Autumn riding in Arran

There are 2 brilliant reasons to visit Arran if you haven’t done so before – Auchrannie House Hotel and the riding potential!  The 7 course tasking menu at Auchrannie House is amazing.  The ride round the north or south of the island is brilliant.  The north is a lot less hilly and the roads are much better but there is the usual headwind down the westcoast to deal with.  The south is a lot harder with more hills which are a lot steeper but the views are spectacular.  Go – you wont regret it!

No More Missed photos

When out on my bike, be it on a long ride round the hills of glasgow or a commute through the city, I often wish I had a camera to catch some of the sights.  Not wanting to carry my Canon DSLR with me all the time, I have got myself a compact digital camers -  a Canon Powershot SX200 IS. 

I’ve literally just got it today but i’m happy with the quality so far and looking forward to getting out and capturing some of the sights when out riding.  The above image was created using Picasa from google – brilliant free tool!

Cayo First Ride

I got the Cayo bulit and took it for a ride (actually rode it a couple of times now) and it rides…well.  It’s actually very different to my Aluminium Variado.  Not sure it is much ‘quicker’ as I’ve not hooked up the bike computer yet and I’ve not taken it up a proper hill yet.  I can definently notice the Carbon being much stiffer when taking off from a standing start and on short sharp city climbs.  The triple chainset is completely different to the compact too.  I like the tiny differences the triple allows but I don’t like or find the need to change between chainrings too often so the compact gives better range of gearing in that sense.   I’ll give it a proper ride soon and see if my opinion changes…

Old Boy Racers are an inspiration

I read this article and took a lot of inspiration from it.  Chances are most of us will only ever cycle for pleasure and if I can follow these guys and enjoy my cycling for so long i’ll be lucky and more than happy…http://www.heraldscotland.com/life-style/real-lives/old-boy-racers-get-on-their-bikes-1.931392

Shimano Hollowtech Bottom Bracket

I bought the Cayo knowing the Bottom Bracket was probably needing replaced so the first job is to remove the cranks and bottom bracket.  On this Cayo it’s a Shimano 105 Hollowtech II bottom bracket with English thread.  Tools required are the Parks BBT-9 bottom bracket tool, 5mm Allen key, some Telon Bike Grease and in my case a hammer!

 

The order for removal is, loosen the 2 Allen bolts at the top of the left hand crank, remove the black cap using one end of the the BBT-9 tool, remove the left crank then remove the drive side crank.  Very simple with the correct tool.

Removing the bottom bracket is also simple with the correct tool, in the correct order and turning in the correct direction!  Using the other end of the bbt-9 tool, remove the left hand side cup first, loosening in the traditional left direction.  The right/drive side cup can then be removed by turning in the non-traditional right direction!  Both cups should be marked with the words tighten and an arrow to double check what you are doing.

In my case I also need to tap the end of the bbt-9 tool with a hamer to loosen the bottom bracket.  Not sure if it was put on with loctite or just not greased enough but it was very, very tight.

I then put the bottom bracket from my Variado onto the Cayo with plenty of grease and replaced the cranks to make sure the issue was the bottom bracket.  Everything run really smoothly…  So just to make sure, I removed the bottom bracket again, replaced the original bottom bracket, greased it and relaced the original cranks.  Again, everything run really smoothly… 

I think the grinding and clicking noise is coming from the rear wheel and not the bottom bracket!  I’m told the rear wheel bearings were replaced a couple of months ago but the next job is to strip the rear wheel, check the bearings and take it from there…

Winter Project

I picked up a second hand Focus Cayo 105 Triple 2007 Full Carbon bike today.

It’s a bit worse for wear but the plan is to completely strip it down over the winter, get a new bottom bracket, probably replace the Shimano 105 groupset with the 105 from my Focus Variado 2008, and replace the seatpost, saddle, stem, bars and bars tape…(possibly a few other parts too – i’ve already contacted Focus Bikes for some new decals – fingers crossed!)

I should have a pretty decent full carbon bike for next spring at a fraction of the cost…

This is my first venture into complete bike maitenance and i’ve already learned a lot so i’m going to blog about it along the way.