Hey monsterpile,
Thanks for the updates on your Denali! Sounds a lot like my reactions to mine when I first got it, especially the brakes. I found that Kool-Stop pads helped a lot, and dual pivot calipers helped even more. If it were me, and I could only buy one, I'd get the new dual pivot calipers (they usually come with pads anyway) and swap those on. The Kool-Stop pads are great and probably the best of the lot, but I've found that the Tektro pads my calipers came with actually work really well too. Those pads are in use on my Sovereign and I have no complaints. Please feel free to update your experiences here whenever you want, I hope your Denali gives you many great miles!
Thanks for your update also, wphamilton. That's awesome that you've passed yours down to your son, seems strange to be able to say that about a department store bike but this is one of those that is actually worth hanging onto. Hope it gets him into cycling and if he's ever looking for upgrades, he knows where to look!
Speaking of upgrades and updates, here's one for my Denali.
I crossed 1600 miles the other day. No major drama, just some wheel tensioning issues that I think I've finally gotten sorted out. Well, aside from the past week or so, that was pretty drama filled.
I think I was pretty brief on my discussion about retensioning the rear wheel last time. Well, since then, it's been a long saga.
I chalk it up to my newness at tensioning wheels, but my aftermarket rear wheel was giving me fits about staying tensioned. It was better than it was, but it continually kept pinging again after tensioning. I think I ended up tensioning it about five times before I finally got it to shut up...and I did stress relieve the spokes.
Then, right about the time the rear wheel dilemma was drawing to a close, the front wheel (stock) began to ping as well, indicating the spokes were in need of retensioning. This seems okay in itself being about a year old and with 1600 miles on it, but was really confusing at the time, making it harder to isolate which wheel needed attention. I went through the same trouble with it, tensioning, only to ride it again and hear the same increasingly irritating ping.
On top of that, I've gotten a new car recently...so I don't drive my truck as much and am forced to remove the front wheel to load the bike in my trunk when going to group ride meetings. That's not a big deal in itself, but it's part of the recipe for near-disaster...
Anyway, as you may know, the stock front Denali wheel isn't quick release, so I have to unbolt it and bolt it back on every time I load it and unload it. Again, not a huge deal in itself, but over time this wrenching began to loosen the retaining nuts for the wheel bearings...
All the while I'm still dealing with spoke pings. Pretty frustrating.
Well, this past Wednesday, I do another retensioning, and ride out to meet the local group for the Wednesday night ride. Early in the ride there are no pings, and all seems well. But a few miles in, I start hearing pings that grow progressively worse, becoming loud exasperating creaks and pops that make my bike sound like it's about to break a spoke, and I'm feeling each noise through the handlebars. I assume it's more spoke problems, and halfway through the ride I split off and limp home. Even quitting early, the ride still ended up being 20 miles long.
Got the bike home and was pretty mad at it, til I discovered the wheel bearings were pretty loose. Tightened them up, checked spoke tension again, and rode again the next day only to find more pings. Pretty well lost at this point because I don't get how the spokes could still have uneven tension. Take the bike home, flip it over, and spin the front wheel...and it starts pinging. Definitely not a load induced ping, rather it seems to be coming from the front wheel bearing.
Took it apart, found lots of shiny specs and metal flakes in the grease, and the bearings were pitted and rough. Definitely trashed, no doubt from riding on them when the bearings were loose. I was afraid my races were going to be too which would mean new wheel (no sense in repairing the stock one, not cost effective) but after cleaning I found they were okay.
Put all new bearings and grease in, and while I was in there I took the time to convert the front wheel to quick release. Was an incredibly simple procedure.
Made sure to include the Vitesse logo to show it can be done.
So, as it turns out the past few days of wheel tensioning were pretty much unecessary, as it was the bearings making the noise...but it's nice to know that everything's fixed and that a mistake on my part didn't become expensive.
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