David Marshall

I have the 904 with the 105 groupset and I am very happy with it (07 year). Point is I bought it second hand for around the cost of an upgrade. I have ridden with a Tiagra groupset in the past and can't say that I can fault it on performance - you only notice the difference when it is time to sell!

Picked this up from an old Popular Mechanics mag. Use half a teaspoon of sugar with a couple of squirts of liquid hand soap. Works well and the sugar dissolves in the drain.

I mount the wheel in my workbench vice, with the "locked"side nut in the vice and the wheel flat. I then use the position of the spokes relative to the cone spanner handle to measure any adjustment I make with the cone spanner before tightening the lock nut. With this technique I get a little more hit than miss. As previously said if you have quick release wheels you need to leave just enough play to accomodate the pressure of the skewer clamp.

A 21 is small for the low gear. As Mampara said an 11 - 25 should be ample. You could also use a 12 - 25 with your 53 chainring - (I think the 12-25 is cheaper). I would only consider changing the crank to compact if you still battle on climbs. As to the crank length it comes down to leg length. If I remember correctly, if your inslde leg length is 88 cm or over you can use a 175 crank, particularly if your thigh bones are long. However for your problem I think that changing crank length would make climbing more difficult and in any event would be an expensive option for a marginal change. I see no benefit in changing to a tripple crank. You would probably need to change the STI and FD as well. Rather go for a 27 cassette at the back. Just remember to re check your chain length if you change the cassette.

I can't see a problem using these carriers for a carbon frame. The clamps are positioned so close to the head tube and seat tube that there should be more than enough support. I did some research on the net some time back and never found one incidence of damage caused by the carrier. In fact I never found a direct reference to damage caused by the older single clamp top tube carriers either - but there was a lot of speculation and hearsay and I wouldn't use one for my bike. Most of the frame damage I came across was caused by roof mounted carriers driven under obstacles and into covered carparks. I think a point to note is that the carrier can move indepently of the car body so make sure that any means used to secure the bike attaches to the carrier and not the car.

To set the pads with a bit of toe in, loosen the bolt holding the pads on the caliper and position them in the desired position with a piece of paper about the thickness of a business card between the rim and pad at the rear end of the pad. Apply pressure on the brake to hold the pads in position and re -tighten the bolts. Just make sure that the pads sit squarely on the rim and at least 1mm clear of the tire.

I am no expert but have recently purchased a bike. I think R6k will get you an entry level new aluminium bike or 2 to 4 year old "better equipped" one. In my opinion the group set quality only really becomes apparent when you want to sell. If you decide to go second hand check out what has been sold in the hub classifieds. http://www.bikepedia.com is handy for looking up when models came out and what the standard components are for that model. Things change over time and not always for the better! Take your time when looking at a bike. Make sure that you are happy with everything - frame size, seat post length, stem, bar width, crank length, chain ring and cluster condition and gearing, fork condition and steerer length, condition of the rims and tyres, condition and operation of the sti's, deraileurs and brakes. It is easy to overlook something which can be costly to sort out later. Good Luck!

Mine did exactly the same thing. Problem is most of the lock ring spanners (the less expensive ones) come with a handle attached so you can't use a torque wrench on them. After finishing the Berge en Dale with a noisy cassette I came home, removed the handle from my spanner with an angle grinder, fitted a socket onto the spanner part and torqued correctly with a torque wrench - no problems since. As mentioned above 40Nm is tight.

After a long day of screwing in wall pannels with a rechargable AEG screwdriver/drill I wondered how accurate the torque ratchet setting was. This is a click stop adjustment on mine, just behind the chuck. Basically this prevents you stripping the screw hole by overtightening the screw. When I checked it against my small torque wrench I was supprised at how consistent it was (over a 4 to 12 nm range). This covers most of the "delicate" parts on a carbon bike as well as seatposts, cable anchor bolts and the like. Food for thought (if you have one). I haven't been able to check it over the battery charge life so use at your own risk!

If yours is the same as mine, with an expanding "plug" you need to tighten the cap with the larger allen key first to position the plug tight on the steerer and then the smaller allen key pulls everything together (or the other way round) - just check the action of the plug while outside the steerer.

High speed shimmy. Two things I know about this. 1) It happens 2) It's terrifying. There is a lot of info on the web (sheldon brown,Calfee design and a lot more). It will happen on every bike at some point when the right conditions are met (rider weight and posture, bike "balance", road surface, wind), It is just that on a "stable" bike these conditions are met at a speed greater than you cycle at. If it happens on a bike that you are used to riding and it has not happened before I would worry because it could be a sign of something failing. If it happens after you have changed something the cause is usually obvious. However shimmys usually manifest on bikes that are new to you and are mechanically sound. What you now need to do is alter the conditions that allow the frame to resonate at that point. As mentioned in previous posts that while riding this can be as simple as moving your weight, clamping your knees on the top tube or even just resting one knee on the tube. You can also play around with the bike (Wheels with more spokes, changing the fork, shortening the effective steerer length and so on). The problem is that it is difficult to reproduce the conditions that caused the shimmy in the first place, so measuring the effectiveness of any change is hard.

I am no expert but carbon epoxies are pretty resilient. You should have no problems with the usual lubes used on bikes - oil, grease, Q20 etc. Wash with soapy water and rinse - polish with Pledge furniture polish or similar. They do not like heat and direct sunshine, so keep this in mind for storage. The carbon "paste" is used like you would use copper paste, to stop movement and noise on seatposts, stems etc. and not to lube moving parts. I think the main thing is to have a good 1 to 20nm torque wrench and to torque components carefully and in increments. From what I read most damage to carbon frames comes from mishaps while transporting. Every now and then it is advisable to remove the seatpost and hang the bike up by the front wheel to allow any trapped water to escape.

On my road bike I have a shimano 105 10sp with a FSA Gossamer crank. When changing from the large to small chain ring I sometimes get the chain riding on top of the small ring, while resting against the large ring. This does not happen if I am on any of the lowest 3 gears on the back but usually when in 5 or 6, where I normally change when going through a dip. While surfing the web for the problem I found that this occurs when using a 9 speed large chainring (marked S9,C10) instead of the ten speed S10. Problem is my chainring is marked S9.C10.S10 so I assume it is suitable for both 9 and 10 speed. Anyone had this problem or is using a similar ring with a ten speed? Would the chainline influence this? The rings themselves are in good nick. I have emailed FSA on the ring suitability but still wait a reply.

It is difficult to say without seeing it. The models are all "exactly the same but different". The cover on the front of the break lever can be removed with an allen key from the front. Underneath this is a plastic seal ring and a spring which returns the lever to the normal position. If this is the plastic that you can see it may be that it and the spring are not correctly positioned. To replace this cover you need to take the cable out completely and position the spring and seal in the correct positions. With the spring in the correct holes the cover will be at about 45 degrees off its normal position. While keeping it "all together" you need to turn the cover to the normal position and tighten the allen bolt - this will tension the spring. The break lever itself can be removed by taking out a small screw situated between the lever and the trigger that shifts to the smaller rings. ie the trigger must be pushed to the right and the screw is visable at the back of the break lever. Removing the lever lets you see the workings inside. You should see if anything has slipped or is damaged and you can clean and lube. Unfortunatly you can't do much more than that, I doubt if any parts are available and I believe rebuilding the workings is a stressful 5 hour job!

I would give it a good clean before repacing anything. First disconnect the cable from the front derailer and see if the levers operate with the cable loose. Then flush the levers with spray lube as suggested. If you apply the brake you should find enough gaps to squirt it in. If they still do not move then you will have to take them apart. If they do operate after removing the cable check that the front derailer operates by pushing it over by hand. It should move towards the frame when you disconnect the cable and you should be able to push into position over the large chainring by hand. I would lube the pivot points as well. To reset the derailer just surf for the details eg sheldon brown or shimano tech docs. Bike shops generally won't repair these as they take too much time to assemble and disassemble. Hope you come right

I have never had any joy patching on the road - either with instant patches or solution, but the patches I apply at home seem to last. My method is to sand the patch area, apply a thin film of contact adhesive to the tube and patch, leave to totally dry (overnight, or use an electric heat gun - not hot enough to cause the adhesive to bubble). I then apply the patch, wrap a cloth around the tube and tap the area firmly with a rubber mallet. Finally, a dusting with french chalk. I also only buy contact adhesive in small tins as it seems to keep much better than in the tubes. Once it starts to thicken it is useless for patching.

Torque Tool in Jules st, Johannesburg have facilities to calibrate wrenches. Unless you suspect a problem it is highly unlikely that the average cyclist will use a wrench enough for it to need re calibration. Check yours against a buddie's before going the recalibration route.

Check out the following post. It covers the use of helicoils for stripped threads. Good luck with the repair. https://www.bikehub.co.za/forum_posts.asp?TID=60781&KW=helicoil&PID=906777#906777

Johan Bornman posted the following recently. Can't find the original post but I did copy it for my info. Works for me! 1) Remove the chain. 2) Loosen the cables from anchor bolt on the RD. 3) Screw the barrel adjuster all the way in. 4) Set the Limit screws. 5) Put the shifter in the most relaxed position i.e. shift to the high gear. 6) Replace the chain 7) Re-anchor the cable to the RD but put VERY LITTLE tension in the cable. For a SRAM system you actually have to feed the cable back 3mm or so so that there is ZERO tension in that cable. 8) With your right hand, pedal the bike and get up to a brisk pace. The rear sprocket should make the minimum noise now since the limit screw is perfect. 9)Keep the pace on the pedal and shift up one gear. If the chain now jumps, you had too much tension in the cable to start off with. Stop and redo the cable so that there is less tension. 10) Start with the lowest gear again, pedal briskly with your right hand. 11) Shift one gear up. The chain should now not be on the second-last sprocket but stay on the smallest one. 12) With your left hand start turning the barrel adjuster out (whilst pedalling briskly) until the chain jumps into the next gear. Fine tune it there until it is quiet. 13) Test that the bike shifts into every gear up and down. Job done. 4 minutes flat.

I had a similar problem on my aluminium bike that also only manifested itself under max power. After much lubing of all the obvious (pedals, bbs etc) I eventually discovered somewhat to my embarrassment that the creak actually originated in the head tube. In my case the lower headset cup was too small for the headtube and was moving when I was putting pressure on the bars to increase pedal power. The cup had been "fitted" by punching burrs on the outer surface to grip onto the tube. These obviously wore down leading to the movement. Not saying that this is your problem but the frame tubes definitely act as a sound box making these noises difficult to pin point. Chowder2010-01-07 06:30:49

Rather measure the chain with a ruler than relying on the chain tool - I unnecessarily replaced a perfectly good Ultegra chain because I didn't double check. Look up Wikipedia, Bicycle chain. Twenty half-links in a new chain measure 10" (254 mm), and replacement is recommended before the old chain measures 256 mm (0.7% wear)[2]. A safer time to replace a chain is when 24 half-links in the old chain measure 121/16 inches (0.5% wear). It is probably best to remove the chain to measure but you might be able to measure the 254 mm (twenty half links) between the cassette and chain ring while the chain is in place. Use a piece of chalk to mark the first and last pin to make it easier. Just out of interest my chain wear tool seems to be accurate on my 6 and 8 speed chains but not on the 10 speed. Never measured a 9 speed! Strange because all chains have 1 inch links as standard.

I know somone looking for a 175mm road crank for an old bike. Any chance the Tiagra is 175?

Epidermix is great and can be worked like wood - cut, filed etc. I have used it in boat repairs. It does however mix into quite a thick paste so it is difficult to impregnate fiber, if you are trying to incorporate fiber into the bond. There are thinner epoxies widely used in the boat building industry. Unfortunatly the company I used to get mine from no longer operates in Gauteng but your LBS - local boat shop - shoud be able to advise!