its bouncing off the middle ring despite the mech set to the correct height for the 44t.

Gah!

And the Deore mech is one piece! No handy screw to unbolt the cage to take the chain out.

Gah!

So , start again. I have a nice alu 32t (or 34 I cant remember) to replace the steel Deore 36t. While I'm there, the steel 26 granny comes off and is replaced with a matching 24t granny ring for the middle. I put it all back together and...

Gah!

The tabs on the 'new' granny ring hit the external bearing cups... (they're there to prevent the chain getting jammed )

GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so its off with it all again.

My point is that I never have this trouble with older gear. It all goes together perfectly, blending bizarre chainring sizes with thumbies or bar end shifters for obscure requests. OK, so the current external BB is a piece of piss to remove and play around with for chainline but beyond that its all one giant faff.

 

[Grease Monkey]

Same with road bike bottom brackets and headsets - just tried to fit a headset to Viner carbon, nothing doing. Couldn't get it to ride without a judder up front, took it to my local genius mechanic, eight trys and several thin washers later, bingo!!

What ever happened to using a hammer and a bit of brute force - that used to fix everything

 

[Titiritero]

Re:

Time was, you could sling together just about anything with anything. Yesterday using parts less than a year old? Nooo, no no no!
...
And the Deore mech is one piece! No handy screw to unbolt the cage to take the chain out.

Agreed! I will never understand why that handy screw in the cage was removed. Now I need to break the chain if I want to change front derailleur, so one of my bikes is waiting for the chain to die (no quick link) before I upgrade the derailleur.

Other issues that come to mind:
-31.8mm handlebar diameter, solves a problem nobody had, but now I can't freely mix and match my spare stems/handlebars
-disk only rims & frames. Is it so "heavy" to leave screw-in mounts for v-brakes in the frame and the braking area in the rims if I ever want to switch braking system (or current brakes break and need quick workaround)?

 

[FMJ]

Re: Re:

[
Other issues that come to mind:
-31.8mm handlebar diameter, solves a problem nobody had, but now I can't freely mix and match my spare stems/handlebars

 

[greencat]

Re:

Yes, agreed on most of the above. Utterly baffled by the front derailleur missing screw move. I mean who looked at that and thought - it's just as easy to split the chain. Especially shimano chains.

Bottom brackets are my current bug bear. Now I even kind of like the ease of external bottom bracket, but blimey the Shimano ones are utter rubbish. I'm lucky if I get a year out of them. So having been through Deore, then Deore XT - I thought I'd try XTR. The blooming thing requires a new tool to fit it - so is now destined to languish in my spares box until I get hold of the tool from someone.

I replaced with another XT which recently failed. So I figured I'd try something better, but there seems to have been a veritable explosion in new standards. Browsing around On-one's website I left it as I hadn't actually got a clue if the stuff on offer was compatible or not - because I've noticed that the picture doesn't always match the title, description or actual available options to buy. For example, the pic might show a 26 inch tyre, the description talk about a 26 inch tyre - but you can only buy a 29 inch version.

Ended up getting a Hope BB from another site mostly because it did at least describe itself as Shimano compatible and is hopefully(!) an improvement on Shimano. Pricey, but does the job and hopefully will last.

 

[grogee]

I recently had this fun with headsets, I didn't realise 44mm was a 'new' standard, then I got lost in the different depths and facing angles you can get... what a load of old nonsense.

In the end I stumbled across a threaded 44mm 'ZS' Tange jobbie that did the trick, but it was after hours of researching in the wrong place for what I actually needed.

What happened to the nice easy world of:

1" threaded/aheadset
1 1/8" threaded/aheadset
1 1/4" if you're feeling weird.

 

[Baulz]

What happened to the nice easy world of:

1" threaded/aheadset
1 1/8" threaded/aheadset
1 1/4" if you're feeling weird.

When I started working in bike shops we had to stock all 3 sizes in threaded and threadless. What a pain! It was awesome when 1 1/8" got to be standard on everything.

Buying a King headset was an investment that could be moved from bike to bike, not anymore with modern frames.

 

[MRGRUMPY]

Re:

I am often asked if frames need to be faced to accept external bottom brackets.
I mostly think manufacturers state the shell must be faced as they know most people wont bother,meaning no warranty replacement on an item that will not last the warranty period anyway.
All Shimano and Race Face external units are total shite.
Used a Hope item for over a year,singlespeed,big gear,all weathers and no trouble at all.
I have fitted bottom brackets to frames where the threads are not 100% square in the frame and no amount of facing will help.
As for headsets, what a load of faff.

 

[legrandefromage]

I've dosed up with tea and biscuits and am about to go round again

 

[unit3]

Re:

For the above reasons, I'm out on new "stuff"