What is the best way to keep my lovely bike going? Lots of gears are skipping, teeth worn down, can’t trust anymore to push hard without risking the chain skipping and nearly going flying.
by gggghhhhiiiijklmnop
What is the best way to keep my lovely bike going? Lots of gears are skipping, teeth worn down, can’t trust anymore to push hard without risking the chain skipping and nearly going flying.
by gggghhhhiiiijklmnop
8 Comments
Hey r/bikewrench I’m sorry if this is the wrong place to ask or if I’m asking a total newb question. I have had this bike (Giant Crosscity 3) for 18+ years. It’s been absolutely brilliant, I bought it when living in Australia, used to commute to work on it for about 4 years. Took a break and now am living in Barcelona, commuting on it every day for the past 5 years.
I’m ashamed to say that I have done almost no maintenance on the gears / cassette / chain, apart from an occasional clean.
Even though I could buy a new bike, I absolutely love this one, so I’m keen for your advice on how to get it back into decent shape.
Both the cassette and the other main gears have teeth worn down, so I’m understanding that I will need to change the entire groupset. I’ve also counted and it appears the cassette has 9 gears.
Could someone suggest what might be a good course of action? I’m pretty handy with tools and not adverse to reading books or watching a bunch of youtube, if it means taking care of my bike and bringing it back into good shape 🙂
Well, it looks like you need to replace the entire drivetrain. Chain, cassette, chainrings etc. while you’re at it do the brake and gear cables and cable housing. Brake pads and tyres as well. Maybe the braking tracks are done too. If you really love your bike do the bearings also.
The good news is that you can find all those parts on aliexpress (and tools) for very little money. But you need to have some experience or are willing to spend some time and watch some YouTube tutorials. Also post here for help.
Edit. To replace the whole lot except the bearings and wheels you’re probably looking at €100-150 worth of parts if you go for the basic stuff.
Probably replace the chain, cassette and chainrings.
Figure out the BCD (bolt circle diameter) for the chainrings. Then you can replace those.
Change the cassette and chainrings and get a new chain and you’ll be fine. For tools, you’ll need a cassette tool and a chain whip (and a wrench for the cassette tool); for the chain, a chain tool; for the chainrings, an appropriate metric Allen wrench/hex key. If there’s a bike co-op workshop near you, they’ll have the tools there (and advice as well). A bike shop will charge you a lot for this job, and you can do it all yourself.
https://www.biciclot.coop/
Start with replacing just the chain and cassette. A few drops of lube on derailleur pivot points.
You could, like, you know…. I dunno….. replace the parts that were worn out a few thousand miles ago? Those steel chainrings are pretty tough. They last far longer than higher cost and lighter weight alloy rings. Time to replace it all.
It’s time.
Start with a derailleur hanger alignment and dripping some lube into the shifter cable housing. If your gears are skipping while it’s perfectly aligned and everything is actuating nicely then you should replace chain and cassette. Just replacing the chain and cassette with a bent hanger is still going to result in the sketchy slipping feeling. Best of luck!