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Post by dgaddis1 on Jul 9, 2010 13:56:38 GMT -5
Make sure they're tight.
I set out on Bartram this morning at West Dam with the intention of riding it all at a decently hard pace. A few miles in I heard something rattleing, and discovered 3 loose chainring bolts and 1 missing chainring bolt. I tightened everything down and continued on. Later, I was getting an occassional funny noise from the bottom bracket area, and I could feel something wrong at a certain point in the pedal stroke.
Keep in mind I'm riding a singlespeed.
Turns out my chain ring (a STEEL Surly ring) had bent. Spinning my cranks around, the chain was SUPER tight in one position and really loose in others. My chain was so tight I could pluck it like a guitar string and it would actually make a note. Riding it that tight could do some damage to the bearings in the bottom bracket, so I moved my wheel up a little in the dropouts. Now it was normal tension where it was super tight before, and crazy loose everywhere else. More than 2" of play. I was worried I'd just start throwing chains constantly, so I tucked tail and headed back to the car. Luckily I was just a 100 yards or so from a paved road in Wildwood. From there I rode the pavement 7 miles back to the car. 19 miles of singletrack and 7 of pavement. Not what I had set out to do.
I set out on Bartram this morning at West Dam with the intention of riding it all at a decently hard pace. A few miles in I heard something rattleing, and discovered 3 loose chainring bolts and 1 missing chainring bolt. I tightened everything down and continued on. Later, I was getting an occassional funny noise from the bottom bracket area, and I could feel something wrong at a certain point in the pedal stroke.
Keep in mind I'm riding a singlespeed.
Turns out my chain ring (a STEEL Surly ring) had bent. Spinning my cranks around, the chain was SUPER tight in one position and really loose in others. My chain was so tight I could pluck it like a guitar string and it would actually make a note. Riding it that tight could do some damage to the bearings in the bottom bracket, so I moved my wheel up a little in the dropouts. Now it was normal tension where it was super tight before, and crazy loose everywhere else. More than 2" of play. I was worried I'd just start throwing chains constantly, so I tucked tail and headed back to the car. Luckily I was just a 100 yards or so from a paved road in Wildwood. From there I rode the pavement 7 miles back to the car. 19 miles of singletrack and 7 of pavement. Not what I had set out to do.
