Oh the bike part woes!

Avid shorty brakes, the ultimate in canti stopping power (and CX #looksharp) are officially obsolete.

the straddle cables and cable yokes are no longer manufactured.

so if you have a bike with canti brakes... throw it in the river?

you can still find NOS at Amazon:
https://smile.amazon.com/Avid-Shorty-Ultimate-Front-Cantilever/dp/B004HNRT5K/

Yeah you can still buy entire brakesets but the parts are pretty scarce. SRAM’s advice was to call bike shops and ask if they have any in the spare parts bin.

Myserson suggests trp which are also obsolete but still making small parts. Hard to stomach $300 for new brakes just because a $10 wire broke

Nope:
van dessel
colorado cyclist
performance bikes
ride Brooklyn

u suppose if I get truly desperate I’ll try R&A

yeah, I noticed this trend and bought a second set of TRP Revoxs (which look like the Avids) -- can attest that finding small parts, pads, etc... has been easy

Of course of I can’t discount the entertainment value of the search

Jules said:

Oh the bike part woes!

Avid shorty brakes, the ultimate in canti stopping power (and CX #looksharp) are officially obsolete.

the straddle cables and cable yokes are no longer manufactured.

so if you have a bike with canti brakes... throw it in the river?

I have the shorty ultimates so this concerns me as well.

However, the straddle cable looks like a standard drop bar cable head.  I think you can use a standard brake cable for this.  Use those precious digital caliper to measure or hold up a spare brake cable. 

The yoke doesn't have to be SRAM. It can be anything, so long as it can fit the cables.

https://www.google.com/search?q=cantilever+brake+cable+yoke&client=firefox-b-1-d&source=lnms&tbm=shop&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjRjvW30ZHkAhWOsp4KHWcfA0QQ_AUIESgB&biw=1477&bih=939

I’ll look into it. The barrel adjuster is handy and mine seems fused to the cable head 

So I’ve got a nice set of H+Sons wheels built by redbeard that are already taped up to run tubeless. I’ve got some standard clincher CX tires for most weather conditions (Grifo and PDX I think?) from a few seasons ago. The current tires are in good shape.

 I can’t/ won’t swing for a tubular wheelset but I’ve heard tubeless can be the next best thing in cross. I’ve also heard some bad stories about road tubeless but idk if that applies here.  

Is it worth it to pick up some new tires that are tubeless ready for the season? Or are the differences between tubes and tubless not that’s great? FWIW I already have sealant that I intended to use at D2R2 but never got around to it. 

@RobertMullen Get some tubeless tires. Totally worth it compared to clinchers. You can run lower pressure without risking a pinch flat. Generally speaking it works well better than road tubeless 

guessing from your questions, that you have clinchers on the rim now... you might want to replace the tape to get a solid seal if you go tubeless.

@RobertMullen

Which HPlusSon rims?  It matters.  The Archetype aren't designed for tubeless.  If you take a look at the rim bed, you'll see that there isn't a "shelf" for the beads to rest on, meaning it won't necessarily hold air, particularly if the pressure is low or there's movement of the tire.

Take a look at the cross section drawings.  The Hydra is designed for tubeless, the Archetype isn't
http://hplusson.com/products

You still could try.

You could also buy tubes with removable valve cores and put sealant in them, and race those.  It probably isn't much of a weight penalty as tubeless tires are generally heavier than tubed tires by around the weight of an inner tube.

These are the Hydra rims so I gather they’re a little wider and tubeless. 

Jules said:

Oh the bike part woes!

Avid shorty brakes, the ultimate in canti stopping power (and CX #looksharp) are officially obsolete.

the straddle cables and cable yokes are no longer manufactured.

so if you have a bike with canti brakes... throw it in the river?

Cantis no more. Let's mark 2019 as the CX season discs won. 



(btw, fwiw, I too ended buying a disc frame, coming soon)

eloy said:

(btw, fwiw, I too ended buying a disc frame, coming soon)

Congratulations, which one?

A couple of us got this on the way:



Called and emailed Edwin multiple times to no avail... so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ -- still preparing what I'll say when we see each other at the races...

Also, considering taking the rival off and putting ultegra on... We'll see... the goal is different, but actually relate to Adam's plight, having to cut hoses and internally route cables, haha... might leave as is, to avoid the pita of it all

Wow. End of an era indeed.

As for internally routed cables - once you commit it's actually not nearly as bad as trying to route Di2 cables. At least the brake/shifter cables have some body to them and aren't just noodly apendages.

Jules said:

Wow. End of an era indeed.

As for internally routed cables - once you commit it's actually not nearly as bad as trying to route Di2 cables. At least the brake/shifter cables have some body to them and aren't just noodly apendages.

Are you suggesting Di2 is for Pastafarians?

Here's my BB Standard complaint for the day.

NOT ALL BB30 BEARINGS ARE THE SAME.

The BB30 bearing on the left side of my PF30 cupset on my 'cross bike froze.  I have the tools to remove it, so I did.  I went to the nearest bike shop (Redbeard is on vacation), and found a BB30 bearing.  

Turns out this BB30 bearing, even though it's a ceramic hybrid has mega drag.

The problem is that it's a FSA BB30, which is both microscopically wider and has a microscopically greater outside diameter than the Enduro bearing it replaces.  The greater width isn't a problem because my crank uses a wave washer, but the greater outside diameter means that the aluminum PF30 cup slightly compresses the bearing, thus making it draggy.  FSA uses nylon cups for their PF30 setup, which means their cups deform slightly when the bearing is pressed in.  

AAARGH!

^
https://media2.giphy.com/media/GpUURKfwXbOtq/giphy.gif?cid=8fc3c897dbb0b7e7251f31d97aa63403af1096bf510e7ef8&rid=giphy.gif

I've talked with a few of you about this topic recently but I wanted to open the discussion up in the hope that the Kissena hive-mind would provide me with some much-needed direction:

It has come to my attention that I am in need of a cyclocross bike. I have three bikes in my arsenal thus far:

1.  Commuter: old steel Raleigh (this one is non-negotiable and stays in the quiver)
2. Road Bike: 2017 Cannondale Synapse (carbon, Tiagra, I race this on the road even though it's an endurance frame)
3. MTB: 2019 Santa Cruz Chameleon AL (versatile hardtail)

I have a very small apartment so my "n" cannot really handle a "+ 1".

A couple suggestions I've been given are:

1. Swap the MTB for a cross bike
2. Acquire a cross bike and send it and the MTB back and forth to my parents' house in Connecticut seasonally
3. Swap the Synapse for a cross bike and train and race said cross bike on everything
4. Suck it up and find space for a 4th bike

Looking for bike suggestions, logistics suggestions, CX vs. road vs. MTB arguments and everything in between. Thanks in advance for the advice/entertainment!

use the MTB bike on cross races, while you buy/sort a new cross bicycle then do a
version of option 2 (swap a bike from/to your parents)

for example, during cross season I barely touch my road bicycle, and the MTB could potentially be a pit bicycle on a muddy cross day, that said, swapping with the MTB might work better for you.

If you have room for 3 you have room for 4. I'm not being snide - bike storage is so inherently inefficient there is always more space between bikes - and in the off season your CX bike is a frame without wheels. You can even turn the bars to pack it even tighter.

Seriously - start taking wheels off your unused bikes and things can pack a lot tighter.

I wanted to share my experience overhauling my SRAM hydraulic levers. I have disc brakes with Force CX1 levers that I have had for about 3 or 4 seasons now. Last season I noticed that the hydraulic brake levers didn't snap back like they did when they were new, they were a little spongy. I assumed I needed to bleed or flush the brakes, but having never done so I took it to my local shop during CX season. They did a brake bleed... but the levers felt exactly the same. The head mechanic didn't have any ideas or suggestions.

At the end of Cross season I dropped the bike at RedBeard for a week. Wilson cleaned out the levers (with air pressure) and noted that the levers did not need a bleed (which made sense given I had one a few months before). They felt a little better, but I still had the same spongy problem.

Last season I ran across an episode of the Bike Shop CX podcast that dealt with what they referred to as "dangling levers". This show is part of the Wide Angle Podium (home of Cyclocross Radio) and deals with a number of bike tech topics - not just CX tech. Anyways, the dangling levers issue sounded similar to my problem, so I brought it up to both shops, but understandably, they had better things to do than listen to some podcast they never heard of, recommended by a customer to solve some esoteric problem. 

I hesitated in trying out the method described in the podcast because they were talking about disassembling levers and playing with hydraulics. I'm a visual guy and hearing what to do without seeing it (plus the fact that I had never even bled brakes before) was intimidating. Nevertheless, with CX season approaching, I went ahead and followed the procedure in the podcast episode and BOOM I now have brake levers that work like new. Whoo Hoo!

In a nutshell, there is a tiny piston that gets stuck and just doesn't spring back anymore. Dab a little DOT grease on it and it pops back like it should. The difficult part is taking the lever apart to access the piston and then putting it back together correctly. It's pretty easy to do once you know how to do it - but the first time it helps to keep track of where everything goes. One tip: the pin on which the brake lever pivots is held in place by a tiny (and hard to see) E-clip. In my case the E-clip was missing from the first lever so I wasn't expecting one on the second lever which confused me to no end as to why the pin wouldn't pop out. The other thing is that you have to bleed the brakes afterwards, but now I know how to do that as well. 

Here is the link to the podcast. Happy braking

Sweet, send them a note about it!

Wow I feel like we need a special section for maintenance how-to that doesn’t include The usual entertaining Stadler and Waldorf
This will viper useful to someone 18 months from now...

@eloy I emailed them with thanks and a question (I was had only been successful with the first lever). Soon after I emailed them I figured out the solution and emailed them gain. They ended up reading the email on the most recent podcast. I wrote it thinking they might email me back, but should have written something funnier for them to read on air. They are the Click and Clack of bike shop maintenance 

Does anyone know if the SRAM 5th "hidden" bolt can be removed from the chainring or is it bonded/glued in there?

I'm in a small world of hurt trying to repurpose my 130 bcq quark bb30 crank for my new 1x bike.

Jules said:

Does anyone know if the SRAM 5th "hidden" bolt can be removed from the chainring or is it bonded/glued in there?

I'm in a small world of hurt trying to repurpose my 130 bcq quark bb30 crank for my new 1x bike.

I believe it's called the "knurled" nut.

FFS why they make stuff so f-ing difficult?

Were you able to get the 5th bolt out? I haven’t had difficulty getting mine on and off, so I suspect yours has some thread lock in there or maybe become bonded by riding in rain storms or muddy cx races