Mechanics and Fixing Any Questions Answered

Obviously this voids the warranty and what have you but given the location of the hole, in one of the most stiffed-up parts of the frame, I'd be pretty happy to ride on it.

someone has drilled a hole in the upper (mono) section of the seatstay close to the seat tube to mount a rack

A bold choice given that they'll have been staring at the built in rack mounts while drilling 🙂

My thoughts exactly. The rack looks like this, which I think is a design that clamps the seat stays between two metal bars. They had to drill an extra, central hole through it, so neither the rack, nor the bike were used as intended.

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That’s too bad, they could have left both untouched by using a couple of daruma bolts.

All decent pedals have full circle contact at the shoulder and are much less likely to cause any problems when mounted without washers.

I agree with Jobst Brandt, that there are no decent pedals, because the interface lacks a 45° chamfer. From this vantage point, pedal washers offer a barely significant improvement...

there are no decent pedals, because the interface lacks a 45° chamfer

Well, there's that, but it's not going to change.

Speaking of Jobst in the present tense; he was still alive thirteen years ago...

It could conceivably change - the lock-in could be sidestepped if there was a tool to cut the chamfer in existing cranks, split collets provided with cranks which incorporate the new chamfer for the fitment of old pedals, and available to folks who've had their old cranks modified, and concave-tapered washers provided with pedals incorporating the new chamfer in case they need to be fitted to older or unmodified cranks.

Bigger changes have happened, but this one is admittedly on the edge of possibility for a few reasons...

Why the need for a chamfer i.e. can someone explain this

"Jobst Brandt will be pleased to explain to you why the interface is so fundamentally flawed that no tightening torque can really be called adequate, since the pedals will loosen at any torque short of the failure stress of the thread."

I think a 45 deg chamfer and matching washer (/collet?) would provide more friction to prevent loosening?

About the only other threaded fastener I can think of that has a chamfer like that would be wheel nuts on a car, I guess they are designed to not come loose. Counter sunk bolts too I guess but that’s are usually done for other reasons I think.

Fwiw though, I’ve never used pedal washers, never felt the need to or seen damage occurring on my crank arms, never had any problems with pedals loosening off and therefore don’t think I’ll be starting to use them any time soon.

I have a wheel built up on a Bitex BX106R that has developed some lateral play, ~2-3 mm up near the brake bridge. Sounds akin to the klunking of a loose headset when I set the rear of the bike down so I don't think it's flex in the spokes etc., pretty sure it's coming from the hub. I looked at all the bearings and they seem to be fine - spin smoothly - and the axle/ends caps are done up tightly. Anything else to look at? Is it likely the bearings are gone but I can only feel the wear when it's exaggerated out at the rim?

If you picture the direction of load on the pedal spindle, it's fairly close to the plane of intersection of the thread shoulder and crank arm - for this face to be clamped tightly enough to the mating surface on the crank to preclude fretting, would require a totally unrealistic tension on the threaded section. This substandard design inevitably leads to damage on the cranks.

A chamfer would allow that coarse pedal thread to more adequately clamp the mating surfaces, which would then be more or less orthogonal to the load going through the junction.

Car wheelnuts have this chamfer for the same reasons - to increase the clamping force afforded by a given amount of torque through the thread, and to better orient the mating surface to the loads, greatly reducing the chance of relative movement.

Have a dreaded ring on my carbon steerer — is this done? It doesn't have a noticeable lip but you can feel the scratching when you run your finger over it. Annoyingly only a few hundred miles on the fork and the headset (from what I could tell) was tightened properly (no knocking, could not move spacers, etc)

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https://www.lfgss.com/comments/17245070/incontext/ et seq.
It's up to you to decide whether it has gone from mark to groove, but your finger might feel a <1μm transition, well below the point where you need to start worrying.

Looks fine imo

My cranks came with pedal washers. That's the only reason I'm going to (probably) replace them. I've not had an issue without pedal washers on these or any other cranks.

Ty both

Concerning tire/rim combos that tend to frustrate people - anyone use the Tyre Glider? Opinions?
https://ottalausinc.ca/products/tyre-glider-tire-lever

That makes sense, it probably is a suboptimal design. Does it cause problems in practice though? I can't say that I've noticed fretting as a big issue.

Trying to remove a thru axle with very rounded off hex hole. Looks like someone had previously hammered a torx in and bodged it, then over tightened again as that was rounded off too. Couldn't be arsed to do that, so bought a cheap Easyout tool. Took literally four seconds to get it out, incredible.

However, the tool is now properly stuck in the axle. So, how do I get this out? Axle slips in pliers and mole grips, don't have a vice handy...

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Got a strap wrench? Or could make something similar with an old inner tube…?

Tried that, can't get it to grip enough. The extractor is in really tight

It also only cost £7, so I might just buy another

Screw it in from the drive side?

Tighten down and it should come off.

Mole grip to remove the axle after.

Anyone know where I can get this formally checked to see if it's a terminal crack?

Reynolds Ouzo Pro forks from a Serotta, 10+ years old. Heard a strange noise coming back from Epping the other day, stripped it down to check.

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