Head Set Woes

Never had this problem before.

This is kinda off the back of my previous post regarding my stem issues.

I've only ever owned one other Carbon bike, A Giant TCR Composite 1, a 2014 model which I bought from new. I ordered the S/M size frame and honestly never had an issue with the headset height or stem length. So never felt the need to adjust it, the frame was a touch short, I remember my knees hitting the drops on occasion. Nevermind, long since gone that one.

So this Cannondale, not sure anyone touched the stem or the headset since it was originally purchased. I am the third owner and I now like to tinker. I used to just ride whichever bike I owned. lots of Specialized Langsters, the 54cm frame is a gem off the shelf and fits like a glove, no need to adjust a thing.

....It has a carbon steerer and a proper odd headset. Like nowt I'd seen before.

Check out this beauty:

I do now understand how it works but it took a while, especially without instruction. I was consistently getting play in the headset, even after a good tighten, using a torque wrench, obvs. I had the steerer tube cut down by my LBS, thought that would be the end of the issue but the play returned, so it clearly wasn't just me missing the beat on this one.

There is a 5mm stem cap bolt, which when tightening I assumed would be the only bolt I'd need to touch. Coming from a predominantly alu bike background it's generally, one bolt and a stem cap.

I didn't even notice the top cap had an additional 6mm cap to tighten. Turns out, this is fairly important!

Funny old thing, hindsight. Imagine reading instructions before you attempt the job. Mental.

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Sometimes I commute. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends.

When commuting with friends especially at roundabouts, where you're dicing with oncoming traffic in rush hour and trying to find a big enough gap for two without killing anyone, it's come to my attention that single sided entry point pedals are a pain in the a**.

My pedals could just be crap or old or in need of a service and I know my cleats are worn but still. Every time, in this exact scenario I bloody miss the entry point and am then in limbo on the roundabout with a car approaching and 2nd rider coming up fast behind me.

So this got me thinking, I used to ride MTB clipless pedals, two entry points. Lets have a look.......Then I remembered these bad boys. 4 way entry! WHAT, MENTAL, how can I miss.

I don't recall ever missing the mtb pedals, just aim your foot in the general direction and they just work.

Enter Crank Brothers Egg Beater 1 pedals. I love the idea of these. I haven't fitted them on the bike yet but they have to be awesome. Customer reviews everywhere are good enough for me to go ahead with this idea.

I have road shoes and mtb shoes. I have 2 pairs of summer mtb shoes so thats not a problem.

Winter is another issue, 1) we're in the grip of winter 2) I own road winter boots that cost too much to never be used again.

I can't add the new pedals to the bike without the ability to use these, neither can I justify another £150 plus on mtb specific boots....well not for the time being.

Turns out, Crank Brothers can deal with this issue! WHAT ARE THEY! An incredible piece of kit, that's what. So I can attach these 3 hole bad boys to my existing winter boots and use them on my new 4 way entry pedals. Now I just need to fit the pedals and cleats and hope this brilliant solution works for me.

I spent the same on these pedals and cleats that a new set of road pedals would have cost me. I bought the cleats new and the pedals 2nd hand off ebay, they are in exceptional condition, it just made sense, they are pedals, they don't need to be perfect.

So I needed a new set of wheels

4 weeks I'd owned it, 4 weeks in December, 4 weeks that I'd not ridden much, nor did I intend to.

Shimano R501 wheelset I think it had. They seemed ok, nothing special, clearly added to keep the build cost down.

I was feeling like I'd been putting on weight, so I needed to ride the bike. I was climbing the walls.

I decided a short lunchtime loop would do. I know a nice loop on quiet roads, about a 4 mile circuit, I'll do that a few times till I hit 20ish miles I thought.

So off I went. Nothing unusual. I was quite enjoying myself, I clearly had no fitness and little in the way of expectation. I rode a segment 30 seconds slower than I'd ridden it previously. This was just a ride, ride.

2nd climb of the ride and PING and the rear wheel starts to rub. Bloody spoke gone. Great. About a 3 mile walk from home at this point.

I started to walk, cleats on my road shoes need replacing so I don't care enough to take them off. I feel like i'm in for a 45 minute walk. I'm walking in an old country estate at the back of my house, it's beautiful but this is my lunch break, I'd better call the boss and let him know.

Ok so this is lovely but I don't really need to be out here all day... I'd been walking for about 10 minutes then some hero in a Land Rover with a flat bed on the back stops and offers me a lift, what a ledge.

Bike fits like a glove in the back next to his fishing gear, he only lives on my estate, what a result, rides a bit too, apparently. Faith in humanity well and truly restored.

I've had a spoke fixed on a set of budget wheels before, 3 days later the spoke next to the broken spoke then broke. So I wasn't in the mood for fixing this.

So to the new wheels. I've had a few sets in the past, on my last bike alone I went through 4 sets. 2 sets where replaced through accidents (not my fault) so paid for by others, I'm not made of money. So a good set of Aksium Elites does me just fine. Always able to find them at a decent price.

Apparently all Mavic 2019 wheelsets are UST, so tubeless. I don't mean tubeless ready, I mean tubeless, and that's how they come, set up, ready for the sealent and the air and away you go. All previous sets I've purchased have been tubeless ready and come with tubes. It's what I know.

So a tubeless wheelset

Which comes with the sealant and everything you need to go tubeless.

I have to admit, I panicked. I am ashamed at that. I panicked to such an extent at this new wonderous technology (that apparently isn't new anymore and is the future and stuff), I put them straight back in the box, sealed them up and sent them back from whence they came.

What a D**k. I then ordered a 2018 set of the same wheels which came with inner tubes and RELAX.......I thought I'd made the right decision. I have the tubed version on the bike, I'm fine with that, it's what I know works and that's cool. Can't help feeling like I missed a trick though.

One mate said 'you should embrace it, LBS can set them up for you, get on with it'. Another instantly took the piss 'you mug, you had the future in your hands and you f**king panicked like a little girl and settled back into your old ways'.

'What's the one thing you worry about the most when you cycle, that's right, punctures, guess what tubeless wheelsets reduce, that's right punctures'.

You can run them at lower pressures (don't care), The sealent obviously seals any small nicks the tyre may receive, which I get is a great thing. I'm not that sure they add any additional benefit, if anything its marginal. I also like the knowledge that a punctured tube is a relatively easy fix at the road side. You could argue with the tubeless system, you'd be hard put to get a puncture in the first place, if you did it would be significant. Putting a tube on a tubeless rim, is a pppppaaaaiiiinnnnn. (so i'm told)

I am disappointed I didn't test them though. Part of me wishes I'd have kept them. Next time.

If I go through wheelsets at my current rate, I'll be riding tubeless within 2 years anyway. That's how I make my peace with it.

To the stem of the problem.

I blame Sir Chris. Or perhaps my Brother in Law. Possibly both. 

I bought a new bike. Shit, I sold my old bike. I loved that bike. My Specialized Allez. 16,000 miles ridden on that bike (please don't tell the new owner that, barely used really......), through all weathers, crashed it, got knocked off it (the new owner must NEVER know this), got KOM's, lost KOM's. Blood, sweat and tears. Best bike I've owned. 4 sets of wheels. Mental. It just kept on going, no matter what I threw at it. I hope its found a good home and is being taken care of. I think I took care of it. Possibly. Still love the look of that bike. 

Anyway, its not really a new bike. Its a 2014 bike but its never really been used. My brother bought it a couple of years ago from a mate leaving for Oz (likely story) so got a bargain. It's done bugger all in the way of mileage, 500 in 2 years, that's nothing, my Allez was a 2016 model, so in comparison, this bike has barely been used. The first owner didn't really use it either, sat it in a garage, dusted it off a bit on a sunny day, somewhere, sometime. 

Bikes are supposed to be ridden. I'm not a great mechanic though. I joked with my pal the other day that if I successfully change a chain and cassette, its 'Drinks all round', true story, you have to take the small victories. 

So My new bike, bargain, literally. Lovely thing. Full Carbon. I wasn't looking for it, wouldn't have bought it unless it came to me. Same pal I mentioned before, we chat a lot about bikes, ride in all conditions, so this bike isn't a year round commuter. He says 'Nick mate, 1 x 11 and discs, that's the future'. I try to explain to him that you'd run out of gears, 1 x 11 isn't fast enough on the road, then he reminds me I rode 2 winters worth of commutes on a single speed. Loved that bike too. He makes a valid point though. 1 x 11 and discs probably is the future, that with 35mm tyres too. 

So I wasn't looking for this bike, I wanted to embrace the future, was waiting for my cyclescheme voucher to end so I could get something more suited to British roads and seasons. Then boom. I sent my brother a text, silly offer, assumed I'd get told to p**s off, was a conversation starter really. He messaged me back 'add another hundred and it's yours'. Shit. That's a bloody bargain. MINE. 

So that book and Sir Chris. It was a gift, 'I've got a copy, its good, starts off basic but the training, stretches, drills, brilliant stuff' and it is bloody good, proper beginners to experts stuff, its all covered. Something bothered me though, not sure why. There is a section in the book about bike fit, as there should be in this type of book. A point is made about handlebar reach. It goes a little something like this.....'If you hold your handlebars on the drops, with straight arms then the hub of your front wheel should be visually obscured by the bars, if so, your reach is perfect.'

And that's all it took. It goes on to say if the hub is in front of the bars as you look down, the stem is too short and if the hub is visible behind the bars, the stem is too long but it really got me cause on my new bike, I could see the bloody hub. Never really thought about it before, If I'm honest. Never been uncomfortable, other than shit saddles, we've all been there but this is Sir Chris, telling me whats what, if its good enough for him I can't just ignore it.

Never had a bike fit, £150 I've always thought better spent. Never had issues with cleats or the like, been cycling all my life, so your knowledge of what you like and how to be comfortable on the bike kinda grows with you. Something new doesn't work quite as well as you'd hoped, you tweek it, you move that cleat to the left, you move the saddle forward 5mm, you raise the hoods you just make small incremental changes to suit, its part and parcel, but the hub, what?, never even paid attention to it. I can see it now, is in front of the bars, the more I ride this bike (590 miles to date) the more I see it. It's playing with me now. 

I've gotta be honest here, I lost bloody lunch breaks sweating to this cause, not just me but mates too, trying to get my previous stem/headset sat correctly, what a palaver. I don't have a garage, so if I want to tinker in winter, its at work in the freezing basement over a lunch break or in the kitchen at home at 9pm, wife isn't keen on the latter. Bloody Cannondale headsets, perhaps its because its a carbon steerer tube but its unnecessarily difficult to tighten. So obviously, as soon as I'd touched it, it was never right, always had play in it. So this clearly made the situation worse. Also, it kinda questions your ability to use tools, hanging off that bike we were, trying to push the stem down so there would be no play. No you tube video on stem tightening has fellas hanging off the bars to apply pressure!

I just can't seem to let this go. I've gotten no further in the book either, this one thing just won't leave me. I've googled it too many times to see what else is written about stem length and the correct reach. Never even crossed my mind before, now its keeping me awake at night. I do realise any change isn't mutually exclusive, change the stem, it could cause issues elsewhere. 

I have my saddle quite far forward, always seem to sit on the nose of it, if I make a conscious effort to ensure I'm sitting back, its almost gone, I can see it but only a smidge. Any adjustment I'd need to make would be small. 100mm stem on my bike. Most of my previous road bikes have been 110mm, not sure why this one is 100mm. This bike has barely been used though, so it's basically as was when bought, spec wise. The front end has all the spacers in the world, it feels very tall to ride. I've moved the stem about but can never seem to get rid of the play I caused by moving it in the first place.

Right, I need the steerer tube cut and I need a new stem. Lets do this. 

Check out the pic below, on the right is how I got the bike, like a Giraffe it was. In the middle is me playing with the spacers and flipping the stem, on the left is the new stem and 1.5cm taken off the steerer tube. 

As luck would have it, I managed to locate a Cannondale stem in 110mm, pretty much identical to what I already had but slightly longer. £12.95 on ebay. Came off a similar bike with someone who I'd guess had already read the same book ;)

I think I'm finally happy with the set up, well I have to be happy with the height, the steerer tube is cut but I now can't see the hub when I'm on the saddle, with my hands on the drops and my arms straight. Hooray!.

So If it's good enough for Sir Chris, it's good enough for me. Funny how the words of one of Britain's most decorated Olympians can affect your psyche.

Bars are too wide but that's a problem for another day.....