Tour Divide Mechanicals

[trebor]

"On day six (northbound) my rear hub failed.  It would engage and disengage randomly..."

What hub did you have?

[MTBiker from Berendrecht]

During our bikepacking trip in Romania last September, my buddy's rear V-brake broke.
Thank God for tie wraps !! One should always take these on any trip.
You can fix a lot with those things (see picture).

Regards,

Berten

[wookieone]

Thanks Berten!
I call them Zip Ties, always have some of those along for the ride as well as duct tape and some bailing wire.....

[MCR]

funny lots of broken fork mounted H2O cages....it was my only failure that lead to two flats...maybe gonna try to avoid them this year...
Thanks Everyone, keep em coming!
Jefe

From the engineering standpoint, it's just a bad idea to mount water bottles on a suspension fork.

As others have said, the cages break and the water bottles are ejected. The story about a cage taking out spokes should be enough of a warning.

But there's more. The whole point of a designing a good suspension is "to reduce unsprung weight." "Sprung weight" is the part above the springs---the rider, the frame, the gear bags, and (I hope I can convince you) *the water*. The springs and dampers are designed so the sprung weight sort of floats along oblivious to the bumps. They do that by making the tires, wheels, and everything else "below" the springs bounce up-and-down like little bunny rabbits. It's a lot easier for those to bounce up and down separate from the floaty part if they are very light. Certainly, a lot of the equation is dialing in the various components and adjustments. And it's clear the TD is a lot of normal riding, so there is the argument that hanging extra weight off the fork is a reasonable compromise. But if you're compromising anyway, why not just go with a solid fork? If you're going to carry a suspension fork, then at least put the water on the bike so you can let it work like it's supposed to.

[wookieone]

Yeah I had the instance occur with a rigid fork, sometimes you have to make compromises to get your gear all on there. I am hoping to not use water bottles on the fork legs at all....but they are just sitting there doing nothing .....
I understand sprung and unsprung weight...thanks 

[Prometheus]

What hub did you have?

Chris King ISO with only about 700 miles on it.  I recently sent it back to manufacturer that did little more than a re-lube and suggested the failure was due to spoke tension, without adjusting the tension for me.  Really, no spoke tensioners at the factory?  I withheld for naming the manufacturer to give them a chance to do the correct thing, but now that the "help" is complete, I'd have to say I am very disappointed in the service received. 

On the other hand, my previous CK hubs had ten years of hard riding without any servicing or any issues.  I am hoping my recent case was just a bad assembly and I plan on using the same hub again next year, but will bring a freehub tool just in case (can always borrow a wrench and fabricate a chain whip).

[wookieone]

Prometheus, that I think is what is so scary about doing such a big tour. Gear you've tested for years can still fail, there are manufactured defects with every manufacturer, with every kind of part. No one is perfect...freaks me out...I tend to break stuff, I am not big, not super rough and am good at working on my bike often, still shit breaks...always makes me sad and paranoid!
Jefe

[Marshal]

I like the way you can pull the DT Swiss 240 apart by hand to clean and lub, or replace a drive side spoke. Mine has held up thur the TDR, AZT 300 & 750 etc with just a couple of routine bearing replacements

[Mini Bear]

Next year, I will bring a cassette tool and hope to be able to borrow a wrench and fabricate a chain whip if needed.

Though I've never had to deal with any freehub/cassette issues, I do run DT hubs for this exact reason. You can easily service the hub in the field, and even turn it into a fixed gear if you need to. Also, the ability to pull off the cassette (you take the whole freehub body off) without a tool makes replacing driveside spokes with standard (i.e. not dog-leg) spokes possible without having to bring along a cassette tool, whip, and wrench. Really any hub that can have the freehub pulled off with allen keys or no tools will do, you don't have to spring for the pricey DT.

[WatermelonSugar]

Really any hub that can have the freehub pulled off with allen keys or no tools will do, you don't have to spring for the pricey DT.

I second that! Hope hubs are great for being so easy to tear apart, no tools needed to get the freehub off either, just a twist and a pull, makes it so easy to get to damaged spokes.

[Smo]

On day six (northbound) my rear hub failed.  It would engage and disengage randomly, ultimately forcing me to abandon the race.  I was really disappointed and surprised a new for the season hub made by a quality manufacturer based in Oregon failed.  Got home and rebuilt the hub and it was fine.  Next year, I will bring a cassette tool and hope to be able to borrow a wrench and fabricate a chain whip if needed.  Of course, many flats in southern NM.  Non-mechanical and funny story was hitting a broken bottle with my front tire and sending it into my leg with a cut down to the bone.  Glad I had a first aid kit.  I have a great scar to tell stories now.

There is a touring cassette ring remover called the Stein Mini.  They had some quality control issues reportedly in the past, but I've heard that they improved the design.  I have one, but haven't had the need to use it yet.  It's quite light, lighter than a freehub or cassette tool itself.  Uses the chain, pedals and your bike frame to remove the lockring.

According to one reviewer on Amazon, it doesn't work well for lots of mountain bike frames, though.  I'll have to take it out and test it on my new bike, I've only tried the fit on my road bike.  I can't imagine it would be hard to modify to work with your bike.

http://www.amazon.com/Stein-Mini-Cassette-Lockring-Driver/dp/B001GSSCAU

EDIT: I found this one as well, looks like it's better than the Stein:  http://www.m-gineering.nl/indexg.htm  Simpler, and probably lighter still.  I can weigh my Stein if anyone's curious.

[Pdk123]

The only mechanical I had was fork mounted bottle ejection issues and broken bottle cages.
I see a pattern here
I had zero flats and ran Small Block Eights 2.1 - tubeless. Tires were in good shape but I changed them in Salida just to be safe.


Peter Kraft Sr.

[cousinmosquito]

Actually, we have a form for this stuff on the Kiwi Brevet, an 1100km dirt brevet.
I've just noticed some real interesting stuff in there !

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zSt9SoHIgxvIW4vVdueXyXeyWYXv6sJkbXTOjSezbUM/edit#gid=0

I'd like to know if the man on the street can expect press fit BB failures like 2 of the top contenders had in this years TD.
Its putting me off using my carbon bike in preference to my 2.5 pound heavier steel one for next years 3000km TourAotearoa

Apologies for my nickname.
A friend from the US gave it to me many many years back before I realised what it meant or who else was using it : )