Friday, December 02, 2005

It sucks to try and disassemble a bike without the all the tools. I was able to remove the brakes, chainrings and derailleurs. The cranks and bottom bracket are another matter. At the axle there is a dust cover type thingy that I need a spanner(?) to remove. If I get that and the cranks off, I don't have the wrench to remove the bottom bracket lockrings(?) They have six notches cut in them for a wrench to fit. I'm going to have to see if Jay has those tools.

Today I was looking for a small toolset in a closet and stumbled across 2003 Tour Caravan schwag. I had no clue it was in the closet. Among the items were a yellow jersey pin I had purchased, a French playing card game for kids that I have no way of knowing how to play and two packets of Haribo candy. The candy is like gummy bears but instead they are gummy cyclists. It's a little disturbing to eat a cyclist but they are mighty tasty. At least they were in '03 when they were fresh. I'm leary of opening the pack and eating one. Would that kind of food go bad? They are a little hard but should be okay.

Viewpoint: Biggest Grand Tour blowup This award has to go to Jens Voigt on stage 10 to Courcheval. The day before he got in a long breakaway group and grabbed the yellow jersey. Jens had been dropped on the earlier climb of the Cormet de Roselend but caught up to the Discovery led chase group on the valley road. Unfortunately for Jens, the road to Courcheval goes uphill. He hung tough for a short while but then got dropped like a 2 ft putt. He was creeping up the mountain. The suffering was plainly visible on his face. He crossed the line 31 minutes after Valverde and Armstrong. Voigt did not recover overnight and the next day was dropped on the big Madeleine only to face the Telegraphe and even bigger Galibier. I watched from above as he snaked his way up the switchbacks of the Galibier as the last rider on the road. Fans were giving him huge pushes of 200-300 ft up the road. He ride a little bit on his own and another guy give a healthy push. Voight had nothing in the engine. All the pushes went for naught. He still finished over 40 minutes later and did not make the time cutoff for the stage. In two days, he went from leader to out of the race. Boom, Boom and out go the lights.

3 Comments:

Blogger Patrick said...

Is the pin spanner needed for the BB or to get the crankarms off? If you are referring to the small dust cap on the crankarm, assuming it is a self-extracting crank bolt, it should also have an allen/hex bolt inside of the dustcap (2 pieces which move indepently). You should be able to unscrew the allen bolt which will push against the dustcap, thus pulling the crankarm from the spindle...BRILLIANT!

9:24 PM  
Blogger Jim said...

It is the allen bolt/dustcap combo. My impression was that both should come. I loosened the allen bolt, made about a revolution or two and then it got pretty snug again and made me hesitant to force the matter.

11:29 PM  
Blogger Patrick said...

Well, sounds like you initially broke the snugness of the bolt, you loosened it until it backed up against the dust cap, at which time it became snug again. The snugness is probably the point at which the bolt pushes against the dustcap (which is actually more than just a dustcap in the instance of a self-extracting crankarm bolt) and is ready to pull itself off of the BB spindle.

10:20 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home