Just the facts Ma'am

[Pavel]

Sometimes on has a moment of clarity. I had one about Rohloff during our 2012 trip to Austin. it frame "why Rohloff" in a unique way, new to me then.

We were on about day 17, in Kentucky, when we found a treasure. We found a bike hostel. There we found three other bikers going our way on one very unfortunate guy going in a different direction. The five of us in the picture all thought we were in heaven upon finding this place. We were all tired and this was our oasis for two days. The one guy not in the photo was still on the phone and he had two days of nervous misery there.  He had left somewhere in Minesota and cycled as fast as he could on his way to a large family reunion and 90th birthday party of his grandmother.

He did not have a Rohloff. One of the things that deraileur fans seem to never consider as a possibility happened to him.  He had a large touring sprocket on back and he had busted two spokes on the gear side, turning his wheel into a banana shape. No problem, spokes a plenty and easy to change - except in that one location.  You have to remove the free-wheel and nobody of course ever carries a chain whip.

He didn't enjoy the food, he didn't sit around swapping tales and jokes.  He spent two days trying to somehow continue and it all came to nothing. he missed the reunion and last he said he was going to spend the next few days there until someone could pick him up on the way back.  All for two lousy spokes, and one chain whip. He was one miserable guy, way out of proportion to a normal breakdown.

I think the guy would have spent one thousand bucks just to arrive. One conversation I overheard had someone (his mom?) screaming at him - he was almost in tears. 

I day or two later I had this feeling come over me. I was so happy I had bought the bike I had bought. The built for purpose Nomad, the bags I did not skimp on and the Rohloff I dare spend the money on - I was piece of mind. Priceless.

He could not even enjoy the food. What price - for second best technology?

[Pavel]

In a similar vein, the British guy, the one in the blue "Fit" jersey, had bought ultra light front panniers.  He wanted to save one and a half pounds - the difference he said.

At the point we met up, he had already used about one pound of Duck Tape as the bags started to disintegrate.  And the aggravation it caused him - I love my Carradice bags and can't resist a smirk when weight weenies get to pontificating.  They worship the god of  "ultra-light" - I like to be "ultra-smart" so that I am not "Utra-Screwed" instead. 

[mickeg]

Sometime back, I fabricated a new chain whip idea that is a lot lighter (mine weighs 42 grams) and portable than the commercial whips. You still need the tool and wrench to unthread the cassette lock ring, so it is not the perfect solution.

You want to use a cord that is not very stretchy, nylon stretches more than some of the other synthetics like polyester. Some shops tighten the lock ring on pretty tight, I tighten it only a bit more than enough to make sure that it stays on. It however is best to know if this will work on your bike at home (lock ring loose enough) before you really need it.

Yeah there are some specialized tools that allow you to unthread the cassette lock ring without a chain whip, but I have never actually used one.

My cassette tool was a bit too large for the adjustable wrench in the photo by just a tiny bit.  I filed down two of the wrench flats on the cassette tool to make the wrench fit on it.

I carry my spare spokes in the seatpost, held in with a wine cork.  The cork dried out and shrunk a little bit, I wrapped electrical tape around the cork for a tighter fit.  Gives you a good reason to go out and by a new cork, doesn't it?

Some of the above text is slightly modified from when I originally posted this on Bikeforums.net back in 2012.

[Matt2matt2002]

Nice idea about how to carry spare spokes within the seat post.May I ask how many you carry?
Front and rear?

[mickeg]

Nice idea about how to carry spare spokes within the seat post.May I ask how many you carry?
Front and rear?

Sherpa, two per wheel.  But, when I bought the spokes to build up those wheels the store sold enough spokes for a wheel plus two spares for a lump sum price, so they determined how many spares I had.

Nomad, I do not recall how many, maybe 4 or 6 for the rear and fewer for the front?  For that bike, the spokes came in a bag of 50 and I did not want to carry all 14 spares.  (I might be the only one out there that has 36 spoke wheels for both front and rear on my Nomad.)  But since that bike was bought specifically for rough terrain, I probably carry too much for spares in an abundance of caution.  When mountain biking with suspension seatpost, carried none because that has a spring in the seatpost, but I was close to a vehicle with spares.

Before I got rid of the Long Haul Trucker, carried one front and one rear, the LHT had a spare spoke carrier on the frame that held two.  Now that I think about, since rear spokes are the most likely to fail, I probably should have carried two for the rear.

I somehow put a bad bend in a spoke in Iceland, and the spoke was loose.  I am still unsure what happened, I was afraid that I jammed a rock between the spoke and a frame stay which caused the nipple threads to strip out and loosen the spoke, but I could tighten it up with a spoke wrench so that was not the case.  See photo.  So, I have no clue what happened here.

[Pavel]

Doesn't the rear wheel (using a derailleur system) need two sizes of its own, and the front wheel yet another size?  I've always carried six spokes - two of each size taped to the rear stays. Never thought of the seat - nice idea. The Fuji Tour had rear spoke holders brazed at the seat stays. That was a nice detail - one of the few thing that I liked about the bike.

[mickeg]

Doesn't the rear wheel (using a derailleur system) need two sizes of its own, and the front wheel yet another size?  I've always carried six spokes - two of each size taped to the rear stays. Never thought of the seat - nice idea. The Fuji Tour had rear spoke holders brazed at the seat stays. That was a nice detail - one of the few thing that I liked about the bike.

A drive side spoke will probably work on the non-drive side although it might be a couple mm too short.  All you really loose is fewer threads in the nipple if you put a drive side spoke on the other side.  And the non-drive side has less tension so it is not tightened up as much.  But a too long non-drive side spoke might not have enough threads to fully tighten if you put that on the drive side.

I just looked at my notes from years ago, my Sherpa uses the same spoke length on both sides of the rear wheel.  I suspect that the reason is that the store sold spokes in 2 mm increments and the precise required lengths were probably within the same 2mm range.  The wheels from my Long Haul Trucker are now on my rando bike, the rear are different by 2 mm so I probably oniy have one of each length since the bundle of spokes I bought for the wheel had a total of two spares.

One complicating factor is that my spare spokes that are not physically located on bikes are in a box in the basement, and my labeling is rather poor, so if I need to take a spoke out of the box, I might have to spend some time finding the right spoke length.

I liked the REI Randonee design when I looked at one about a decade ago, the spare spokes were on the right side, not left side chain stay.  That way, the spokes served as the paint protector from chain slap.  The LHT had them on the left side which got in the way of the Greenfield kickstand that attached near the rear dropout.

I should make a disclaimer note here:  All my experience and all my bikes have rim brakes, I have no experience with spokes on a disc brake bike, so some of what I said above could be wrong on disc bikes.

[Danneaux]

Nice idea about how to carry spare spokes within the seat post.

Matt,

See:
On Sherpa's rigid seatpost:
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=3896.msg18563#msg18563
...and...
On the Danneauxmad Seymour's Thudbuster LT suspension seatpost:
http://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=4523.msg50849#msg50849

May I ask how many you carry?
Front and rear?

6. Yes.

These have worked a treat and never rattled loose on me, thanks to the bolt/wingnut's compression of the washer-backed rubber stopper.

Best,

Dan.

[mickeg]

...
These have worked a treat and never rattled loose on me, thanks to the bolt/wingnut's compression of the washer-backed rubber stopper.

Best,

Dan.

But this method does not give you an excuse to go out and buy a wine cork.

[Danneaux]

But this method does not give you an excuse to go out and buy a wine cork.

Very true, but since I don't drink, I had to come up with an alternative. 

Best,

Dan.