I fixed everything wrong with this Giant Defy! Full transformation service.

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In todays episode we service and rebuild this Giant Defy, it needed new tyres, a new bottom bracket, new cables and much more…

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hi and welcome back to Bikes Feeds this week we’re going to absolutely save this rundown giant Defy had a completely worn out chain the bottom bracket bearing was absolutely destroyed and we’re going to extract that we’re going to be converting it to bigger gearing which gave us some issues we needed to do cables on this one we had this poorly bar tape and these absolutely worn out tires you can see here where I’m pointing you can just make out the canvas beginning to show through the rubber on this tire this tire is absolutely worn out you can see where the canvas lines are showing through the rubber that is left there it has literally ridden its last mile on those tires we also had this issue where as you back pedal you could see that it was dragging the hub and bringing this wheel backwards this was actually purely down to debris buildup and also a chain that had completely worn out so we’re going to solve that and we’re going to also change the gearing on this bike so we’re going to show you how we deal with doing that so you can see the chain is at 1% stretch it’s completely worn out so we’re going to replace the chain we actually need a different length chain anyway on this bike so we’re going to take this chain off and replace that so that’s the first thing that I’m going to take off this bike during this service and then I’m going to also remove the front wheel and the back wheel so that we can start to work on cleaning up the various components on the bike before we get it back on the road we’re actually taking this cassette off with the chain worn as much as it is this cassette will also be life extinct because that chain would have elongated the spacings between the teeth on these and you can see that grime and debris buildup i believe this is the reason why this bike wasn’t back pedaling smoothly because the chain was so thick with grease and oil now rather strange on this one you see here we’ve got an inline thumb adjuster and also the thumb adjuster here on the rear derailia the inline thumb adjuster should have been on the front derailia cable but it wasn’t there so we had no way of inline adjusting the front derailia and two ways of adjusting the rear derailure very strange i’ve never actually seen anyone who’s done that before that’s actually a mistake when the bike was being cabled it probably had the outers and things took off the bike and someone wasn’t sure where to put that so they just put it in totally the wrong place very very odd you can see here the rear derailers built up a grime but we’re actually going to be changing the cage on this derailia so we’re going to change this with a Thiagra we’ll show you what we’re going to do there to make this take a larger cassette so I’m also going to remove the front derailer because these are all going to go through the ultrasonic cleaner you can see how that’s just built up with a general wear and tear dirt and debris on there which will clean off and lubricate once I got the chain off spun that bottom bracket you can hear that the bearings in there are life extinct so that’s something I need to deal with but first of all I need to get the pedals off and you can see these were very tight they either weren’t lubricated when they were put on or they’ve been overtightened and that’s one of the reasons why we always torque up the pedals and also use our anti-seize grease on them when we service a bike this is the very reason because another few miles another few months years we’d have never have moved those pedals they do need moving during the lifespan of a bike either you’re changing the pedals doing the bearings or such like so you do need to make sure they’ll come off next up you can see here pedal arm overtightened very very tight to get undone that was way too tight can strip out the threads inside there it’s a stainless steel bolt into an aluminum fitting so not very good to overtighten those release the little safety washer there and pull off that left hand arm and then I can remove the chain set itself so that slides out the bottom bracket and you can see not too bad actually the chain set plenty of wear still in it little bit of grime on the back of it we’ll clean all that up make sure that’s nice and clean before it goes back on the bike and then we’re also going to remove the brakes now with the brakes we actually found the cables were absolutely okay so when we did rebuild the bike we didn’t replace the brake cables there was no need to they weren’t frayed they were operating smoothly and correctly so we’ll just untuck those from the brake caliper itself and then remove both the front and rear calipers clean those up and get those back on the bike front one now coming off quite straightforward to get that off quite a bit of grime there we need to clean up and you can see how this is very powdery and dry needs lubricate needs cleaning up almost at the point where these would begin to seize thankfully they weren’t and we can clean that up and lubricate it to make sure that they continue their journey on the bike without needing to be replaced taking the bottle cages off and the little fittings here i’m going to lubricate those before I put them back on i also want to clean down the frame and polish it so we’ll take those off and get those out the way now this bottom bracket was actually a little bit tricky this can happen sometimes when you’re doing this kind of work so I put in my standard extractor here normally this is enough to pull out the bearing and the cup that it sits in but in this instance all it did was remove the bearing and shatter the cup behind it so we take the bearing out there remove our tool and I’ll show you here you can see this is the bearing that’s pulled out of the cup normally it comes out with it and the back of the cup here just completely shattered and snapped off it is plastic so it does perish and that’s obviously what happened there it broken right away so at this point you begin to realize you may have a little bit of a problem on your hands but thankfully for us we were able to extract the non-drive side how we would have expected the drive side to come off which cleared us a little bit of room for removing it so this is how we would normally expect it to come off few spins and out comes the cup and the bearing so we’ve removed that there and that also took out the center sleeve which gave us a little bit more room for a slightly bigger extractor on the drive side and out that one pot there as well so actually all well ends well there they both came out nice and smoothly so we can clean those up before putting the new bottom bracket in i’m replacing the gear cables obviously with the front one not having that adjuster in it and the rear one having two adjusters we need to replace those and we’re also doing a little bit work on the rear derailia so out come the derailia cables and now I’m going to actually be swapping out the cage on this one this is actually an RD5700 10-speed derailia you can still get a 10-speed RD4700 derailure but it has a different pull rate so we’re going to actually just swap over the cage itself to a long cage which isn’t available anymore for the RD5700 and I’ll show you that as we go next up I’m just breaking down the chain set because I’m going to put all these components through the ultrasonic cleaner we may do two or three loads with these so we’re putting the chain set in the derailers the brakes all of these components are going through the ultrasonic cleaner this has an ultrasonic wave that really works itself into the nitty-gritty areas that you can’t get to with brushes alone and so it really indepth and deeply cleans these components up when you use an ultrasonic cleaner it really is quite amazing sometimes how these items come out of the ultrasonic cleaner you can really see the mud and debris lift away from the component so we’re just going to wash off the degreaser that we use in there so that’s what I’m doing here and you can see how clean that is on the back of that right deep in the springs right deep in the pivots everything gets nicely cleaned up and here’s the body of the deria itself without that cage which we are now going to put on the RD4700 so the more modern 10-speed that Shimano offer actually has the same pull as an 11speed so it doesn’t work with this older generation 10-speed so one thing I have learned is that these cages are identical to the 105 so we can just swap the cage over to get a long cage for a bigger gearing on the rear of the bike i’m also using the brand new thumb adjuster out of the derailia that we used to make a a hybrid derailia effectively so we’re using the new thumb adjuster here but we are lubricating it before we put it in so that is now ready to go on the bike with a nice 10-speed long cage on there lubricate the original body so I’m using a bit of our premium grease here on the spring and then our general purpose oil here on the pivot points of the derailer just to make sure everything there is actuating and operating as nice as we can get it with the generation that we have and then I’m using our anti-seize grease here on the bolts that hold the chain set together because at some point in this bike’s life this is going to need to be took apart again and we’re using our general purpose grease here on the spider itself and I lubricate this up and it will just help the chain rings from stop binding to this chain ring it just makes it a little bit easier to take apart next time and so we can now put that together all nicely lubricated and then that will go back on the bike nicely and present nicely as well with having been so deeply cleaned in the areas that you can’t get to if it was all in one piece so just popping those together and then what I will also do with these once they’re on and before I put it on the bike is I torque those up to make sure they’re not going to come loose it’s far easier to do this at this stage than it is when it’s on the bike next up we turn our attention to the front rail so we’re using our premium grease there on the spring that does actually rotate and move as it’s moving up and down the gears so we need to lubricate that and then the pivot points here with our general purpose oil as well now the brake I was really pleased with the way these come up but they do have a thumb adjuster that does need lubricating so I’m using a general purpose grease there on the threads and then we can pop that into the brake itself and then we’ve got a couple of other areas here that we do need to lubricate and you can see here the five syringes we’ve got in the background there we’ve already used the general purpose oil here we’ve already used the premium grease next to it on the springs we’ve used the general purpose grease on the thumb adjuster and now we’re just using a little bit of silicon grease here on the slider that goes through that plastic fitting there with the spring it will just help that slide in and out of that spring actuate a few times to get it running through and then we can also lubricate the skewers these are very prone to going rusty and seizing in wheels and so the final grease there of the five is the anti-seize grease there that I’m using on the threads of that skewer so these greases are all available on our website we do them in a pack of five and we also do them individually so well worth checking out our website to see what we’ve got there because a lot of the items that we use in here today we do actually sell and we do use them daily so they’re things that we stand by that we use ourselves on a daily basis so same with these brushes that we’re using here we’re using here the big softy brush i’ve actually put a snow foam on this bike and then we’re washing it down here with a little bit more water this bike had some real deep greasy marks and being a white frame you could really see the transformation as we scrub those off we’re just doing the down tube there you can see the dirt and debris lifting off that bike already quite satisfying really when you’re washing a bike like this where it’s not necessarily ever been apart for a full clean down like this and you know you could potentially doing it for the first time bottom bracket I want to just wash that out make sure there’s no debris in there because we are going to be putting a new one in and it’s the best time to clean it when there’s nothing there in the way and obviously the saddle and then I’m using a microfiber towel here this will draw off all of that water all of the dirt and debris that is left on the bike if there is any it will lift all that off and really make this bike begin to present and then what we’re also doing with this bike is we’re going to polish it and ceramic coat it so here we’re using the Auto Glim Super Resin Polish it’s a lovely creamy polish that we can really work into that paint you really feel the debris that is infused on that paint lifting away especially on a white bike like this it can really come up nicely aluminium frames can be very tricky to clean sometimes the paint tends to sort of scratch more than maybe a carbon fiber bike the painting process is slightly different with gel coats and things so with this one this really came up nicely it was a testament to the giant paintwork here because it really lifted and looks beautiful when it was done buffing that polish off now and you can see the shine really beginning to come up when I do this giant logo here the shine is there it really really brought this paint up beautifully so very very pleased with that but at this stage I’m also now going to spray some Autolim Rapid Ceramic Spray on this one it gives a nice coat into the frame that really repels the water the water will bead up on this and just run off the bike which also means that your debris and your dirt that you’re going to have on this bike is also just going to lift away when I get to do this it’s a really enjoyable process to buff a bike up like this because you can just see the difference and it’s so nice next up I’m using one of our detailing brushes to wash the wheel down now what I’m doing here is not only am I washing down the rim and getting any debris off that’s on the braking surface but I’m also checking the integrity of the wheel so I’m looking where the spokes go into the rim to make sure the rim’s not cracked checking the spokes are all okay none loose or too tight you can generally feel those to a degree with your fingers in this instance we weren’t doing any retensioning but I can check everything little bit of general purpose grease where the cassette is going to go on and you’ll see here that we’re actually putting a 34 to cassette on this this bike is about to go on an expedition he’s taking this abroad and he’s going to be riding up some big old mountains so he needs a good gearing on this one so we’re putting a big 34 tooth on there and then we’re also going to be changing the tires for a allterrain type of tire that will deal with wet weather and loose debris and mud as well as being a road tire so it’s still a narrow tire like he’s got on here but where these Gator skins had next to no rubber left on them these are a nice chunky tire on here the Schwarby Marathon tire with good grip good tread reflective surface everything about this is geared up specifically for either winter riding or trekking as this bike is about to do so the perfect tire really to take on this expedition that the rider is about to embark the tire is on we’ve lined up the logo with the valve we can inflate that and that will be ready to do many thousands of miles so he’s got the good gear in there or the easier gearing for hill climbing a good tire which will grip the road nicely for the descents so everything there is good now I’ve got to remove the handlebar tape not only was it worn out so it wouldn’t be comfortable for the miles that he’s about to do but also we had that front derailia adjuster in the rear derailia end so we need to replace the outer for the front derailia and the rear derailia and also put that in its correct spot so off comes those we just remove the debris and the excess bits of the bar tape we’ll put a new hour into these so in goes a new cable in this instance we’re using our stainless steel super slick cable we actually sell these again in kits but they’re a lovely tightly wound stainless steel cable they give a cracking shift these they really always operate perfectly lovely and smooth everything about them is just very very nice so we put the new outer on there and then we will put the new cable through the center of that one thing which we didn’t show here was putting the front derailer adjuster back into this cable where it’s supposed to go so now that cable can actually be micro adjusted on goes the new bar tape here so we feather that onto the bike this is a lovely 3 mm comfort bar tape that I’m using here again very very comfortable especially if you got miles in the saddle which this bike is about to do and it also has a nice surface on it that really cleans and washes down doesn’t get grimy like a lot of bar tape so this is actually my go-to bar tape really it’s the one that I always put on bikes in the shop it’s a very very nice bar tape this one finish up the end make sure that’s all tucked underneath so that goes right at the bottom of the bar so that you can’t feel that and everything’s comfortable next in is the bottom bracket bearing so we’re using the standard Shimano one here they work very very well absolutely perfect in that goes we press that in until it meets its home position and then we can remove that press so that is now ready to go i’m quite happy with that and now we’re at the stage of rebuilding the bike so the first thing for us to do is to put the chain set on that goes on on goes the left hand arm now there is a little safety washer there with a little metal pin then this is a pre-tensioner for the bearing before you put the bolts in i’ve seen people who’ve put the pre-tensioner in thinking that’s what holds the arm on and they’ve wound up as tight as possible and the arm still falls off the bearing gets destroyed so you need to make sure you do this in the right routine a little bit of anti-seize grease on those threads of the pedals to make sure that they don’t bind in and then we can torque those up these pedals had a very small Allen key fitting that I could see was rung off slightly from the previous overtightening so I just hand tightened these and then I’ll torque them up with a crow fitting so that I don’t stress them any further on goes the front derailia brand new cable there just making that tail end a little bit shorter you’ll notice that in the before and afters the tail was quite long it was tapping the pedal arm so we don’t want that to happen so we’ve made that a little bit shorter torquing this up in its final position because I do need to adjust this and make sure that it’s right and I find that to do that before I go through the rest of the bike is the perfect time next up a little bit of our anti-seize grease you can see the corrosion on that frame there we want to make sure that our bolt doesn’t cause any more of that corrosion so we put a nice liberal coating of our anti-seize grease on the mount before putting the brake on on goes that cable the rear one was actually a little bit long so we’ve shortened that off we used a cable guide there that gets all our cables the same length so make sure that’s on there nicely and then put a new tail end on both the front and rear so the brakes are now sorted out going to use a little bit of anti-seize grease on the fittings in the frame these often bind in so put a little bit of that on the threads that works in is a good thing to do because you can then remove these accessory bolts in the future never ever overtighten your accessory bolts always do those up by hand so that I can feel how tight they are and I never overtighten them checking the derailure hanger there is all okay which it was on goes that derailia now with the long cage which you’ll see when we shift gears changes perfectly you can see now the tail doesn’t have that second adjuster in so we’ll pop that into this brand new adjuster here on the derailia hook that in and tighten it up and everything there is now ready to go when we put the wheel on so we just shorten off the cable end there then we can do our final adjustments once it’s all together one goes the front wheel everything there was fine we’ve got that brand new tire on goes the rear wheel brand new cassette brand new tire everything there is good and then we put the chain onto the bike so we’re using a brand new Shimano chain here so that goes on first it’s going to need to be a little bit longer because this derailia body is slightly longer also so we do need a new chain whenever we do anything like this so we’ll just put the pin into that chain there tighten that up and get that so that we can just snap off the tail which is the way some of these Shimano chains work so that pops off there and now that’s ready to go so we can now check our adjustments so you can see here as we go up to the larger rings on this rear derailia how that body on that derailia is now not at 90° and strained like it could be if it was a short cage so it’s the perfect length cage for this gearing that we’re now running on this bike so we’ve really altered this to a trekking bike now and it’s ready to go for its journey check the front derailia we also check the brakes i make sure that they’re pulling evenly onto the rim so that they’re not pulling one side and straining the spokes or the bearings everything there is good i’m happy with that so now I’m going to work my way through the bike now you can see here the hoods themselves are actually loose both sides so they have a set torque which I’m now talking them up to is super important to get right with all the mountainous corners and handling this bike will be doing getting those tight and safe is as big a fix as anything else on the bike need to make sure the steer tube and the stem is absolutely spot on we don’t want anything coming loose there when we’re riding down these mountains it’s good reason to have your bike serviced for such a holiday make sure that the brake pads and the brakes and everything are pinch bolts mounts and everything here is absolutely as it needs to be that’s what I’m just doing here checking the mount don’t want your brakes coming off going downhill you’re going to go over the handlebars check that the pedals aren’t actually overtightened but they’re torqued correctly everything there is good and then obviously the seat post we don’t want that saddle dropping down and spoiling the ride and saddles often come loose i often torque these up during a service in this instance it was okay but that’s something you always need to check finally the rear derailer that’s always okay but there’s no harm in checking it and that’s the bike fully serviced and restored so you can see here we’ve made a massive difference to this bike we’ve changed the tires we’ve changed the gearing we’ve changed the cables everything about it now is absolutely spot on should cause no problems at all for a holiday so thanks for watching please do subscribe we always appreciate your likes and supportive comments so keep them coming that’s all for this week and we’ll see you again very very soon bye for now