Hill climbing problem?...and it's not me :O
 

I went on a ride a few weeks ago on a climb that can reach over 15% at points, very tough, rattlesnake point if anyone lives near me. Anyway, I tried climbing it, and at about half way up, my legs got tired, so I stood up, and almost immediately it felt as if my pedals/cranks were turning but my wheels/chain weren't, kind of hard to explain. So I just unclipped as there was a car behind me and I wanted to avoid an accident and decended. I assumed it was nothing, but now every time I go up any climb, however steep or hard, whenever i push hard, it does the same thing. Feels/sounds like two peices of velcro or medal scarping againt each other.

What could this be, possibly to much pressure? And what should I do about this?

I will be getting a new crankset for my first racing season next year as mine are apparently to big for me (16 years old - 34/50t), but for now through next year I will most likely be dealing with it.

Here's a link to the specs if needed: http://www.raleighusa.com/archive/20...revenio-30-11/

This is a mystery, but just to throw out one possibility.

For a number of years Shimano and others dabbled with roller clutches in lieu of the traditional ratchet freewheel mechanism. It's easy to recognize them by the lack of the familiar tick, tick, tick of the ratchet.

Roller clutches are fine, and are nice in that they run silently, but are limited in torque load. If overloaded they can slip causing what you're experiencing.

BTW- if your freehub ticks when coasting disregard this since it doesn't apply to your wheel.

Is there noise when this happens? Sounds to me like a classic case of worn chain/cassette slipping. Have you checked your chain for wear?

+1 This is highly likely and very common.

The only reason I didn't suggest it is that it has a very pronounced sudden slippage that's hard to mistake, and if standing on pedals can cause total loss of power and balance. Plus it doesn't sound like Velcro or grinding, but like chain skiipping after a bad shift, which I assumed the OP was somewhat familiar with (but maybe not).

It's hard to do accurate diagnostics working through someone else's eyes and ears.

Are you saying that my bike can not handle the power?

And I couldn't check my chain for wear because I don't know anything when it comes to mechanics, and if I even touch one thing, I'll screw my bike up somehow. Just my luck.

And towards my chain skipping gears, I fixed that before with my cable, except now when I go to my last two gears (smallest) on the back cog, and I'm on my small ring at the front, my chain bounces like crazy. But if I were on my big ring at the front, this doesn't happen.

P.s. I am going on a 155 km (96 mile) ride on Sunday to my cottage and my bike has all these problems ^, and just to make it worse, it's not fitted to me anymore. My shoulders feel worse after 1 mile than they ever did after 43 miles. I'm going to ask my dad to take it in to my LBS but I don't know if that's possible.

My first response was based on your description of the sound, but this extra info reinforces the impression that it's a chain/sprocket wear issue. Possibly your front chainring is more worn than the outer.

The chain is easy to measure for wear using a 12" ruler (I'm sure you have one someplace). Search "how to measure chain stretch" or just "chain stretch" either here on the forum or on the internet. There's plenty of info about this, so I won't bother repeating it. BTW- there could be other contributing factors like a bent derailleur hanger, or other poor adjustments.

As to the issue of fit, or taking a unreliable bike on a long trip, that's your call. If you can ride the flats, and climb moderate hills with this you can reconcile yourself to walking up the steeper ones. Ideally you want a reliable, well fitted bike, so I'd place the highest priority on having a shop check it.

In your shoes, I'd reschedule the trip. If your shoulders hurt after one mile, how are you ever going to ride 9.6 miles much less 96?.

I think I have a 15" ruler. Whatever, I might check it tomorrow or later tonight if I dont bring it in to LBS. My bike is only like just over a year old now too. I got it I think a couple years after the tdf last year.

I have been pretty good at handling the fit issue, I should be fine, but rescheduling isn't possible.

First, if you do try to fix your bike, you will probably screw stuff up at first, but over time you'll learn what you're doing, and have skills that will last you a lifetime. So don't be too shy about getting your hands dirty! There are lots of helpful how-to's on YouTube, Sheldon Brown, here, and elsewhere on the web. Ask questions & do research, use the right tools, and give it a shot!

Secondly, Rattlesnake is a really tough climb. If you think that standing up when you're only halfway up (and not at the really steep part yet) is going to help make your legs less tired, you've got a whole lot to learn about cycling technique. I don't mean that as any kind of insult, but when your legs are burning out, you should be dropping down gears and keeping your RPMs up. I suggest that you should be doing some reading and/or some club rides to learn proper technique.

Lastly, if you're on the rightmost chainring, you shouldn't be on the leftmost 2-3 cogs, and vice-versa. The chainrings and cogs are arranged the way that they are so that you don't have to cross up the chain like that. It's not surprising if you have noise/skipping problems when running the chain crossed up.

Good luck getting this sorted out, and I hope you enjoy your long ride. :)

Well actually I was on the wrong side of it and descended down to half and turned around, but either way, it screwed up. I did airport road last Saturday, and if you know the first hill when you reach the hilly part, coming from Guelph, it's about 1.9km long, and me and my dad went down airport road and back for about 60km total, and finished with that climb. I averaged around 17 kmh overall on the climb, impressive, I know ;). But ya I do my fair share of climbing so I think I know enough, at least for the hills Ontario has, not pro at it or anything though. Anyway, I was on the easiest gear possible the whole time! And thanks for the luck, I'll need it.

If you want to race, then I strongly recommend doing some club rides if you haven't already. There's a lot to learn both in terms of technique and etiquette.

Keep this in mind as you do your long ride:

There are no hard rides, just slow rides. :)

Save your energy on the first half of the ride, don't go 100%. Decide for yourself how hard to go on the last half based on how you're feeling. You're gonna be fine.

Ya I joined Speed River Cycling Club, unsure if you're familiar with them, and I try to get out as much as possible every thursday, and Wednesday sometimes. Iv'e learned so many things that I wouldn't have ever dreamed of before! Great club, great riding, and great info! :)

Me and my dad are doing it mostly for the adventure, we've done 123km to Dundas hill...wow....But we can average about 28kmh for 60km including red lights and warm up, but were going to aim for 25kmh and takes brakes in resaurants to eat and relax every once and a while. Shooting for a 6 hour ride to arrive at noon, should be fun! And great words of advice, never thought of how there are no hard rides, only slow ones :P Thanks.

definitely sounds like something you're going to want to get checked out at the LBS before you go on any sort of long ride.

If you've done 123, then there's no reason at all to worry about 155. Just get your bike looked at before you go, and start learning how to wrench when you get back.

How many km's have you put on the bike? Have you ever replaced the chain or cassette? Do you keep up on chain maintenance?

If you have high mileage on the bike and the answer to all the questions above is no, then you probably need a new chain and cassette. If you do keep up on such maintenance, it's possible that the freehub body is failing.

I'm going to try to go tonight to get it checked at the LBS.

And ya, I'm not worried about myself, as long as I have enough food and water, but my dad is a Clide, (Clide is over 200 lbs right?) and I just want him to make it there. And I did a tour one day that was 103km with him, and the last 25 km he lost his bottle, so I had to give him what was left of mine (half) and push through 38 degree celcius wheather (99 fahrenheit). That's tough. I was dizzy at the end.

What do you mean by "learning how to wrench when you get back"?

I think almost 3000km total, but I took it into my LBS like 1-2 months ago and when I got it back, I don't know if the chain was new, but it was fully greased and everything. Then not too long ago I cleaned it with gas/diesel, and the cassette.

Wrenching is a term that means working (mechanically) on your bike.


It's possible that your chain is worn. If it is, you'll need a new chain, and likely a cassette. After you cleaned it, you re-lubricated it, right? Gasoline and diesel (and many other solvents) dissolve oil. So if you cleaned it and didn't lube it afterwards, you have accelerated chain wear. This happens because if there isn't a protective layer of lubricant on the moving parts, they will wear directly on eachother.

Ah thought so, I'll try my best, but I havn't even learned some of the basics of things to do bikes and stuff.

I did re-lubricate it afterwards but someone told me that you should only lubricate after rainy rides. So I havn't for quite a long time. And the guy who told me raced in the Canadian world championships a long time ago, so I trust him.

You only need to lubricate after rainy rides. But during dry rides, the lubricant attracts contaminants which accelerate wear, so the general rule of thumb is to clean and re-lubricate every 150-200 miles (unless you use lubes designed for high mileage, such as Chain-L).

Ok I guess I'll start doing it every once and a while just to be sure, and I use 'Dry Teflon' lube. I'll check if it is long distance but probably not.

Especially with a dry lube, you have to relube after a rain ride. But since it's dry, it doesn't attract any wear-accelerating particles. But also because it is dry, it doesn't last nearly as long as a wet lube. If you want to slack on chain maintenance, buy a trial-sized bottle of Chain-L from BikeForums user FBinNY. He claims that with proper application, you can go as far as 1000 miles (sorry, I'm too lazy to do a metric conversion) without needing to relube or clean. I've been using it for the past 300 miles and the chain is still pretty quiet.

I sound like a kid when I say this but I'll ask my dad about buying the lube and if he wants to because I don't really make those decisions. And that must be why my chain makes noise when I pedal isn't it? I'm still really dumb with the bike stuff as I already said.. I guess I'll relube every 150-200kms or so? Maybe once every month or two?

I'm 16, but I've far surpassed my parents' knowledge of bicycles (I hang around here too much), so they pretty much let me buy any bike maintenance product as long as it isn't outrageously expensive. A $4 trial size bottle of chain-l will last you 5000-6000 miles (if applied carefully each time) and save you the cost of prematurely replacing the chain and cassette. If your dad has any concerns about Chain-L, you can PM me or FBinNY to address them.

Ya except my dad is kinda odd, he doesn't really take my advice and loves to do everything his way. Plus when I tell him something like if I want to buy a Garmin with my own money three months ago to help track my power, heart rate, cadence etc. he agrees to let me get one, and then I'll never hear about it for a month, but he expects me to train and make it far one day. It's tough. I'll try to get him to get some, but he knows nothing about anything with lube. I told him to lube once every month or so, and just enough that the chain needs. So what does he do? Sprays the bottle and drowns the chain in lube every couple of rides, and tries to tell me that that's what your supposed to do. I tried explaining that I know more than him and am on this website alot, but it doesn't work :( I'll let you know tonight, tomorrow or like next sunday/monday if I don't forget if I'll be buying or not.

The old adage seems very fitting here. "If you want something done right, do it yourself!"