Slight kink in the road bike plans

For most of Saturday’s ride I kept hearing a rather annoying clunk, and couldn’t quite figure out where it was coming from. Eventually I realised it was probably within or closely associated with the rear hub, and was sad — servicing would be Required, and sooner rather than later.

Took the roadsteed off to Chain Gang for a service. Fortunately or unfortunately they are all backed up until Thursday, so I just asked LBSG what he could think of as possible causes for the clunking. He spun the wheel a few times, noticed that some of the spokes were loose (that’ll have been killing the wheel true), saw that there was more play in the freehub than he would have expected, that the smallest cog on the cassette was badly worn, and then another LBSG came over and looked at the shifters.

“Oh, those are the 8speed RSXs [wiggle wiggle, with force]…. they’re buggered, you’ll need new ones. Cost you about $400.”

[insert sadface here]

As it happens, I had noticed that it took more and more wiggling to get them to shift for the cassette, and they just weren’t moving enough for the chainrings either. A bit of googling later and it seems pretty obvious that these have a design lifespan, and 11 years post-installation is pretty much past it.

I’m hoping Scott’s buddy Rohan can give me a second opinion, but I’m now starting to look into whether I can move to a 9 or even 10 speed cassette and shifter set. All that will just have to remain on hold, though, until I move past ENOCASH (for bike bits at least). Just when I was starting to get things going! Guess I’ll have to put the slicks back on the mtbsteed and keep trundling.