What's been keeping me away from the blog?

Well, it's been busy ...

We have devolved a certain proportion of the Campagnolo warranty business out to the wholesalers now, but a proportion still fetches up at our door.

We had a good visit to the Campagnolo factory earlier in the month, too, which has bought us up to speed on some new issues and procedures, as well as hopefully laying the ghost of several months of misunderstandings in that direction, though we still have to see action fitted to words in some directions ...

Hopefully all of that will mean a better service to end-users, now!

We've got several great builds in process, and several have recently been delivered - London Road Club have been keeping the workshops busy recently, with wheelbuilding, a full rebuild service on a Cervelo R3 / Campag 10s and the retro icing on the cake, a beautiful 1980s DeRosa to be married up to a Campagnolo 50th Anniversary group, just as soon as I can lay my hands on the cups for an Italian threaded bottom bracket of the right type and vintage - hopefully tomorrow.

Teaching-wise, we are also busy with a roadside maintenance course running this Wednesday evening at Longstaffs, a Platinum week to deliver later in June, and the ongoing re-accreditation of our courses by EDI being organised.

We are running two days of courses for National Bike Week in the third week of the month at Manchester Velodrome - a one day introduction to cycle mechanics, and a half-day introduction to track bike mechanics ... there are places available on both, so if you are interested, please contact Bob Barber at the Velodrome.

At the end of the month, we'll be off to France with the usual crew for the Londres-Paris cycle sportif.

Right now, it's back to the grindstone, with a Campagnolo Bora rebuild and a string of ergos needing fettling ...

So much to do, so little time

Yes, OK, I know, I've been away far too long again ...

Since my last post, I've worked fingers to the bone on London - Cannes (www.cycle2cannes.net -well done guys and girls!) run some training and accreditation in Northumberland for a super Sustrans project in Ashington (Go, Adam and Emma, Go!), a Campagnolo course in Staffs and have done a couple of extra days at Longstaffs.

We've also run a first training event for track coaches and staff at Manchester Velodrome to some very positive feedback.

There's a fair bit of work going on in adjusting & developing the Weldtech accreditation just now, too - we are expanding the availability of the accreditation through a network of partners, which means a total re-write of all of the training and assessment material so that someone other than just Jeff, Nigel and I can understand it, plus we are developing some new courses, both at the highest level (manufacturer-specific) and at the entry level - roadside & trailside repair.

Upcoming courses include a Platinum week starting on April 19th (still places available on all days), a Campag course on My 6th & 7th (one place left, trade only) and an introduction to bicycle maintenance course at Manchester Velodrome on June 20th, at the beginning of National Bike Week.

All go!

As it's now heading for stupid-o'clock I'll sign off with a promise to write more often ... believe it if you will!

Life on the Ocean Wave ...

I've delivered training in some funny places over the years - an underground car park in mid-winter (not recommended - we could only stand 30 min at a time before having to go and warm up for 15 mins ...), a condemned building, a derelict barn and an old people's home are just a few that spring to mind ... so an island closer to Bergen in Norway than it is to London seemed like a walk in the park ...

That was, until I decided to go by boat. Now, I'm no wimp when it comes to boats - in the last 20 years I have crossed the Channel umpteen times in conditions varying from millpond to do-we-don't-we on the part of the ferry line with all the trucks AND the cars chained down in the hold - but the trip over to Shetland can only be described as well, how should I put it ... "technicolour"? I think you know where I am coming from.

I arrived, shaken and very definitely stirred, in Lerwick at 7 in the morning, having left Aberdeen at 5.30 the evening before, short on sleep and long on bleary eyes and a lack of appetite (!), and found my way to the Shetland Community Bike Project, tucked away in one of the beautiful little alleys that run up from Old Lerwick Harbour towards the main street of the town. It was snowing, as it would pretty much all week, but this was hugely compensated for by the warmth of the welcome I had from Caroline (who runs the scheme), and her volunteers, who were at the Scheme to receive training and accreditation.

It was a great week, punctuated by some fantastic "moments" that you can only get when the trainees and the instructor are totally relaxed - and I'd just like to say to Caroline, Willie, Margaret, Scott, Joe, Jake, Geordie and Neil, that boat trips notwithstanding, anytime you want me back, I'd be delighted!

Thanks to Billy Fox for the above image - click here to visit his website!
Thanks also to Jim and Lynne at Fort Charlotte B and B for a fantastic week - worth going back just for the breakfasts!

X-mouse holidays and all that

Well, Christmas (white in nature if not in name, cos it didn't snow on the roof of the Weather Centre, despite being cold as you like ...) has come and gone & the cunning plan to catch up on repairs and re-write our training manual for cycle mechanics were each only in part fulfilled.

Given that this blog is called "Pimp My Toolbox" I suppose I ought to mention my toolbox & the odd pimpings that have occurred recently - the most notable and useful of which isn't actually that recent - it's over a year old, in fact, but it's been a boon in servicing Ultra-Torque cranksets. It's VAR's too for pulling & replacing the UT bearings.

Now I KNOW there are a squillion mechanics out there who are going to say you can grind the feet of a three-legged puller off so that they fit under the bearing and you can tap the new one on using a 1" headset crown race slide hammer BUT a) if there is a right too for the job, why the hell not use it and b) some problems occur with percussive force on sealed (or any other, for that matter) bearings and with CULT ceramics costing somewhere north of £100.00 a set, I'm not about to take chances.

All you have to remember when using the removal tool is to remove the circlip before you try and pull the bearing, as the tool exters enough force to tear it out of it's groove, with damage to both circlip & spindle resulting (haven't done it myself, thankfully, a colleague told me about this ...)

Life in the Deep Freeze

Well, OK, so it's not really *that* cold, but it is still only just hovering above zero in my workshop, so it is making it difficult to do quality work, it has to be said.

The last few days have seen still more frenetic running up and down the M1 to and from the workshops in Chesterton, with a Campagnolo two-day training course delivered, a bevy of bicycles serviced at Longstaffs, as well as some promised deliveries from Campagnolo actually arriving so we are now ploughing through a huge backlog of Ergo levers and other parts for servicing.

We've just successfully accredited at least one Wholesalers' warranty guy, and anothers' has just been to Campagnolo to go through training there, so the bulk of the warranty work will be a burden lifted from me / us soon - which I'll be happy about - it's been a very rough last 6 months or so.

Yesterday was spent working with the guys from Clarks Products Ltd, makers of hydraulic & cable-operated disc brake systems (amongst other things), to make videos for their shiny new website. We've worked with them before, doing the video for their old site, but the new podcasts are designed to be shorter, punchier & more bite-sized.

Also on the upside, we are still seeing strong interest in the Weldtech Training courses that we are running to accredit mechanics to National Standards ... although we have two or three places on the January "general", entry - to - Platinum course open 11th - 15th inclusive), one place on the hydraulics course, and one place on the Campagnolo course (trade only).

End of January though, I am in Aberdeen for three days then Lerwick for six, delivering training, before returning to the UK to drop back into the groove of training at Chesterton until March 11th when I disappear on the 1500km L2C relay ride as a lead mechanic, for a 10-day "race to the sun", London to Cannes in 6 days, a day off, then a two-day return drive.

Apologies to any and all tht ahave been trying to get me by phone, I am working through voicemails now!

Mechanics view - New Shimano 6700

This week was the first time I've had to play with new Shimano 6700 and really look at it as I was doing a build from scratch on a Merida frame. First impressions on getting especially the chainset out of the box were not good - it looked a bit low-rent & plasticky. That feeling disappeared as soon as I got the shifters and mechs out, though ... very competent execution as far as the aesthetics go. The big news, of course, is the hidden cables (it's only taken them 15 years .... though to be fair, Dura Ace had concealed cables last year). The STIs themselves have had a hefty revamp and you can see the influence of SRAM in some of the aesthetics, and of Campag in the slightly heavier, more positive shift. From a mechanics point of view, the levers have a couple of irritating design features, though. First is the way that you have to take the plastic covers off the top-front of the shifter / brake lever unit to get the brake cable in (or to inspect the nipple end) - I can see a lot of those timy wee grub screws going missing on hotel forecourts where mechanics are working late at night & in a hurry, next season - I reckon we'll see quite a lot of the plastic caps they retain going walkabout, too :-( The other irritation is in fitting the gear cables - again, I guess it's no better, no worse than the new Campag Ultrashift, but the SRAM system is easier for sure. The brake hoods are quite stiff (especially in a cold workshop) & peeling the hoods far enough forward to get at the access ports for the gear cables was a pain. Come to that, peeling them back far enough to get at the fixing bolts to mount the levers on the bars was also a pain, though at least they have stuck with 5mm allen keys for that, so you can use a ball-end to get in there for the initial tightening, unlike some other manufacturers we can name, who have used Torx (why, oh why, Campag?). Getting the LH cable in is not a mirror of doing the RH either, which was unexpected. The STIs once set up worked nicely, felt solid and the increased leverage over the brakes (which benefit from a small mechanical re-design to improve cable routeing and a more linear response) was noticeable on assembly. The mechs do what mechs do without any drama, and the finish on the rear gear especially looks good and durable, so score another plus for the mechanical aspects in tandem with the aesthetics. The rear gear gets an alloy jockey cage which shaves a bit of weight of Ultegra SL. Chainset ... hmm, those of you who know me will know how much I loathe and abhor external BBs, and Shimano's version is the one I dislike most, only because it makes no more sense to me now than it did when HTII was introduced, to have a spline that you deliberately side-load with two pinch bolts as a way of retaining the crank & holding it at 180 deg. to it's pair. I'm not going to bang on about this, but it is bad design - there are better ways to do it, as Campag proved conclusively with the UltraTorque system ... if you must have an external BB system (not that I am wholly convinced by UT either, but that's more about the original bearings, now thankfully superceded) than it is about the idea). On the upside, a redesign on the rings makes for less chain rub on the outer ring when using the inner ring at the top of the cassette. We are also told that the new outer ring is stiffer. Last, the chain - beware here, it has a right & a wrong way to fit as Shimano have engineered the inside and outside link plates to give better shifting especially between the rings. I fitted a third party chain (just as an experiment - I forsook my usual favourite SRAM alternative choice for an FSA-branded unit) & found that very noisy in comparison the the Shimano chain. A point to note if you, like me, are one of the Shimano chain non-apprecation society! I'll update this in a few weeks when the bike has returned for it's 6-week check, but for now I can't see that there will be much that needs doing - the feel all the way through was one of solidity and competence ...

A Humdinger of a Fortnight

Once upon a time, I thought it would be waaaaaay cooooool to be self employed.

All my pals said "you'll be working from home, no commute time, you can take on work when you want, long holidays, blah, blah" and so it seems from the outside.

So here's the last two weeks ...

Monday, Tuesday - teach Weldtech / Velotech Silver Plus course to young lady from Sustrans. This entailed driving from home to the training centre early Monday (Monday mornings on the motorways hereabouts are impossible) so a 4.30am start ... finished to 17.00, off to pal's house which he had very, very graciously lent me in his absence on holiday (thanks, Lance!), catch up on emails and a few phone calls, started re-write of Bottom Brackets section of our master course manual, bed about 23.45, absolutely cooked.

Wednesday - workshop all day, having started crack of dawn with invoicing & paperwork.

Thur & Fri both workshop days, early starts and late finishes ... lots of phone calls, big struggles with a supplier regarding parts that have been outstanding from early Sept. and are still not in. Works piling up as a result, which of course we don't get paid for until we can do it - bad kharma!
Friday PM also a quick trip to York & back (450 miles round trip) to finish closing up our old premises.

Saturday - various admin issues, a couple of wheelbuilds, one tricky, 2 hrs 40 on the fixie around the lanes.
Sunday - can just squeeze in a bike build, a couple of hours on the bike in the gale force winds and the rain & a trip down to the big smoke to pick up a review bike from a journo to sort out a damaged frame issue.

Monday - off to the training workshops (you guessed it, 04.30 start) for a 1 to 1 Cycle Maintenance and Repair course to our Weldtech / Velotech "Gold" standard. Actually, the lad I'm looking after is very good and we get through everything well on Monday - then disaster - I have to whizz home to try & sort out an internet banking issue (haven't got all the info I need with me), so a crazy-o'clock discussion with my "business relationship manager" in India, nil resolution, 4 hours sleep then in the car back up North for day 2 of the course.

Tue and Wed - minimum disaster region - all according to plan. I am shocked!

Thur - full workshop day "up North", bit of admin in the evening, but frankly I am cooked and a lot of the stuff I am doing admin-wise leaves a bit to be desired.

Fri - the plan is to be home by 12.30 to sort an assortment of issues including that whole banks thing - in practice, doesn't happen quite like that, get home 21.00 BUT OH JOY! a really bright spot - my very good friend & all round sound guy, Brian Palmer of www.thewashingmachinepost.net has sent me a copy of Tim Patereks "Handbook for Framebuilders" to peruse ... so curl up with the Mrs and the cat and indulge my wierd passion for bits of measuring equipment, hot metal and dynafiling ...

Saturday - a bit of wheelbuilding, a bit of sorting out in the workshop (domestic duties too long delayed) and catch up on the dreaded email. 2 h 30 on the fixie, 50 miles (somehow!), really, really pretty leaves on the trees and in the hedgerows, fantastic sunset.

The wheels come off the cart a bit on Sunday cos I was up til 05.30 doing a big sort out on software on the business PCs, so staggered out of bed at 10.30 to find my team-mate on the doorstep with a new carbon track frame needing headset & BB installing and assorted other stuff to do - ended up just doing an hour flat out on the fixie in the dark this evening and thence into the office for the dreaded admin ...

And so passes two typical weeks!

Review of the Paterek book coming soon!