Preventative maintenance Vs emergency repair

[bikeworkshop]

A lot of retrobikers strip things down and clean and lube them up just for fun.

A lot of our customers ride on ignoring noises and other sensations until their bike just doesn't ride any more.

Then they come to our door...
Hopefully it's not 5.29pm


Usually i use a basic chain, wipe it clean, keep it oiled, and replace after a thousand miles or so.

On my Orange Vitamin T though, I've now fitted a wipperman 9sx (iirc) retail: 3x the price,
wear profile: 2x the life

As a result I now take it off and clean it in the enzyme parts washer when it's looking filthy.
Before:
After:

What strikes me though now is that my average speed (if you include the chain cleaning activity) has declined as a result of using a more expensive chain.

Maybe 0.5%.
Or has it increased as a result of reduced Friction

Next i'm going to hot wax it, like I used to do my motorcycle chains.

Any wax fans?

 

[27motorhead]

A lot of our customers ride on ignoring noises and other sensations until their bike just doesn't ride any more.

sounds familiar!!! Any they never like the price of the repair bill!

Waxing - Supposed to be good. Never got around to doing it personally.

30 pages of hipsters talking about it. I'm sure there is some useful knowledge in there somewhere!
https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/339074/

 

[bikeworkshop]

My life was too short already.

I got to
"i don't care about watts...
I've got a ceramicspeed chain"
(rrp£135)

and I could no longer read the thread because I was crying in despair.

 

[27motorhead]

My life was too short already.

I got to
"i don't care about watts...
I've got a ceramicspeed chain"
(rrp£135)

and I could no longer read the thread because I was crying in despair.

Sorry should have warned you. Sadly that is a typical LFGSS thread. Some useful information buried in amongst rich kids showing off and hipster keyboard warriors throwing abuse at each other.

As I said I've never personally done it on bicycle. If I was more organised and was racing again (hopefully one day) I would. Have done it on motorbikes in the past and worked well.

 

[benjabbi]

We seem to have 2 types of customer.
Those that want a full strip down service, the bike doesn't really need it but I guess that's why? Because they keep on top of it.
Those who want a basic minimal service, begrudgingly, because a noise has appeared, quite often these bikes are fecked and the bill ends up big, they moan.
I wish most people were somewhere in the middle.
Wax is messy and time consuming to apply and doesn't last too long between applications, it's clean in use though. I've been using Finish Line Ceramic Wax lube which seems like a good happy medium so far.

 

[markoc]

Jam jar, white spirit, chain in, shake and leave... then rinse and spray in WD40.

Well thats what teen me used to do. All the wrong in one place!

 

[bikeworkshop]

I tell our customers that if they pump their tyres up and oil the chain a few times a year, they are in Bristol's top 5% for maintenance!

 

[bikeworkshop]

We seem to have 2 types of customer.
Those that want a full strip down service, the bike doesn't really need it but I guess that's why? Because they keep on top of it.
Those who want a basic minimal service, begrudgingly, because a noise has appeared, quite often these bikes are fecked and the bill ends up big, they moan.
I wish most people were somewhere in the middle.

I know what you mean - although here in this big city, the dentists who don't want to have to clean up again gravitate towards the glossy carbo-di2 dealers with matching poloshirts.

Maybe many those in the middle do their own maintenance, and shop online?

 

[jim haseltine]

It's amazing what you see in a bike workshop. My old boss used to reckon that we should write a book about it. In my opinion it'd get put in the fiction category because nobody would believe it was the truth.
I still remember pulling a tyre and tube off a Raleigh Roadster and discovering that the rim tape was a dressmaker's fabric tape measure stuck down at the valve hole with a piece of Sellotape. At least it HAD a rim tape.

 

[Woz]

Just thought of this thread.

Literally an hour ago fixed up a neighbours early 90s Pug over a mandatory beer - riding earlier in the year the NDS crank fell off and he didn't have a thin walled socket for the 15mm crank nut. 200 GS affair and thankfully no damage.

Was worth taking the initiative to sort out the DS too - was about to fall off too. All taper interfaces properly cleaned, crank nuts greased, and well torqued up.