Following up on my previous post about my new bike, everything has been going quite peachy. Who knew that buying everything new helps?
Well, it’s no silver bullet. If there’s anything I have learned about fixed gears so far, it is that you have to get the crank bolts just right, and check them frequently. There should not be any noise, and there should not be any binding of the chain. When I first got the repairs done, there developed an awful rattling in the chainring; it turns out the bolts were too long and weren’t able to be tightened enough. After a couple weeks riding around with a new set of properly sized bolts, the rattling came back. I got a wrench and discovered everything had come loose. I tightened, and the chainring went back to being almost totally quiet.
Well, never content, I tried to remember Sheldon Brown’s article on how to get the chainring dialed in. I only managed to remember about 80% of it however: I was tightening adjacent bolts (you know, NEVER do that?) and broke off the head of one from over-tightening. (Also, my approach to straightening the seating the chainring properly was all wrong.) A cheap problem, but very annoying when the bike is your primary mode of transit. Note to self, repeated: don’t do bike maintenance after bike shops close. However, I really understand the advice Brown offers to straighten out the chainring for whisper-quiet performance, and I’m excited to get my new bolts and get that puppy hummin’, as they say.
The other critical piece of maintenance I picked up from a repair shop guy is: oil your chain often. I went home to NY for a day and rode around the bike I had there: it was like riding a wet sock (whatever that means). I had severely over-lubed it last time, and it had picked up so much dirt that the chain was completely stiff. (As a side-note, going from fixed to free-wheel is really annoying. I had a moment of panic when I needed to use the brakes before flying into traffic!). Last week, we cleaned the chain on a friend’s bike; the performance difference looking at her ride it was noticeable, let alone actually sitting on it! I want to clean up the hubs on that bike next.
