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- If you are anything like me then you have ridden
countless of miles out on the road with nothing other than
a pump, spare tubes and a repair kit with you,
and probably never had any mechanical issues of note.
Does that sound familiar?
Well perhaps not entirely,
'cause, again, if you're anything like me,
then you will have done a lot of your training
out on the roads on a TT bike just like this one.
And there can be some specific problems
that can crop up out there on the roads.
So today I am going to run through a few of those,
plus highlight some other common roadside mistakes
so that in the hope you will avoid making them too.
So tip number one, I'm going to talk about a slipped seat post.
Now of all these points they are frustrating in general,
but this one can really feel like it's going to ruin a ride.
Now, I believe me, having spent many years
cycling in Scotland I've had my fair share of this issue.
You're riding along quite happily
and all of a sudden there's an unexpected pothole
or an extended rough section of road,
and before you know it your seat post has slipped.
And even it was only a few millimeters
it can really start to bug you.
But in the worst case scenario you can almost feel
like your knees are up around your ears, almost.
So how can you avoid this?
Well, firstly you need to start with the most simple,
and that is checking that your seat post bolts
or clamp system is nice and tight.
Now in this bike here we've got one bolt here
and then I've got another one
on the other side of the frame.
On other frames they can be behind the seat post,
and sometimes you even see them with a mechanism
from underneath as well.
Just be sure to make that is done up
to the recommended torque for your frame.
If there's more than one bolt do both bolts up
evenly on the same side,
you don't want to one more tight than the other.
Now another thing that you can also do
is grease the inside of your frame and your seat post
with something like this which is a grease paste,
a carbon grease paste, should I say.
Just a very thin layer of it on the inside of the frame
can just make sure that the carbon
bonds a little better to each other.
And a final thing that you can do
for making sure that you're aware
that your seat post is slipping, 'cause sometimes your not,
is stick some electrical tape on here like I've done,
just so that you can see if it starts to slip,
that tape will bunch up.
So issue number two is electronic gear failure.
Now many of us these days are very fortunate
to have electronic shifting on our bikes,
and me, as you can see, included.
And I would suggest that if I had to go back
to mechanical gears, on my TT bike, at least,
I would really struggle.
I think this stuff is game-changing.
But that is, of course, if it works
and there is nothing worse than being stuck out
in the middle of your long bike ride at the weekend
with no gears because your batteries have run out.
It is extremely frustrating.
I have been there, believe me.
Now what tends to happen with electronic systems
is the front derailleur will start working straightaway,
so that would leave you in the small changeling,
like am here.
And then hopefully you'll have enough battery life left
for the rear derailleur to keep working
and that'll get you home.
But if that fails too,
then you're left in whichever gear you have been in
when the gears stop working and, for me, in this instance,
you would see I'm stuck in fairly difficult gear
which wouldn't be great if I was on a hilly ride.
Now the thing is that these gears
the batteries tend to last for a very long time
and that's why it can be very easy for us to forget
to charge them up because we just don't think
we need to charge up our gears.
So the best thing to do is charge them up overnight
before any long ride that you've got,
and then you know that everything is going to be working fine.
But if you want to double check you can do that too.
And I'm most bikes what you do is
double press the shifters on the base bar
and hold those down simultaneously.
And then on this bike, what would happen is,
my junction box, which is here hidden in my storage box,
would have a little flashing light.
If the battery is perfectly fine
then that would be solid green.
If it's half full, 50%, then I have a flashing green.
If it's starting to run out, at 25% full,
I would get a flashing red.
And if I have almost no battery left,
then I would have a full solid red line there.
So issue number three is a loose handlebar or cockpit.
Now as I talked about before the slipped seat post,
this is something that can be exposed really easily
on rough or potholed roads as well.
But unlike the slipped seat post
this can actually be a very dangerous problem
and can cause accidents.
So it's something that we should be very mindful of
when we're maintaining our bikes.
So what should we be looking out for?
Well, first of all, depending on the design of your bike
and your cockpit of course, is see how your stem
and your handlebars are connected together.
Well on this bike here I've just got a standard stem
with a four bolt face plate here,
so I'd make sure that all four of those bolts
are nicely evened up and tightened properly,
recommended torque of course,
like we talked about in the seat post.
So make sure that's done up properly.
And then, of course, you've got your
aerobar extensions as well.
Because you could be riding along in the TT position,
hit pothole and these could come loose
and that is very dangerous.
So you need to make sure that these bolts here
are nice and tight as well
so that that isn't going to be a problem.
Now, of course, I'm in the road all these things
can be easily solved if you've got an Allen key with you,
so carry them with you at all times
and make sure that things can be snugged up.
Now punctures are inevitable,
whether you're on a road bike or in a TT bag like this one,
their part and parcel of going out in a ride.
But you can mitigate against them
by doing general maintenance checks,
looking at the wear and tear in tires and replacing them
as often as you might need to.
But the simplest thing to do is actually just to be prepared
for when they might happen out in the road,
and that is to carry your spares with you.
Now, ideally one but probably two tubes is a good idea,
in case of double puncture.
Some tire levers, a mini pump.
And you can even carry with your CO2 adapter
for a nice and quick inflation as well.
But the best thing to do is practice
before you get on the ride
and have to rely on needing to use them,
and know how to use at all before it happens.
Right, so my fifth and final roadside mechanical
involves tubes and, specifically,
the valve length on our choose.
Because we can go out on our bike
and think that we're prepared to fix a punctured
should we get one, but I think often as triathletes
we forget that we're riding along, oftentimes,
on our nice deep rim carbon wheels,
and that means that we need to have right tubes
to go with the rims.
Now, believe me, I have been here too I'm afraid,
and you've gotten a puncture
using your deep rim carbon wheels,
delved into your spare pouch and realized
that the valves that you've got are not long enough.
So you see what I've got here is a roughly 50 mill depth rim
and this valve would possibly be long enough,
but I'm not sure if the valve would poke through enough.
So what I've got to counter that is some valve extenders
because we can then add these onto the end of our valves
and that means that regardless of the depth of the rim,
whether they're this deep or even deeper, perhaps,
you're going to be able to fix your puncture and get home
and not have to stick your thumb out.
Now this is just a selection of some of the issues
that we can face as triathletes when we're out on the road
but hopefully I flagged up some of the mechanical issues
that you might now be able to prepare for
and avoid making the same mistakes.
But, of course, if you've come up with some other issues
out in the road, I don't know, like rubbing brakes
or maybe even a broken chain,
please let me know what down there in the comments below,
I'd like to hear about those.
Hopefully you've enjoyed this video,
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so you get all the other content that we have on GTN.
And talking about other videos,
I have just done a video about this bike,
explaining everything in detail, which you can find here.