Mechanics and Fixing Any Questions Answered

Thanks for confirming. I'll probably get it in EU - seems cheaper and it needs to go to Poland anyway.

Any luck?

I went for the B-grade approach of an IPA soaked-pipe cleaner to clean the mechanism as a) I'm time poor and b) I only wrapped the bars a fortnight ago and will only strip the levers down if I have to! Got a heap of gunk/grit out whilst working the levers, will report back Sunday when I get the chance to ride

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A very mundane question - anyone know of an inexpensive Boost rear thru-axle that's hollow all the way through?
(I want to adapt a QR old man mountain rack onto my mountain bike, have done this on another bike by putting the QR through the thru axle, but my mountain bike has an axle that's solid at one end. I could drill it out, but would prefer not to).

Right, in the great wiggle firesale I picked up a cheap nukeproof GXP external BB. Have just come to fit it to my Pompino (68mm shell) and a Sram Rival road crank and when i tighten everything up is just locks up...normally, with the sram BB you cinch these things down as hard as you can and off you go.

I've gone for a 2.5mm spacer each side, though I also tried just one spacer on DS, have also tried with and without the wavy washer (that is not part of the sram setup...)

Was at a loss, then just found this thread which concludes Nukeproof GXP BBs are not compatible with road cranks....but why and how is that possible? Anyone know if there is a solution?

God I hate bikes sometimes....

Sounds like you should try it with no spacers?

MTB GXP spindle will be longer, so a road GXP crankset ain't gonna work with a MTB GXP BB.

Doesn't sound like it's got anything to do with the spindle. Weirdly on the drawings on the Nukeproof website, the two versions of the BB look the same except for the internal spacer tube.

"For the same BB standard, the spindle on MTB cranks is longer than what you find on the corresponding road bike cranks, which means that mtb cranks have a higher Q-factor than corresponding road crank. note that spindle length always measured perpendicular to the crank arm. If you don't mind the higher Q-factor, you can always run MTB cranks on a road bike, but not vice versa (the spindle cannot stick sufficiently far out of the NDS BB cup for one to attach the NDS crank arm)"

https://forum.slowtwitch.com/forum/Slowtwitch_Forums_C1/Triathlon_Forum_F1/SRAM_GXP_Crank_compatibility_between_road_and_mountain__P6826809/

The Nukeproof BB, I presume, is made for MTB cranks with a longer spindle length, so a road crankset spindle will be too short for it, and bind soon as you tighten it up

Dropper servicing - my Brand X post is feeling pretty rough, I think disassembling, cleaning and regreasing it will do a lot for it but ideally I’d like to replace the dust seal and maybe the bushes if they are looking shitty. I should have grabbed some spares when crc/wiggle was sinking because now everywhere that sold brand x parts is sold out.

I guess the seal will be a stock item so should be available from non-cycling sources? Is there a numbering system like with bearings?

I see some seals for other posts and it looks like they are integrated into our at least pre-fitted into the top collar, chances a collar and seat for say, an Orbea post will fit right into a Brand X?

https://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/where-to-get-parts-for-a-brand-x-ascend-xl-200mm/

I remember having a read through that thread when I saw all the cartridges going cheap on crc but the 200mm was out of stock and it got me worried that mine would need replacing.

As it turns out my cartridge is fine still but the action has gotten rough from a couple days riding in cairngorm gritty slop. I think I’ve put a bit of a score in the top ‘stanchion’ so wanted to whack a new seal in there to try and keep it as sealed up as possible.

The thread doesn’t really come to any solid conclusions about cross compatibility, just a few people pondering, as I am, the likelihood that all the cheap dropper are coming out of one factory and would therefore share parts.

This ebay seller (although out of stock of everything) does have lots of photos of the spare parts:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/284098250955

Which when compared to the TranzX spares, they do look awfully similar:

https://na.tranzx.com/collections/service-parts

FWIW, I've only ever replaced the seal and bush once on my OneUp dropper because it started feeling a bit rough, and I honestly don't think it made much more of a difference than just cleaning under the seal, wiping the bushing clean and regreasing; the quick service.

I think I’ll give mine the Quick Service™ in the short term and maybe in the long term I’ll order that Orbea kit I linked as it’s the only one I’ve found so far that specifies it’s for a 31.6mm post (I’m imagining that the same collar might be shared between 30.9 and 31.6mm posts but not 27.2 or 34.9mm ones.

PNW also have their Rainier mk3 posts on sale right now so maybe I’ll just upgrade to something with actual spares support.

Must be it. Will try it with no spacer, but am relatively resigned to it not working...I do have another bike running gxp mountain bike cranks, so it will come in eventually.

Just so frustrating when you think...ah, quick change of BB, ten mins tops...and half an hour later you're swearing at it, covered in grease and have a bike that works less than when you started.

ten mins tops

And some shops will charge upwards of £25 for that 10 minutes of work.

Yeah, and that's great. Still doesn't explain why some after market BBs don't fit all combination of GXP crankset/shell when most do. I've got SRAM and hope on other bikes...no bother.

Also, booking my bike in, dropping it off, waiting for it to be done and collecting it would take me quite a bit more time than 30 mins...but granted, I wouldn't be covered in grease.

Is there a website wherei can enter chainstay length, and max and min cassette size and chainring size and it’ll tell me how many links of chain I should have?

I have this for fixed/single setups but once it’s a lot easier to calculate.

https://www.alpinetrek.co.uk/chain-length-calculator/

Cheers.

I’m looking at moving derailleur, chain and cassette from one bike to another and wanted to know, without getting to the point of having two half built bikes if I’d need a new chain or not.

I just measured the chainstays of the bike I’m moving the stuff to to put into that site though and then thought, I can just measure the chainstays of the bike the stuff is on and yeah, 30mm shorter (on the bike I’m moving to) plus the chainring is a few teeth smaller so I’ll need to shorten the chain, not replace it.

http://www.machinehead-software.co.uk/bike/chain_length/chainlengthcalc.html