Any question answered...

Ah. Should have read upthread!

(Double post)

Yeah, I know. Today was the first time I've actually ridden a fixie and I found 70" was fine; it was much easier to ride at a really low cadence than really high, which is why I'm leaning towards a bigger ratio.

The caveat to that is that I was riding without a saddle, so now that I've got one I might feel differently when I ride home in a few minutes...

If I started concerning myself with quality of components I'd have to immediately chuck the whole bike in a skip

Today was the first time I've actually ridden a fixie

It's like 2007 all over again

Cheaper than cassette/derailleur/shifter... Though aside from the cassette I have enough spares to bodge something together now

the back wheel on this bike was only £26 and consequently spending £19.50 on a sprocket seems rather senseless

I don't mean to pick on you, because I read this reasoning on here quite often, but it's makes no sense to me.

Extending your argument, were someone to give you a bike you couldn't justify spending anything on it?

What you paid for one component, has no bearing on the reasonable cost of another: if a decent widget costs a tenner, then whether you beg, borrow or steal a widget-mount, a decent widget still costs a tenner.

To my mind, a bargain in one quarter makes it easier to justify an indulgence in another.

a bargain in one quarter makes it easier to justify an indulgence in another

Let me assure you, the wheel is only worth what I paid for it. It's a total piece of shit. The branding - "Redneck XC1" - tells you all you need to know.

But seriously to respond to your actual point, this bike is going to live outside and will only ever transport me to the pub, the shops, and 5k each way to work. It's not worth buying nice parts because a) I want absolute minimum theft risk b) I'm not going to treat it delicately - ideally I won't even bother cleaning it c) I don't care if it rides slowly or horribly d) the other (more important) parts are shit, so using one nice part won't stop it from riding slowly or horribly e) I'll have a supply of casts-offs from my other bikes that can go on to this one, so I don't know how long a given set of parts will stay on it f) other reasons etc.

On a real bike I agree with you. It's kind of like the reverse of the sunk cost fallacy I suppose.

Fair enough: considering point c) ("horribly", rather than "slowly"), I concede*.

*I found the shape of Gusset teeth didn't mesh well with my chain and Gusset confirmed that certain combinations were troublesome.

Yeah it's pretty clear they're not the best. Chain popped off about 6 times today. However that's almost certainly due to the hideous tension rather than the sprocket.

I guess I could set up an eBay alert thing for 6-bolt sprockets and get a better one, I had just assumed they were uncommon.

Trying not to dominate this thread but I have another question. My bike won't shift properly in the big ring yet works perfectly in the small ring. Can't put my B screw any lower without the mech fouling the cassette in the biggest sprocket. What could be the problem?

My only ideas are that it's possible that I mixed up the jockey wheel cage bits between a 10 speed X7 mech and 10 speed X9 - though as far as I can tell they look pretty much identical - or that it's become bent somehow.

Can I check, your rear mech won’t shift when in the big ring at the front?

In what way won’t it shift?

How do you bleed Ultegra ST-R8070 ?

Where's the bleed cap?

Nevermind

Pg. 85:
http://si.shimano.com/pdfs/dm/DM-R8050-01-ENG.pdf

A picture paints a thousand words.....

what size chainrings and what range cassette and what length cage on rear mech?

been dealing with blocked drain. a bit stinky but not sewerage kind of stinky.
realised I've been a bit cavalier with sticking my arm down the drain, since my hand has quite a few cuts and scrapes currently, so heading out to buy some TCP.
but despite washing three times with soap and nail brush, my hands still fucking stink. what can I do to get rid of it?

I've just taken apart my side pull rim brake caliper, cleaned it and lubed every moving part. Is it possible that the friction in all the parts is so low (as in: everything moves/rotates very easily), that the force of the brake cable pushes the caliper to one side, resulting in one brake pad hitting the rim when the lever isn't pulled (i.e., it's not centering properly)? When I pull the brake cable and pull the lever, the caliper indeed seems to center somewhat/better.

I've watched the Park Tools video on how to adjust your rim brake, but to no avail. I feel like I've played with all the nuts and bolts to adjust the tension/friction. Adjusting the small alignment screw also didn't work. Very weird problem.

What make of side pull is it?

New arm time

my hands still fucking stink. what can I do to get rid of it?

Commit robbery in Saudi Arabia.

What make of side pull is it?

Miche something.

Or just wait it out. Your skin has absorbed the stinky compounds, but the fact that you can smell them means they are slowly evaporating.

it's not centering properly

Make sure the back nut, stationary arm and centre bolt (red arrows) are locked together, which they should be as a result of the back nut acting as a jam nut against the thread in the stationary arm, and that the set screw (blue arrow) is properly set against the M7 thread on the centre bolt. If your cable is still pushing the brake off centre, it's usually due to a too short cable housing, which is particularly common at the rear.

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rather than dab TCP at the cuts I bathed my hands in Dettol, which seems to have solved the stink