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They work quite well! Albeit its always a little goofy with the rise, but you can really put some weight into them. It always makes me giggle when I use em.
You might have already figured this out by now but if the torque wrench you're using is one-way only, to tighten the drive side of an ISO threaded BB all you need to do is poke an extension bar through the BB shell into the BB tool from the non-drive side...
Also works on UDHs etc.
No, I had not figured that out. WHERE WERE YOU WHEN I NEEDED YOU MOST?!?
Page one of this thread! 😉
This is amazing. Glad you didn't break anything! Sounds like that could potentially have been a lot more expensive than a new torque wrench.
Thats a great tip!
my god its right there on the first page of this thread...
For those of you struggling with tubeless still, spending a few extra bucks on good rim tape goes a long way (besides the good suggestions of cleaning and drying the rim well). Get 2mm wider than your rim's internal width, and tape that's got good adhesive and stretch. My favorite is Reserve tape, followed by DT Swiss. Reserve seems to be a little bit stretchier which helps mold to the rim bed shape.
Related to rim tape - anyone have some magic trick for stopping the end from gradually lifting up from sealant over time? That really seems to be the only reason I have to retape these days - when that flap gets loosened a few inches and is getting close to the valve stem.
I have had good luck with cutting the end of the tubeless tape at a bias - a 45 degree type cut at the end.
Seems to work well at keeping the end down and not slowly working itself loose over time.
My DT Swiss XM1700 wheels were leaking out of pretty much all spokes straight from factory. I had never done a tape job prior to this, but surely I needed to redo the work from the factory.
I bought the DT Swiss tape and I also bought a heat gun for the job since lots of people recommended it. My wheels has been bombproof since that job I did and I was a bit suprised it went so smoothly given how much bs you hear about this kind of thing. For me I believe the heatgun was the ticket making a good job into a great one.
Putting tires on my bontrager line DH is a rage inducing exercise. It took me two people and 30 minutes of swearing to get a Schwalbe Albert on the rim.
I read IPA like the beer. I thought, where does a hardware store sell beer? I like that place.
My experience was similar, it took a buddy to help me and pretty much any progress we made we had to zip tie the tire to the rim so we weren't constantly losing our progress. I figured we would screw up the bead before it made it on there but somehow we did it. The bontrager tires that came with it weren't too hard so I assumed it was maybe maxxis but it sounds like the bontrager wheels are actually the issue.
My local hardware store has an exquisite beer and alcohol selection so it's not out of the realm of reality. For a hole in the wall place they even have a decent little bike section, MIPS helmets, sealant, tubes, some work in a pinch bike tools.
God bless that hardware store.
I used to have a shitty bike rack you could pretty easily just steal off the car if you wanted, and I had to head into the shop. I was so proud of my idea to back up perfectly to a pole so I could lock my bike to the pole without having to take it off the rack. Came out of the shop, jump in my car and promptly ripped my bike off the rack driving away breaking the straps it was attached with and giving it a big ol scratch.
LOL dude this is unbelievably funny. The carnage!
This made me remember an old "dumb bike problem" from a few years ago; I was changing out my front tire and decided to use the torque wrench when putting the wheel back on. There's a a torque spec right on the Maxle that connects my wheel to the fork lugs; 9-13.5 N*M or 80-120 in-lbs. Since I use freedom digits, I went with the 80-120 foot pounds and started tightening.
You probably already see the problem, but if not, read on.
Tightened the bolt - tighter, tighter, tighter, holy crap, that seems tight for an axle, but what do I know.... tight, tight, tight. Well, I'm definitely not going all the way to 120! 80 should be just fine. Sheesh!
After I had tightened the axle tighter than a German virgin (gutundteit,) I realized that I was working in foot pounds, when the axle had called for inch pounds. Apparently, it only needed to be 1/12th as tight as that. Thankfully, I was able to back it off and didn't damage my fork or hub with the factor of 10 dimwittedness I had exhibited.
Holy shit. Just because it didn’t work so well one time doesn’t mean this isn’t my new method. I’m gonna try this!
In case anyone is still using the OEM plastic tubeless strips that come on Bontrager rims, those are equivalent to ~4 layers of tubeless tape. It also makes the center channel narrower and won't allow both beads of DH tires to sit in the channel at the same time, a recipe for frustration. Replacing that with 1 layer of tubeless tape is the first step.
Holy cow, that's wild and I can't believe you didn't break something. 80 foot pounds is A LOT of torque.
When you give an auto mechanic a bicycle.
Torque wrenches are a goldmine. I once handed one to a friend of a friend, after having set the torque he needed, but didn't think to ask whether he'd used one before. There was an alarming number of clicks.
Right? I'm surprised I didn't at least strip the threads. I got lucky!
Another rim tape suggestion: I find that when I can't get rim tape to stick (which is often, even with cleaning well, using a heat gun, etc) is to Gorilla tape the rim after it's fully cleaned, press it down to have it adhere, remove it, and then install rim tape. I've found that whatever residue is left behind by the Gorilla tape helps the rim tape stick.
I've forgotten what bolt I snapped the head off over two decades ago doing the same thing. I fully committed to Nm. For the odd time I come across in-lbs on a bike (looking at you, Santa Cruz), I just convert and make notes. On the couple of torque wrenches I have with metric and imperial scales, the imperial scale is taped/painted/etc. over in some fashion. Otherwise, I know myself well to know that it's just a matter of time . . .
I second all the cleaning/heating/etc. tip to get it on correctly, reserve or dt swiss tape, and the 45 degree angle.
Are you by chance a fellow OCD person that, once both beads are in the channel, wiggles the tire a few millimeters this way or that to perfectly line up the logos on the valve stems? If so, I'd recommend using bead cream when installing the tires.
While I can keep tape on for years, the ends coming up are definitely the first way it starts getting ragged. I just had to retape a rim because of a damaged spoke. I began with an 8" strip centered on the valve hole, and the started the actual taping 180 degrees from the valve hole. Theory was that since you're always staring and stopping at the valve when uninstalling and installing tires, maybe you'd be less likely to mess with the adhesion of the ends when swapping tires.
Probably won't make any difference, but I always enjoy overthinking things.
Have ridden carbon frames for a long time. Built up a Madonna. Trip bike for me, and on first big rowdy descent I'm getting this weird, intermittent, metallic, clanging sound. I kick things off with some good ole catastrophic, black-and-white, my-trip-is-ruined-thinking and then get down the specifics: fork damper probably has come loose; maybe it's the coil on my shock. I'm running heavy casing instead of inserts, so maybe my tire pressure is low and the rim dings are reverberating in the allow frame, etc., etc.
Noise and theories come and go throughout the day. Finally realize that when my water bottle (big 25 oz. one) is full, it's moving enough in the cage to hit the top tube and make the sound. Sound was coming and going as I drank down and refilled the bottle. Easily solved with a piece of shuttle-guard thick mastic tape on the underside of the top tube.
The really dumb part is that, on my trail bike, I have an identical piece of mastic tape in an identical spot for the identical reason. But the trail bike is carbon, and the sound is so completely different between a carbon and alloy frame that it took me all day to put two and two together.
Added a couple new notches in the idiot belt recently:
My Maven brakes started getting air in the levers and fouling bleeds fairly quickly. First the front, then the rear, then the front again. WTF? Wandering bite point and general ranting ensues for a bit... Further investigation reveals that I had not tightened the hose compression nut to the lever anywhere near the proper 8nm torque. I got at lest a turn and a half on each nut with the crow foot torque wrench. Fresh bleed and haven't had an issue yet this season. Ran the loose hoses for at least the second half of last season... Derp.
While doing the most recent bleed I hooked up the lever syringe and caliper syringe as normal. I start trying to push fluid through the line and the syringe is rock solid. Check the pinch clamps, open. Check the bleed port, open. I step back for a head scratch and notice that one syringe is hooked up to the front brake lever and the other syringe is hooked up to the rear caliper. DoubleDerp.
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