First post. I invite you to vist my introduction in the bike garage

[Tippy104]

For all retirees who have spent much of their lives trying to figure out which tool to reach for first; SAE or metric! Ebikes being relatively recent designs I'll assume the majority of fasteners used are metric. That's my assumption, please share your experiences.

 

[ExPatBrit]

My pliers and crescent wrenches are metric but my BFH is whitworth.

…Seriously tho all my newer bikes are metric.

 

[Tippy104]

Whitworth! You just brought me back to freshman year technical drawing chores of drawing threads using French curve and dividers. I thought that was a memory tucked away next to a sliderule.

 

[Tippy104]

I spent a rainy day yesterday tuning my front derailleur. My first instinct was to look for upgrades to my shimano TX30 shifter. Mind you that's before I even went for a test ride. The fastfire series is a candidate. Any ideas?

 

[indianajo]

I got a cyst over my thumb joint from Shimano rear thumb shifters, followed by a SRAM thumb shifter. About 8 cm diameter x 1 cm thick. I converted to first sun twist shifter, then SRAM twist shifter. The cable broke on the sun twist shifter after a year. The SRAM twist shifter is 2 1/2 years old and the cable is fine. The cyst went away after about a year of twist shifting. I left the front shifter thumb powered. I don't shift the front often enough to damage my thumb joint.
The pivots wore out on my SRAM front derailleur in 3 1/2 years (~7000 miles). Would only shift only 2 of 3 sprockets however it was adjusted, with worn pivot holes. SRAM was not in stock anywhere so I replaced it with a Shimano front shifter. 1/2 year it is still okay. Note Shimano has 2 or 3 levels of product. The cheapest are designed to be big sellers, are made in ***** and have materials compromises. The 2nd or 3rd tier are made in ****** out of better materials. 2nd & 3rd tier last longer. The cheapest Shimano parts are for bikes that are ridden a dozen hours in their lives before they are parked in the rain to rust up. Go through the modernbike or universalcycle websites to spot the prices of various shimano & SRAM parts. Campanile is for fanatics; I've never owned one and never will.

 

[tomjasz]

Campanile

Campagnolo bicycle parts?
My 1971 SCHWINN PARAMOUNT
The most flawless bike I ever owned. 531 butted frame and all Campy. See ups rounded the bike out and I could have kept up with class 3 eBikes 50 years and as many pounds ago.

Gearing to 40+ MPH

 

[Bill G]

I bought this Falcon in 1972. Rescued it from my son's garage and totally restored it. Mostly original components including Campy front and rear derailleurs (which still work well). Now I have too many bikes (Specialized Roubaix, 1988 Trek 1100, Cannondale hard tail mountain bike, and my new Nevo 3); but can you have too many bikes? That's a rhetorical question

 

[Kayakguy]

As I'm sure many of you have discovered, most metric wrenches will work on SAE bolts and nuts. Not a perfect fit, obviously, but 95% functional. Doesn't work in reverse, however (American tools won't work on metric fasteners).