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Ruined e*thirteen Bottom Bracket Bearings

Published July 18, 2012

My Salsa Mukluk 2 came fitted with an e*thirteen XCX+ Triple crankset, and unfortunately, the bearings that came with it were not as sealed or water resistant as I’d expected. After last weekend’s fat biking excursions into the lake I gave my bike a good check-over which included pulling the cranks to look for water in the frame and check out the bearings. Upon initially pulling the cranks the bearings were dirty and felt a bit scratchy when turned, but there wasn’t any noticeable water in the bottom bracket area so I left it all apart to thoroughly dry and clean figuring that I could live with the slight scratching. However, after drying out overnight the bearings went from slightly crunchy to thoroughly seized up.

Since the bearings were clearly useless I purchased a blind hole bearing puller and removed them from the cups, leaving the cups in the frame. I then removed the seals and cage from one baering, degreased it, and took the picture above showing just how damaged the bearings and races became. (Another view of it is available here.)

Normally the bearings and races should be shiny metallic, not corroded and scored as they are here. To my surprise the seals were fairly easy to remove and there was a lot less grease inside than I’d expected (the balls were only lightly coated, not packed), so I can’t help but wonder if with more grease the bearings wouldn’t have had problems. It also makes me interested in trying to pack extra grease into the replacement bearings. However, this would require removing the seals which brings with it a risk of damage…

(For reference, the e*thirteen bottom bracket uses the same 6806-2RS bearings (30mm x 42mm x 7mm) that fit the BB30 standard, this got me thinking about replacing the bearings instead of buying a whole new bottom bracket. I’ve obtained a blind hole bearing puller, bearings, and tools for pressing new bearings into place, so with any luck I’ll be able to replace the bearings and get the crankset working properly again.)

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Fat Biking in The Thumb

Published July 15, 2012

Yesterday some friends and I had plans to meet up in the tip of The Thumb to do some fat bike riding, which resulted in two separate rides. For the first, Bob, Rodney, his friend Gary, and I met up near at Danielle’s family’s cabin near Sleeper State Park and rode along both Sand Road and some of the forested dunes near there. This went well, but wasn’t really much different from riding typical sandy two track, and after an hour of this it was time to drive down the road and meet James for some beach riding at a park he’d picked out.

Arriving at Jenks County Park we found a rather nice beach heading in both directions, along with rocky shallows extending quite a ways out into the lake that we could ride on. This worked out quite well for almost two hours of riding, doing everything from super low tire pressure (~5 PSI) plodding along in the sand, riding in the edge of the lake, cruising over dinner plate like slate, and riding in 4-8″ deep water along small boulders. Being on the beach the average temperature for this ride was 97.3°F with the peak up at 102.2°F. The water helped temper this a bit, but it was still hot and very sunny out there.

Riding in the water seems to have been a bit problematic, as my chain is pretty gunked up and resulted in some frame-scratching chain suck that was really frustrating me. Per this article (a pretty authoritative source) this shouldn’t happen even with a dirty chain, so now I have to figure out how to repair (mostly recolor and cover) this damage and keep it from happening in the future.

After riding we chose a restaurant mostly-randomly (based on proximity and sane reviews via Google Maps) and ended up eating at The Farm. While not cheap (entrees were $15 – $30), the food was outstanding. I was quite glad we were able to find a quality restaurant somewhere up north. It was a very nice end to a fun day.

If you’re interested, here is the GPS plot + stats from this ride, and here is a small album of random snapshots taken at various points along the way. There is also this video of James riding his fixed gear Pugsley through the outflow of a river in Port Crescent State Park. It was a bit too deep for him to keep going, as the buoyancy of the tires and thickness of the water seemed to keep him from moving forward once the bike got to the top tube.

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Chain Stretch: Illustrated

Published July 14, 2012

While riding my single speed Salsa El Mariachi at River Bends this evening I dropped my chain. Since the dropouts hadn’t moved, this led me to thinking the chain had stretched. After getting home I measured it, and at 1/16″ of stretch over 12 links (12″) it met the fairly universal (and Sheldon Brown-blessed) definition of time-to-replace.

Shown above is a brand new SRAM PC-1 single speed / BMX chain hanging next to the worn chain. The tops of the chains were aligned and clamped in place, showing that just with gravity loading the chains there is almost 1/4 of a link of stretch over the length of the chain. This amount of stretch is enough to begin unevenly wearing teeth on the chainring and cog, which dramatically accelerates wear on these more costly parts. Thus, the chain shall be replaced.

ADDENDUM: I have been reminded that chain stretch isn’t actually stretching. So, for sake of clarity: stretch is actually elongation of the chain due to wearing of the plates and pins. During use the rollers and bushing also wear, but these don’t contribute to overall chain elongation. Roller and bushing wear will make chain measurement tools such as the Park Tool Chain Checker (CC-2) and Chain Wear Indicator (CC-3.2) provide false positive results, leading to premature chain replacement. This is covered in depth over here at pardo.net…

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A Place For Stinky Clothes

Published July 12, 2012

With a few minutes to spare at lunch today I tackled a problem that has been bothering Danielle (and me, to some degree) for a while: stinky bike clothes. After riding I’ll hang up my sweaty clothes in either the bathroom or basement so that they can dry. This keeps them from becoming too pungent, but even after drying they still have a lingering funk until they are washed.

Since the smell in the bathroom is a bit unpleasant and Danielle has been spending a fair bit of time in the basement on some weekdays (it’s darker and cooler down there), another place to hang the clothes was needed. The solution? Hang them up in the garage.

By purchasing $7 worth of shelving brackets from Home Depot and using some PVC pipe and fasteners that I had sitting around home I had everything needed. Now there is a 58″ long rack in the garage, right above where our bikes are kept, perfect for hanging up clothes. It’s also large enough that I’ll probably be able to use it for drying clothes and blankets after they are washed.

I think I may add a end cap on where the Headsweats cap is hanging and add a pair of hooks for the cap and my hydration pack. This’ll keep these out of the way and give them a place to hang and dry as well.

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Clinton River Park Trails MTB Map: Complete

Published July 11, 2012

This evening I wrapped up another mapping project; this one for Clinton River Park Trails in Sterling Heights. After getting a nice workflow nailed down this map was pretty easy to make, taking only around 30 hours to get it complete.

I can see a couple small changes coming down the line such as the addition of sponsor logos and a few tweaks as trail development continues, but for now it should be pretty set.

Click here if you’d like to view a copy of this map: CRAMBA_CRPT_MTB_Trail_Map_2012-Jul-10.pdf latest.pdf

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Hillbilly Fantasy

Published July 5, 2012

While heading out to Highland this morning I followed this van for a while. I appreciated the use of actual Helvetica (bold) for part of the “Hillbilly Fantasy” logo, but the other bumper sticker which reads “It’s A&R Thing You Spartan Fag’s Don’t Understand” was rather opaque to me.

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Coffee and Emergency Gatorade

Published July 1, 2012

I’m glad Gatorade bottles commonly available at gas stations are designed to fit in bicycle water bottle cages. On today’s ride out to Richmond and back for coffee, just after crossing the bridge over M-53 northeast of downtown Romeo I dropped my bottle and looked back to see it skittering off into the brush-filled ditch. After a few passes I failed to find it, so I headed to meet the rest of the group.

Thankfully Erik let me have a drink from his bottle, and that coupled with a gel, muffin and latte at the coffee shop, and the aforementioned bottle of fruit punch-flavor Gatorade kept me going for the rest of the ride. Lacking electrolytes my legs started to cramp up, and I was definitely behind on calories, but it still worked out.

This reas a really, really nice ride. The sun was bright, it was hot, and the lost bottle was disappointing, but it was still a great time. Total distance for me was 64.62 miles at a moving average of 15.1 MPH. Not bad for riding my old(er) Specialized, set up as a commuter with a rack and trunk bag.

Logged GPS data of the ride can be seen here on Garmin Connect.

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Excited Hefeweizen

Published June 29, 2012

After work yesterday I brewed a very simple hefeweizen and put it to ferment. This morning I found that it had blown out of the airlock, even though it’s not a particularly thick beer. Nor was the yeast pitched at a particularly high temperature (~75°F), so the yeast shouldn’t have gotten too excited.

The Activator pack did inflate quite quickly yesterday so maybe the yeast is particularly strong, but I still wouldn’t have expected this to happen. A blowoff tube has since been fitted so everything should be fine. Now I just need to wait for it to ferment.

The recipe I’m using is as follows, as told to me by Andy, the owner of Cap N Cork Home Brewing Supply:

· Six Pounds of Wheat Dried Malt Extract
· One Ounce of German Hallertau Hop Pellets (@ 60 Minutes)
· Wyeast 3056 Bavarian Wheat Blend Yeast

Ferment for ~11 days in primary (until it’s done, plus a few more days), transfer directly to the keg, carbonate, and drink fresh.

I’ve got pretty high hopes for this beer. Much of what I’ve brewed lately has been reasonably complex (for extract brewing) so I’d like to have some simple, easier recipes like these tested and available.

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Improvised Lock Picking Tools

Published June 27, 2012

Walking out of the house to the Wednesday Night Stony Creek Ride I realized that I didn’t have my keys seconds after pulling the locked door shut behind me. After running through a number of ideas (most of which involved calling for help and missing the group ride) I ended up fashioning a half-diamond pick from a cable tie, then using it along with and using a plastic sword toothpick (as a tension wrench) to pick one of the house locks and get back inside.

I have a set of lock picks and while they were (unfortunately) locked in the house with the keys, experience playing with them in the past let these tools be used successfully. The white nylon pick was quite flexible and too thick to easily use, but I was still able to use it to rake the pins and open the lock in a couple of minutes. I then made it to the group ride on time.

This shows just how easy it is to pick the cheap house locks from Schlage, Kwikset, and the like.

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