A little over a week while riding the McKenzie River Trail, I got up out of the saddle to pedal up a steeper section of trail and as soon as I started to apply torque, the driver train and wheel made this bizarre noise that seemed very un-natural. I immediately got off the bike to inspect and realized that two of the bolts on the sliders had somehow worked themselves loose and were now part of trail on either the MRT or somewhere else around Bend.
Fortunately, I still had 2 bolts...but just barely. They had unthreaded themselves to the point where a couple of millimeters more and they too would have been casualties. I centered the wheel, tightened up the drive train and made a conscious effort to keep tabs on the situation...the big question was whether the bike would hold up with just 2 of the 4 slider bolts in place. At this point we were not even a 1/3 of the way into our ride but I was committed to not getting derailed for the remaining 4 + hours of riding that was ahead of us.
My mind immediately started to work through how those bolts came loose and I realized that the last time I tensioned my chain, I must have tightened the tension bolts and then forgotten to tighten the bolts on the slider to hold the wheel and drivetrain in place. I had been on a couple of rides where the drive train slipped a couple of times and instantly recognized the bike had not been riding 'right' for at least a couple of rides.
Fortunately, no damage was done to the bike and the 2 bolts held up just fine over the rest of the ride. Any additional bolt inventory shrinkage and it would have been a real problem but fortunately we were able to avert that situation.
I have since ordered a new set of bolts for the sliders and my big lesson learned is to do a visual inspection on the bike more frequently as it would have definitely caught those little troublemakers that worked themselves loose (from an already somewhat loose start). There is something to be said for not rushing through maintenance and checking your bike on just about every ride.
The replacement parts are in and soon enough we will be back to being whole on the singlespeed....which reminds me, time to do a little maintenance on the bike to make sure everything is where it should be.
Fortunately, I still had 2 bolts...but just barely. They had unthreaded themselves to the point where a couple of millimeters more and they too would have been casualties. I centered the wheel, tightened up the drive train and made a conscious effort to keep tabs on the situation...the big question was whether the bike would hold up with just 2 of the 4 slider bolts in place. At this point we were not even a 1/3 of the way into our ride but I was committed to not getting derailed for the remaining 4 + hours of riding that was ahead of us.
My mind immediately started to work through how those bolts came loose and I realized that the last time I tensioned my chain, I must have tightened the tension bolts and then forgotten to tighten the bolts on the slider to hold the wheel and drivetrain in place. I had been on a couple of rides where the drive train slipped a couple of times and instantly recognized the bike had not been riding 'right' for at least a couple of rides.
Fortunately, no damage was done to the bike and the 2 bolts held up just fine over the rest of the ride. Any additional bolt inventory shrinkage and it would have been a real problem but fortunately we were able to avert that situation.
I have since ordered a new set of bolts for the sliders and my big lesson learned is to do a visual inspection on the bike more frequently as it would have definitely caught those little troublemakers that worked themselves loose (from an already somewhat loose start). There is something to be said for not rushing through maintenance and checking your bike on just about every ride.
The replacement parts are in and soon enough we will be back to being whole on the singlespeed....which reminds me, time to do a little maintenance on the bike to make sure everything is where it should be.
No comments:
Post a Comment