SRAM red sti failed in this morning ride

Wheels of Happiness

This post experienced failure on this am ride intended to go around Teresa.  I could only shift to the 5th cog and no more  up ot Mambog.  So this post decided to return because that meant I could not negotiate steep hills at Teresa and Antipolo because the shifter was not working properly.

Could it be failure of the shifting mechannism inside STI?  Did the pawls or the plastic dram fail.

Five km from Mamabog on the way beck this post tried to examine the tightness of shift cable.  And lo and behold, it was.  The cable was loose by at least 4-5 mm.   I tightened the cable, (pulled by hand and later with a plier when I reached home) and tightened the nut the cable nut well.  And the problem seemed to have been resolved

Cables and uts do get loose and they result in such function failures   Be sure to bring tools

Thought I have to see Mario Toledo again or worse buy a new shifter.   Good for me.  Savings

Loose headset again?

Wheels of Happiness

I used the bike I rode on long ride yesterday.  Lo and behold, the fork, steering system was loose - probably a play of 0.5 to 1 mm.  The long ride + plus the watermelon load that jarred the headset could be the reason.

I tightened the bolt that held the headset together but there was no improvement.   Disassembled the whole

headset.  Found out:   that the expander bolt was loose, and that the compression circlip popped out.

Therefore:   pushed back the compression circlip, and retightened the expander bolt (the equivalent of the flower).  But the tightening was done gingerly because it is a carbon fork and I had no torque wrench.

Loose headset/post no more....Solved

Repair of head post of the Bianchi bike

Wheels of Happiness

Rizal Philippines
December 23, 2016

Before I rode out yesterday with the Bianchi bike, its handling and safety was suspect.   The head post and the steerer were loose.  I tried to tighten this but everything came loose.  The flower together with the bolt for the headpost came out.

So I removed the stem from steering post, and examined the flower.  The flower petals were all tightly compressed. So I took a long nose plier and tried to straighten out the flower by 2 to 3 mm or about the same amount of degrees.  Then having determined that the flower were exact or slightly tighter fit, I drove down the flower using the long nose plier, and the head post bolt to drive down the flower.

I tried reinstalling the head post and the stem, and everything was nice and tight.  I was able to ride today using the Bianchi bike and saved about a P100 in repair bills.

How nice