More MTB mechanicals
I had a nice ride around the ClimachX trail just north of Machynlleth on Monday. Unfortunately on the first bit of singletrack a rock flicked up and snapped the little gear cable guide that runs under the bottom bracket shell on my bike so the rear gears stopped working.
Once we had figured out what had happened I ended up pulling the cable tight so that I was in the largest rear cog and then fixing it there by trapping the cable under the bottle bosses on the bottom of the downtube. This meant I was unable to change gear but at least I was in a gear that was usable for the rest of the trail.
I managed to complete the trail like that in perfect sunny, autumnal conditions and have now got hold of a spare cable guide and fitted it to the bike. While I was at it I changed the gear cables too and hopefully everything is back up and running ready for tonights night ride.
This mountain-biking malarky could be almost as expensive as windsurfing!
It does go to show though how important it can be to know a little about bike maintenance and repairs. On this occasion if I hadn’t it wouldn’t have mattered as I wasn’t far from the car but things like this could happen miles from anywhere without any help so it is always good to know how to repair common problems and also to have an idea how to ‘bodge’ things should something more unexpected happen. You can’t fix everything out on the trail but in many circumstances you can at least put things back together enough to get you home.
If you don’t know how to do such things then check out the books in the Amazon widget on this post and add them to your Xmas list!
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