Fitted X-Fusion Slide RL2 forks to my Fargo.
9 years since I last had suspension. Fugly

Commiserations Luke... at least people might think your normal now when out on them there trails.... maybe your wrists might be happy... maybe the boing boing uphill might annoy you (unless their some legendary forks with perfect/stable handling up and down) and the rigidsll go back on quickly

Strapped some bivvy gear to the Ramin and I'm heading out to Dryfehead bothy for the first bikepacking trip of the year, gone from 37 months BAM in a row to once in 5 months!

Thoroughly looking forward to it!

Changed the 24/38 chainrings to 22/36 mainly to make loaded riding a bit easier. I also had to drill out the outer chainring bolts as they had been made of swiss cheese and over tightened as well so as soon as I put any pressure on the Allen key the bolt just stripped. Whilst taking off the crank arms i noticed the driveside bearing is knackered already. The bikes only done a few hundred miles so I'm not impressed with this. I'm be changing them as soon as I get some Shimano replacements.

I wanted to mount my cooking kit on the forks as it's pretty light but bulky. The Blackburn Outpost cage seemed a good option, especially as my LBS had them on sale for €19. The new Decathlon adapter bracket gave me a means of mounting on the fork and by drilling a 24mm hole in the cage, allowed it to fit quite close to the fork, bolting the mount on the wrong side of the cage.


The finished result doesn't stick out too far and seems pretty solid

Rebuilt a front wheel after giving it a hefty twatting.
Fitted a set of curly bars that I bought a couple of months ago and wrapped them.
Replaced the cassette that disintegrated after about 130k.
Fitted the mud guards after seeing this week's commuting forecast.

Reduced the travel and ride height of my new X/Fusion forks. Went fine except the ridiculous M2.5 screw in the rebound adjuster rounded off when I attempted to remove it. 1.5mm hex not a great fitting on a bike. Drilled out the head easily enough and have fitted a screw with a Phillips head instead - and lots of anti seize!

A bit of fettling on the fat bike.

Last week I couldn't get in to top gear - turns out that the High stop screw had worked its way in far enough so that it couldn't be selected Reset that and re-clamped the gear cable and reset the barrel adjuster to be back in a more central point of the range. Gears all running smoothly now.

A lot of squeaking and creaking from the saddle, except in the rain so removed the saddle, cleaned and greased the clamp and saddle rails. No more creaks

Had a spare quadlock adaptor so stuck it to the jbl speaker and made space on side of top tube. Hopefully I'll be able to play my stuf (quran) at lower volumes hence saving some battery on it.

Heres to hoping I dont have any (side of) knee interaction issues!

Some Post Highland Trail maintenance/love for the bike

- Cleaned all the drive chain and replaced the chain
- Swapped broken saddle for the one on other bike, until I can get it sorted out properly
- Took a file to the seat clamp so I can nip up a tighter (got a little slippage but nothing major)
- Took off crank to check and clean the bottom bracket after all that water
- Replaced the small chain ring whilst crank was out for a lower 22T

More to come

Flushed with the success of fitting a Blackburn cargo cage to hold my cook kit, I set about fitting a matching one to the other fork. This allows me to pack my sleep kit, quilt, bivvy bag and mat, in a 5l dry bag I'd found in Decathlon in the paddleboard section. The bag is very well constructed (Ortlieb standard) and narrower than others at 150mm filled diameter, a bargain at €8. I've therefore managed to get rid of my bar roll which improves front visibility no end and lowers the centre of gravity.

Link to the bag for those in the UK.
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/5l-watertig ... 61996.html
Got to love some of the Decathlon brand names, ITIWIT ??

I tell you, working on bicycles is easy. Just removed and dismantled the rear bevel drive off the GS (motorcycle)in order to replace a duff bearing and its fought me every step of the way - corroded casing bolts, pivot bolt requiring 3 foot breaker bar for every turn, 20T press to push stub axle, bearing and drive flange out / off... even the bearing retainer circlip put up a fight......

Just got to buy bearing, seals, O rings and sundries and put it all back together again.....

Fitted new chain and renewed the bearings in the XD freehub, fitted my new slinky light mount. Looked at my patched front tyre (minor side wall slash in Spain) and decided that some extra Stans jizz was the answer

BigdummySteve wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:39 am Fitted new chain and renewed the bearings in the XD freehub, fitted my new slinky light mount. Looked at my patched front tyre (minor side wall slash in Spain) and decided that some extra Stans jizz was the answer

Steve... why not sew it up a bit or better/easier still, throw a couple of patches over it from the inside for a little enforcement??

Finally finished it

First ride this weekend, can't wait.

redefined_cycles wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 9:18 am

BigdummySteve wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:39 am Fitted new chain and renewed the bearings in the XD freehub, fitted my new slinky light mount. Looked at my patched front tyre (minor side wall slash in Spain) and decided that some extra Stans jizz was the answer

Steve... why not sew it up a bit or better/easier still, throw a couple of patches over it from the inside for a little enforcement??

It wasn’t a full on cut, just enough to go through the fibres of the carcass and cause a weeping of the stans . Repaired with super glue followed by a wet finger plus an additional layer of inner tube plus more glue. Job done, not much life left in the X-kings. New just before WRT and then 1000km through Spain’s harsh tracks and roads, I’ll pop a new set on next pay day, of course the cut is in the front which has the least wear

Bish wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 9:57 am
First ride this weekend, can't wait.

Looks great, enjoy

More Post HT maintenance
Cleaned all the water and crap out my back hub
I think my bike now loves me again

Bish wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 9:57 am Finally finished it

First ride this weekend, can't wait.

I absolutely adore that bike and your build is ace. Have you had it on the scales?

Back to SPDs on the mountain bike, finally got my shoes sorted for that bike and then got my new road shoes setup for the road bike (kinda obvious)

TheBrownDog wrote: ↑Tue Jun 11, 2019 6:47 am

Bish wrote: ↑Fri Jun 07, 2019 9:57 am Finally finished it

First ride this weekend, can't wait.

I absolutely adore that bike and your build is ace. Have you had it on the scales?

Cheers! No not weighed it, lifting it I class it as not light but not too heavy. Will probably end up going 29er rather than b+ so should lose a bit of weight there.

I finally got around to fitting my front ‘fender’ (that’s its just a piece of cut floppy plastic and would deform when I put the bike in the car with the front wheel off put me off...).

Also put some ‘protective’ tape on the contact points of frame bag so I don’t get polished points (especially on the top of the top tube). I know, I know, ti doesn’t need it...

Also had to push the rear mech tension screw in a thochty as there was a bit of interference with the cassette on gear 2. This was in Fort Augustus, half round the Loch Ness 360 on Monday. Subsequently noticed that the rear axle was loose (so tightened that up also). Guess that didn’t help. I thought the back end felt a little different...

metalheart wrote: ↑Wed Jun 12, 2019 7:16 am I finally got around to fitting my front ‘fender’ (that’s its just a piece of cut floppy plastic and would deform when I put the bike in the car with the front wheel off put me off...).

Make sure it's not pushing against anything in the car... my mate did that (marsh guard) and his was in the sun at work during the day so the plastic softened and deformed easily to the new shape. It was cold when he took out of the car that evening to go riding so the plastic was stiff again.... but the new position rubbed on the wheel. He hates his bikes to make a noise (even has his cables clipped so they don't rattle against each other on descents) I found his rubbing noise very funny

Ha, not much chance of it getting ‘melted’ in the sun at the moment. More likely to get brittle in the cold and snap!

Fitted new wheels and tyres (relatively painless tubeless set up) and gave it a bloody good wash.