Apr 15 2008
DNR
Got the green light for Mudslinger yesterday and put the registration in the mail. My only hope is that the bike will be put back together. There’s been a number of little things that I’ve noticed that need a little attention. I spent some of the weekend trying to correct a few of them.
First was a wobbly rear cassette. Dismantled the rear hub and took it off to find enough pitting in the cups and play in the freewheel that it was time to go. RCB didn’t have a replacement in stock Sunday so one’s on order and should be here Wednesday.
Second was the rear dropout area. For some reason, the rear wheel axle has been slowly digging into the front of the right side dropout. The result is that the rear wheel tracking is off the midline of the frame. I’m guessing that it’s a result of a few things – 1. an aluminum frame, 2. insufficiently tightened QR skewer, 3. too much play in the dropouts, and 4. a lot of torque rotating the wheel counterclockwise around the left dropout.
I picked up some JB Weld and used it to fill in the pitted area. I’ll work on shaping it tomorrow with the Dremel tool. It would be very nice if the JB Weld stuff held. It’s pretty rock solid but I don’t know what kind of forces it’ll be subjected to.
Last is a pretty beat up bottom bracket / crank area. I didn’t have time to take the cranks off to get a closer look. I may do that later this week, depending on how the hub repacking and dropout shaping goes. The soft metal of the crank arms are in danger of being cross-threaded and stripped by the crank puller.
I just recently read that there’s an outside potential to use a cross bike at Mudslinger. It wouldn’t be my first choice but it’s a backup if need be.
I do also need to keep in mind that I’m trying to coax a 10 year old mountain bike that has been used for winter commuting a few years and marginally maintained during that time into service as a ‘performance’ XC bike. It’s a good bike, not a great one and I’m definitely paying for maintenance sins of the past. However, it’s the only mtb I have now and as long as I feel it’s safe, I’ll race it.
The short of it is that I’m approaching Do Not Resuscitate status with this bike with the intention of upgrading next spring. I don’t want to start looking too hard yet but I’m guessing there’s a 90% chance I’ll go with a 29′er. Gary Fischer has a bunch and Specialized has one too – in an XXL size too.