Had the chance to do a bit of fettling on the Ribble this weekend. It was quiet at work so I took my bike in to fit my new right-hand hydraulic shifter and my new Race-D wheels from Scribe Cycling.
First up was the shifter. Reasonably simple. Unwrap my bar tape. Take the gear inner out of the old shifter. I took out the hose. The olive & barb looked in good nick so I decided to reuse them.
Next up was fitting the new shifter. I took it out the box and found the shifter wrapped up like a samosa. When did Shimano start doing this? Is there a supply chain issue with cling film or heat shrink now too? A bit less plastic, so I’m not complaining and hope it’s the norm from now on.
I would have eaten it had it actually been an Indian treat be it an expensive one but gladly it was the right hand Shimano 105 R7020 hydraulic shifter I’d been waiting to drop from Bikester in Germany.
Shifter fitted, I replaced the gear inner cable (supplied) and setup my gears and then began the bleed only to drop my funnel on the floor and snap the bottom off it. Only one in the workshop too FFS so the bleed had to wait until I got home not withstanding I’ll have to buy another for work now. Grrrrrrr…….
In the meantime, I swapped the tyres over onto my new Scribe wheels. They came pre-taped so all I had to do was clean up the old sealant, pop a valve on (supplied), seat the tyres and pop in some new sealant.
I’ve never been the biggest fan of Muc-Off but one or two of their products are really good in my opinion, particularly their range of Tubeless stuff. I had Stans on/in before but I found the tape to be far too brittle and easily damaged when seating tight tyres with levers. The Muc-Off tape, on the other hand, is a lot more plyable. Really good and the version 2 valves they’ve recently bought out are expensive but worth it. The sealant is great too.
For my wheels I used one of their RRP £8.99 sealant pouches. Pink of course! More than enough for 2 x 28mm tyre. You just seat your tyres on your rims, remove the valve core and the end of the pouch neatly slips onto the valve so you can squeeze your sealant into the tyre. It has a handy gauge/window on the back of it too, so you can roughly measure how much you put in. No mess so I’m a fan.
I pumped and popped the tyres using the compressor and the job was done in a flash. All seated and sealed fine first time.
I refitted the back wheel and span up the wheel to hear the freehub noise as the word was these wheels are really loud but to be honest I’ve had louder in the past. See what you think.
Wheels done. I got the bike home and this morning I’ve completed the bleed on the front caliper careful not to drop the f**king funnel!
Bleeding these should be so simple and if you read or watch how to do it, it is relatively simple but whether it’s just me I always find it difficult to get that last, tiny bit of air out. When you begin to tilt the funnel forwards and backwards, flick the lever, flick the hose and tap the caliper you can guarantee just as you think that’s it a bubble pops out so you do it all again.
Green? different brand of mineral oil bleed block where it needs to be
Bleed done. A quick feel meant it looks like I have a working front brake again. Hoorah!
All I need to do now is ride the new wheels to work this week and hope the front brake stops me
Adios