FSA Chain Rings

In this post - chain rings - I moaned about the cost of chain rings. This was in light of the fact that the 50T rings were worn badly on both the Scott and the Giant. They end up being at least £30+ each and seem to be rarely in stock at most of the major internet retailers.

For the Scott which is my best bike and hence the one I tend to fuss over, I ended up getting a new Shimano 5700 Compact chainset to replace the FSA Gossamer chainset as described in the post. This still left needing a new 50T ring for the Giant. I looked over a period of weeks to see when and what was available and recently found a reasonably proved supply in stock on eBay here: sprocketsuk

To be fair it arrived very quickly and was as advertised. I think the teeth are less complex that the original FSA or Shimano teeth - they look much more regular and more like the plain teeth on the inner (34T) ring. Only time will tell if this affects the shifting quality. The design is similar to the original FSA rings but slightly different in the area of the webs.

It took about 30 minutes to fit, mostly because I struggled to hold the back of the chainring bolt still whilst undoing with an Allen key. I had to resort to using the very large socket screwdriver bit from my impact driver to hold the back still whilst using the Allen key as I had no other suitable tool. However once I had rigged up something for this it all came apart easily enough. I applied a small smear of Copaslip (other brands and suppliers are avilable) to the threads before reassembly.

All was OK with the shifting once it was all back together. 

Closer inspection of the removed item showed how worn it was (its done about 10-12,000 miles in about 3 years or so, through all seasons):

The original ring

Shark Teeth

With teeth this worn it was going to start chewing through chains at an accelerated rate so this is why I spent £30. It was going to be of the order of £60-70 to replace it.

The FSA Vero is a square taper chainset - the bottom bracket it uses is discussed here and the square taper crank sets are getting less common now. I briefly considered fitting a new ring to the FSA Gossamer that came off the Scott together with the Mega Exo BB and considering it as an "upgrade", but given the short life of the Mega EXO BB compared the the original Truvative BB-06-SQ-LE-108/68 BB on the Giant (now replaced with a Shimano UN55) I decided that the durability would be compromised. I was also unsure whether the BB faces on the Giant might need facing off I fitted an external BB like the Mega EXO compared the to cartridge type it is currently running

Bike Servicing - One Years Worth of Grime

I am not anal about bike cleaning but I like them to be reasonably clean. The main benefit is to avoid getting too dirty if you have to do some work on them, especially getting a puncture out on the road.

However once a year they get a very thorough clean and service - this involves removing as many components as required, a careful T-Cut to the frame to bring the paint back up to a shiny state, degrease the chain, cassette and crank set, clean both the dérailleurs and any other work required. It's generally 3-4 hours work from start to finish, the time mainly being driven by any un-anticipated. On the focus this year it was that the Bottom Bracket had again failed - one of the bearings sounding like it was full of grit. I mentioned this in an earlier post back in June 2012. It's a FSA BB-6000 Gossamer Mega EXO, and at over £30 its expensive to keep changing every year or so. I mention this specifically because I had to change the BB from the Giant this year and it makes an interesting comparison. Everything else on the bike seemed OK - the stiff front shifter operation that I have also mentioned before is still present and I'll comment further about this in a later post.

Any way it all looked shiny and new so here is a picture of it. Its not a great picture as I used my phone

I seem to have managed to now do the cleaning in the warm house and not in the cold garage. Its in my "Park Tool Home Mechanic Repair Stand" which has been a great purchase. Its this one:

 
Its good -not professional grade by any means but for the home mechanic its great - so much easier than grovelling on the floor and trying to support the bike. Its not good if you need to put some effort in like remove BBs for example but for everything else its great - highly recommended and about £60 from Amazon at the moment.

Not only have I been able to clean my bikes in the house but I have also been keeping the Focus nice and warm and dry in the dining room - my garage does get a bit damp and a 2013 project is to re-roof it. 

The Focus was cleaned and put away around the end of October and won't be ridden again until February or March now.

The Giant has a much harder life as its basically ridden every week of the year (snow & ice excepted) so it is always much dirtier. This has also now been serviced fully over the past 2 weeks - it was in a very bad state after several hundred winter miles, despite being hosed and wiped off every week or so.

One of the problems is that to stop the chain getting too bad I oiled it weekly - the theory is that oil is easy to remove whereas rust isn't. However the down side of lost of oil is also that it can get dirt stuck in in it and make a nice grinding paste. I only use  a light oil (3-in-1) so that is a bit of a mitigator. If you look on forums or ask advice there are as many chain cleaning and lubrication processes as bikes, so I have stuck with what works for me. On the Focus - mostly dry/summer riding the chain lasts a good 3-4000 miles, whilst for the Giant the winter kills it and if I am lucky I might just about get 2000 miles. For either bike I use KMC 10spd chains - they seem good value and reasonably reliable apart from the one that almost failed when I was in Sheffield. On the Giant the current chains is at 0.75% stretch having done about 1700 miles - so once the worst of the winter weather is over I'll change it.

The cassette is looking a bit distressed now as well given that it did about 5000 miles on the Focus initially and is now at about 7000 having been moved to the Giant when I converted it to 10 speed in Jan 2012. I'll change it at the same time as the chain. The only dilemma is what range to put on it. It's currently 12-27, but given that I don't do challenging sportives on my Giant I don't really need that low a gear that the 27 gives, so I have been thinking about fitting a 12-25 - this will give me one "less" gear than I have at present and I think I can just about manage that around where I live - I'll just have to MTFU. What it will give is a nice set of close ratios.

I'll probably change the rear dérailleur as well - its currently got the GS spec (medium/long cage) model that was originally fitted to the Focus and that I changed it as it didn't look right. If I do this I think I'll get a 5700 series 105 rear unit for the Focus and move the existing 5600 105 rear mech from the Focus to the Giant.

During the clean of the Giant I found that the Bottom Bracket was very noisy - clearly it was on the way out so I removed it on the first weekend to see exactly what it was and changed it the following weekend. The unit removed was this:

I replaced it with a Shimano unit:

This cost about £20 from Wiggle compared to the £35 for the FSA model. Not only that the original Truvativ unit lasted just under 4 years, has been fitted to a bike that has been ridden most weeks of the year and been through 3 Winters, and done 15000km (over 9000 miles). I have no complaints.

For other Giant Defy Owners the size was 68-110mm. Its not quite an exact match from the size of the original (68-108), but matching them up by eye the extra 2mm seems to be on the non-drive side. I have not ridden the bike yet, but there was no need to change the indexing of the front shifter. Lets hope all is well.

However I had some minor issues when changing the part. I have the "proper" tool but the depth that the splines can purchase in the BB is quite small so it was difficult to get leverage on the spanner without the tool slipping out. The solution was found in my "odds 'n' sods" box as seen here:

I have used the threaded part of a brass tap hose pipe fitting - the allen bolt fits within the inside diameter of the fitting and screws into the end of the axle whilst the overall diameter fits over the end of the tool holding it firmly in place allowing suitable leverage to be applied. I have put the brass fitting into my "special bike tools" box for future use I felt pretty pleased with the solution.

Just for info the tool was from Halfords (Bikehut Professional Bottom Bracket Tool part No 969790-0): 

Its about £9. Other cycle tool vendors are available. I have been happy with it  - I have used it 2 or 3 times now. It certainly took a lot of force to get the bearing out of the Giant this time around