Any question answered...

there was a bike posted recently which had a kind of bracket setup instead of a headtube, so the steerer tube of the fork is visible. I cant for the life of me remember which thread it was in, can anybody help?

from hhsb thread..

I have a MTB ext.BB chainset going in a 73mm BB. Do I need a 2.5mm BB spacer? Cranks won't tighten up to the face so I suspect they do need one.

Hmm, something isn't right then. It's a Truvativ Stylo xc crank. Shouldn't be 83mm.

Worked out where I was going wrong. I was using a Shimano BB with a Sram crank. Why are Sram designers such dicks with compatability? Too close too see a difference, too different to bodge

Why are Shimano designers such dicks with compatability?

ftfy

Really? The Shimano design is simple and clearly works. The Sram one consists of different sized bearings and tapered splined fittings.

Did the Sram tapered BB axle come first?

I was thinking of all the proprietary shit Shimano have thrown at us over the years, rather than just the external BB design.

Oh, yeah. Some of is kind of laugh or cry. Seemingly pointless stuff, would be good to see their reasoning

the recent dynasys assymetric chains, the incompatibility between road and mtb groupsets...

The shimano hollowtech bb design seems good enough for cranks by Middleburn, RaceFace, FSA...

Anyone else had the speed sensor on a Garmin GCS 10 stop working? Last month my 705 was intermittently auto-pausing/resuming while going way faster than the 4mph it was set to. Now after pressing the 'reset' button on the speed/cadence sensor I get red LED flashes from the crank, but no green ones from the wheel.

A post on Garmin's own forums suggest the reed switch for the wheel is particularly fragile. I've sent an email to customer support but it's a couple of years old and I'm not very hopeful they'll offer a replacement. Might have to attempt to hack it back into life if I can find a replacement reed switch.

Predictably, Garmin are offering no help with this other than sending me a link to where I can buy a new one for forty five quid.

I thought I might give the Bontrager Ant+ speed/cadence sensor a shot instead. Anyone have any experience of using these with a Garmin head unit? As far as I can tell they're compatible, just wondering if there's any disadvantages to them compared to Garmin's own sensor.

I have returned one of those sensors to Garmin before and they just sent out a new one.

Was yours still under warranty? They said they'd replace mine if it was, but I'd bought it in 2009. Two and a half years before it broke isn't entirely unreasonable, but this appears to be a very common problem and it sounds like I might have been lucky that it didn't break before now. Hence my reluctance to buy a new one.

I might reply to them with a whinge, just for the hell of it. Wouldn't have bothered in the past, must be getting old or summat.

Ask them if it can be repaired.

Mine was under warranty.

Their email said "we are unable to book these in", which I read as support-speak for we don't repair them. Obviously don't do refurbs either.

In the meantime I might as well have a go at repairing it myself. Thought I had an old wired computer knocking around but couldn't find it, so I've just ordered a couple of reed switches. No idea if they're the right size but will find out soon enough.

building a tourer with 47/36 rings up front, 14/28 6 spd freewheel

do i need a long cage rear mech? or is that really only for a triple?

also , have a 32 t front so what about 47/32 up front?

I'd stick the 32 on personally, unless you're touring at lightning speed and in not too hilly terrain, a bigger gear range the better.

reckon you probably would be fine with a medium cage derailleur though?

this is good

the 36 is slighty wonky and the 32 is nos, was worried about the drop

was worried about the drop

15t difference is not a stretch for a modern FD designed to work with 50/34 compacts. A short cage RD should cope too.

Is there any reason you can't run a five speed de-ralier on a different amount of gear rear wheel and just use the 5 of the gears?

Is there any reason you can't run a five speed de-ralier on a different amount of gear rear wheel and just use the 5 of the gears?

The cassette spacing will suit the shifter unless you are using friction shifters.
What is the number of sprockets on the cassette and what are the shifters, the deraileur is fairly irrelevant.

Additionally if the derailleur is from a five speed bike it is probably old and it may not be a slant parallelogram type and therefore may not index well.

The shifters are the ones on the down tube I -think- its a ten speed 11 - 25 shimano rear hub. I'm guessing it will probably not work very well thinking again!

A short cage RD should cope too.

i'm building an Evans to the same spec as here

this seems to have a long cage RD on something like 47/32 front rings

why put it on if it's not necessary?

here's another
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/nkilgariff/CBcats/Cat_77/Majestic.jpg

why put it on if it's not necessary?

It might have been necessary with an old fashioned dérailleur. Old short-cage was designed for racing, typically 10t difference at the front (52/42) and 11t at the back (13-24 6-speed). Modern ones are designed for modern gearing, typically 53/39 and 11-25, so 28t total capacity. Also, it made sense on an OTP touring bike to put a long cage on to cope with the biggest after-market multiple freewheel and smallest inner ring a user might stick on there, even if the stock gearing is a bit sporty.

so, as i'm going with 47/32 and 14/28 freewheel, would you say long cage is the better option?

i have both a suntour VX GT long cage rear
or a Suntour AR (i think medium) (would be nice as the front mech is AR also)
I even have a short Suntour of some description

Medium will be OK I reckon, as long as you avoid 32/14 combo.