Maintenance on a long tour

[RobertL]

The nice folk at Bicycle Workshop N11 London gave me a preview of component replacement on my RST Alfine at around 9,000 miles, having giving the bike a quick inspection.

The list from memory comprises

- brake/gear cables
- brake pads
- chain (KMC X1) - apparently the wear was off the scale
- failure to refresh the chain means also a new chainring

The wheels/rims appear to be OK (Zac 19).

Am on a 39T chainring and am mainly cycling in 7th/8th gear - what is the step up without risking over gearing? 42T? The bike will never be heavy duty loaded.

This health check prompted me to check in on the forum and ask what mileage before you change components pre emptively?

It sounds like the chain ring should have been rotated every 2,000 miles and then flipped and rotated again (giving you 12,000 between chain ring?)

To avoid wearing the chain ring the chain itself needs changing every 3,000 miles?

Your EBB needs to be tensioned every 1,000 miles?

Presumably cabling there is no preventive measure?

The tyres are Sport contact and at 60-65 psi have been puncture free - changing both at around 5,000 miles although the front tyre could be switched to the rear.

Most of the touring blogs don't dwell on on the road preventive maintenance - but it sounds like a sensible schedule of component replacement/rotation is required to avoid an early component failure.

[macspud]

Robert,
I have calculated the gear inches in each gear 1 to 8 on an Alfine 8 speed 39 chainring 18 sprocket on 26"/38mm tyre.
28.62, 34.97, 40.62, 46.21, 54.30, 66.41, 77.05, 87.69 
If you increased the chainring to 42 you'd get:
30.72, 37.55, 43.61, 49.61, 58.30, 71.30, 82.73, 94.15
If you wanted to increase you gears by one step i.e. new first being where old second is, then you'd have to increase the chainring size to 48 teeth giving:
35.20, 43.02, 49.97, 56.85, 66.80, 81.70, 94.79, 107.88
I hope that's helpful, to workout the best combination you really need to work out the lowest gear that you will need for the cycling you do and then go from there.

[RobertL]

macspud thank you - 31 gear inches in first gear sounds ok and the fifth direct gear at around 58 in also sounds ok - bumping up a whole gear doesn't work - sounds over geared, my bike has a flat handlebar so I doubt I would ever use 7th and above except downhill - basically all day cruising around 80-85 inches would work for my level of fitness

[macspud]

Glad to hear it's helpful. I'd thought that you might want to go a full step up as you said you do most of your cycling in 7th/8th gear.
A 44 tooth chainring would give you:
32.29, 39.47, 45.84, 52.14, 61.28, 74.94. 88.01, 98.96
Anyway, I hope you will be happy with which ever gear ratios that you pick.