Worn out
There’s a thread on one of the forums I frequent, the subject is something along the lines of “Does anyone else get a sense of satisfaction from wearing out components?”
At 9,200 miles and after three Rochester winters, I’m in the middle of replacing most of the Portland’s drivetrain because I’ve worn it out.
I can’t say it gives me any satisfaction. I wish I’d gotten more miles out of it.
As you may recall, a year ago winter I stupidly thrust the bike down into a snowbank to park it, twisting the rear derailleur (RD) cage on a chunk of ice. Not so much that it needed immediate replacement, but shifting went from perfect to just okay, and turning the cranks backwards caused the chain to drop down to smaller cogs.
Since then, I’ve worn the guide pulley (the upper one) down to little spiky points.
This winter, early in the season I let chain cleaning and lubing get away from me. Suddenly a chain with only 600 miles on it was stretched to 0.75%. That’s about 1,000 miles premature. I didn’t have a new one in stock—I was watching my money to buy the Litespeed—so I let it go, but resumed my normal meticulous cleaning and lubing schedule.
After buying Blue Steel, money didn’t get any less tight, and I put off the purchase of routine maintenance items for a couple of more months. So the chain that would have been replaced in March, and should have been replaced in January, finally got replaced this past Friday.
Along with a new cassette, a new RD, and, oh did I mention I snapped the RD shifter cable a week ago Thursday? It had frayed where it comes out of the shifter and enters the first piece of housing. So cables all around too.
It was after dark by the time I finished, and Saturday was cold, rainy and had winds gusting to over 50 MPH. So it wasn’t until yesterday afternoon that I was able to test ride it.
Everything was silky smooth here on the coffee table. Outside, I clipped in, stepped on the cranks and slip, crunch. The chain skipped.
Huh. New chain, new RD, new cassette. That shouldn’t happen.
Backpedal, step on the crank, slip, crunch again. And the chain is now jumping off the middle ring to the small ring.
Okay, shift to the small ring. Stepped on the cranks, and sail away with the wonderful smoothness of a new drivetrain. The RD shifts perfectly, birds chirp, lambs frolic, angels sing, butterflies float around merrily.
Shift to the middle ring, slip, crunch.
Oh.
Inspecting the middle ring, and it doesn’t look at all like the other two. No, not at all. I’ve worn out the middle ring.
So the Portland is parked until Friday when a new middle ring should arrive.
Unless the rain is really bad, and I’ll just have to use only the granny and the big ring.
The other thing that concerns me is that I’ve found that aluminum frames, like the Portland, in regular commuting use, like the Portland, have a lifespan of 30,000 to 40,000 miles before fatigue cracking begins. This is based on actual real-life reports from actual real-life commuters like me.
So I can plan on only another six winters with this bike. And although I’m already planning for its replacement—and I get a certain kick out of that—I’m not happy that another five or six years on my favorite bike are all I can reasonably expect.
