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January 7, 2009

"New" bike day 2 ()

by fluffy at 12:48 AM
Rode to work, it kicked my ass. The damn rear wheel makes it a chore to ride it. After work I ended up going to a MacWorld party with some friends (spoiler warning: it sucked) and then after that just hung out with them and went to a gaming party with them and so I left my bike and other crap at the office and took BART home. I'm so very sore from the ride this morning so I'll definitely see about just having Performance Bike try to fix it during the day tomorrow. Maybe I'll have a decent ride home for the first time in a month. Meh.

Worst case I just need to get a new rear wheel, which I guess would cost more than the bike itself (ugh) but probably it just needs a good cleaning and lubing, which seems straightforward enough (and would probably cost what, $50ish? maybe I can cut a deal with Performance considering I've bought two bikes and a hell of a lot of accessories there and have never once taken advantage of their "free tuneups for life" deal, although I'm not optimistic about that). Or maybe it's just plain completely maladjusted. I don't really know what goes on inside a bike wheel's hub.

Comments

#11643 01/07/2009 02:59 am
If it's a geared hub, then they are complicated things. Might just need a good clean and grease. Might need a lot more.

If it's not, then it could just be the bearings and such that need replacing and greasing. Replacing the axle and bearings is fairly straight forward (I know, I've done it myself) and should cost about $30 in parts (don't know what the labour would be)
#11644 01/07/2009 08:46 am
By "geared hub" do you mean one where the gears are on the wheel, or one where the gears are inside the hub? The gears are outside, like a standard cheap-ass bike. (This particular model only costs like $250 new.)

It turns smoothly, it's just like there's always brakes being weakly applied, so the wheel will turn fine, it just needs a continuous force to keep turning. So that makes me think it's just gunked up lube because the previous owner was a Burningman/Maker twink (confirmed, as per him talking about such when I was trying out the bike) who probably just used WD-40 to lube it and it got gunked up with dust (speculation).
#11646 01/07/2009 12:36 pm
The hub may just have been overtightened, which can be fixed easily. When my rear wheel starts dragging, it's usually because the hub is worn out, which also causes the wheel to wiggle around so that it rubs against the frame whenever I apply any torque to speak of.
#11647 01/07/2009 12:40 pm
Yeah, I just dropped it off at Performance Bike. They said the hub was probably overtightened and they could fix that for $25, but since the bike was several years old and neglected they recommended just rebuilding the hub instead, which would cost around $30. So I opted to just get the hub rebuilt. Hooray.

Meanwhile, my back rack and panniers arrived today, and the back rack doesn't seem to be compatible with the frame. Argh. I wish ordering parts on Amazon were easier, or if Performance's accessory prices weren't so rapey.