My Ebay-special Trek X01 arrived on Saturday and I was confronted with a somewhat humbling revelation: I don’t know how to put a threadless headset together. That fact should tell you the age of my current fleet of bikes, by the way. I kind of figured out how the whole thing went together, but the fork wouldn’t stay in place. After a few minutes and failed attempts at keeping all those round parts lined up long enough to push the stem down to clamp everything together, I went inside for reinforcements. I went to Cane Creek’s site and had a lightbulb moment: so THAT’s what a star nut does! One more trip outside (actually two, since I got done and noticed that I’d put the stem on upside down), line everything up and screw down the star nut and everything is solid! Wow, I would have felt like an idiot going into Performance and having them hand my bike back in seconds.
But I feel much more confident that (given parts and tools) I can fix anything on my bike. Well, I’ve never taken apart hubs, but I have built wheels. These things are pretty simple machines, and there’s not much mystery to them. I cringe when I see people who can’t change a tire or some such thing. Understanding your bike helps keep it running better simply because you will want to fix it yourself. Maybe this is just a continuation from being a kid and figuring out why your BMX bike keeps dropping its chain (oh, the rear wheel has slipped forward and sideways in the horizontal dropout). It’s probably just that I like learning new stuff. Now, bring on Linux!
As an aside, if the seller hadn’t removed the stem from the fork, none of this would have happened. I still don’t know why he did that since it had a front-loading handlebar, but I’m happy he did!
"line everything up and screw down the star nut and everything is solid! "
Um… I sincerely HOPE you tightened the stem clamp onto the steerer tube. The top cap is really only there to get the tension right on the bearings until the stem is tightened down, then you can basically pitch it (don’t, I’m just saying it really doesn’t serve much of a purpose after that).
Wife makes fun of me for talking to my “internet friends”, but since the Giant is going up on craigslist tomorrow, I’ll try to sneak a couple pics. No making fun of the turtle neck stem, I’ve got an appointment with a pipe cutter this weekend. The SPDs that came with it are screwed up (can’t stay clipped in), but I gave them a good soak with spray Teflon and I’ll try them again.
I don’t ride tubies, but if I did, I’d be damn sure I knew how to get one off.
I don’t think everyone should be wrenching experts, that’s what bike shops are for… but it does amaze me how many people I come across (out on rural country roads) that have a very minor problem (flat, etc.) and clearly don’t know what to do about it. Unfortunately, many of the same refuse help when offered saying they’ve already called their wife, etc. I practically had to force a guy to let me help him the other day as he was walking and still had about 3 miles left to go (in his bike shoes).
If you want one to make you sick, and athlete that I formerly coached didn’t know how to change a flat. So we sat down to teach her to change a tube. And she said “I don’t need to learn how to change a flat” I asked what if she got one in a race and she replied “I’m a girl, I’ll just sit on the side of the road and cry until some guy comes and changes it for me”. Hence why she is now in the category of athletes I formerly coached…