Machka 

In another thread here, someone mentioned that a UK rider who logs an incredible number of miles (Steve Abraham) complains of how quickly he wears out frames. Which got me to thinking ...

Since you started long distance cycling, have you noticed that you wear out equipment much faster?

I've been in LD cycling for about 7 years now, and I'm starting to get used to it, but it still surprises and annoys me a little bit when I go through freehubs so quickly (about every 2 years), when I need to change out shifters after only 4 years, when my gears only last me 3 years, when I've got to replace my handlebar tape every year .....

Prior to 7 years ago, those things lasted forever!

teamcompi

Wonder why? LOL......try to figure how much it costs per hour, it gives you something else to think about as you ride along.

I for one just love to save a section of each tire I wear out, with the date and milage and location, now being in the 50 plus club I have ended up with a drawer full of worn out tire sections, the memories flood back every time I go add another hunk of rubber to the collection. As I am now replacing the kids tires too I add their names to the sections. I am sure that when I get put in the home the kids will wonder why I saved all those tire sections. They may never really know what each tire section really represents.

I think another solution to wearing out stuff so fast is to buy more bikes and ride them all, bet the parts last a lot longer.

ken cummings

I have not seen much change. When I started going longer I started taking better care of the bikes, better handle bar tape, more cleaning, things like that.

Carbonfiberboy 

Middle rings, cassettes, freehubs, chains, cables, tires, tubes, shorts, rims . . . I don't mind the rest of it, but I hate wearing out rims. PITA. The Ultegra brifters were expensive, too. Hard to believe one can wear out a frame. Maybe aluminum. Get carbon. A guy I ride with rode 32,000 miles last year. His frame is fine. Kind of puts the century/month club in perspective, doesn't it? He has two kids and a job. He says his kids are a big help, and that cheese has the most calories per dollar.

Machka 

I'm still choking over my brifters last year. I've never in my life replaced any sort of shifting mechanism before ... it had never occurred to me that such things would ever need replacing ... and then I had to fork over more than I paid for some of my bicycles just for shifters!

matthew_deaner

Machka, how long did your brifters last? I've got 20K on mine and I'm starting to wonder how much longer they're going to last.

Machka 

About 40,000 kms (24,000 miles). Then all of a sudden last summer, my second freehub died, and while it was being fixed (despite the fact that I wanted it replaced), I bought a new wheel so I could keep riding. I had to make a few subtle adjustments to my derailleur so that I could shift with the new wheel ... never had so much trouble with a new wheel before! Then I got my old wheel back, and the shop adjusted everything back to the way it was, but I couldn't shift at all. I asked them to have another look at my derailleur, they told me they did, but they couldn't do anything to help ... and then they told me my shifters were shot and replaced my shifters ... and I still couldn't shift with the old wheel. So I put the new wheel on again, and still had trouble shifting, but less trouble. I took it back to the shop, and they told me they had done what they could adjusting my derailleur, and my new shifters just needed to work in or some such nonsense. I went to Europe with that setup, Rowan took one look at it and discovered they had totally botched the derailleur adjustments.

I'm not 100% convinced that my shifters did die, but nevertheless, I guess I had a lot of kms on them.

SandLizrd

old friction-shifters wear out when the little bumps wear down, friction ain't there!
New brifters wear down when little bitty teeth get wear on them. Do Not Put Your Bicycle Up Side Down In Dirt!

Generally I am happy to say, it is an industry full of hybrids and cheapo wall-mart bikes, and we can still get 20k out of the components. Nothing wrong with that. Freehubs are a problem.... and I wish cable housings were better because they are harder to diagnose.... but as an industry, aren't we doing pretty well?

LWaB

Most bike bits last long enough for me but riding fixed for some of it does help and moving somewhere drier really reduces wear, particularly to rims. I'm still on 6-7 speed freewheels and bar end or downtube shifters for a fair chunk of the rest, so there is a bit more metal than 10 speed set-ups anyway.

My hassle is that I can't find knicks (black, no advertising) that hold together more than a year or two, despite splitting the wear between 3-4 sets. That doesn't really count as equipment though.

Machka 

I consider myself fortunate if mine last me one whole season, and a little ways into the next. That said, I got a pair of shorts in late summer 2006 which are still in good condition ... I'm liking this! I figure they may last through the entire coming season. If a pair of shorts could last me 2 whole years, that would be great!

Rowan

I suppose you have to do the sums based on dollars or cents per kilometre.

My Fuji Touring has done around 56,000km, and I estimate I have spent $4,000 Australian on it in upgrades and replacements, as well as the original purchase price of $1750 (IIRC). Let's see, that's 7.1 cents a kilometre (if my calculations are anywhere remotely right).

My "new" Shogun FG has cost me around $500 to build and has done around 2,650km, so that equates to 18.6 cents a kilometre, butit has a lot of riding to go, so that cost will come down.

My old Merida 900 Extreme was bought new for an all-up price of $960 and had another $200 in tyres and probably brake pads spent on it over its 12,000km lifespan (8sp gearset and chain was never replaced), so the price was 9.2 cents a kilometre.

My old tour-guiding and early touring MTB cost around $900 in its lifetime and also did around 12,000km, so that's 7.5 cents a km.

Now, the trophy bikes that won't be ridden in anything except fine sunny weather, and then maybe only for 1,000km a year... then you are talking dollars per kilometre. Still, if you can afford them, why not?

I am a believer in the concept that the mid-level component sets are just the ticket for long-distance riding if you don't think you will ever win anything (like a 24H race). If you want reliable, leave the Dura-Ace and XT and other lightweight, top-end stuff alone and get something like Tiagra or Deore, including wheels with plenty of spokes.

As to shorts, I've had good experiences so far with Pearl Izumi. I'm not sure that price is necessarily an indicator of longevity -- all mine have cost around $80 US, but I have five pairs and they get rotated pretty well. I expect to get at least two SR seasons out of a five-pair set. Lately, I have taken to not wearing padded bike shorts, except for long randonnees, and instead ride with unpadded lycra running shorts bought in France, with a pair of Taslon fabric overshorts.

spokenword

mmm ... well, for me, the point where I started doing more distance riding coincided with when I stopped riding bikes with low-end components. It was also around that time that I really started paying attention to maintenance and would do things like, you know, clean my chain more than once a year.

so, for me, doing centuries, tours and brevets was a moment when I began to care about my bike and not treat it like some disposable lifestyle accessory. Naturally, all of my gear lasted longer.

With that said, I am still occasionally surprised by some some failures. Earlier last winter, I had an aluminum bottle cage snap off my frame just due to metal fatigue. It's just one of those things that nobody thinks about, but it's subject to wear and tear like everything else. Still, most of my distance gear is less than four years old, so I haven't seen anything fail yet, and two years was usually the time when I'd need to overhaul the entire drivetrain on my old hybrids.

Carbonfiberboy 

The Ultegra brifter lasted about 24K miles. The right one started not giving me a full shift in the middle of the cassette. Probably where the most wear was. A new brifter fixed the problem with no other changes. Same thing happened to a buddy's Ultegra brifter. It's not just me. The left one is still OK, as it doesn't get much use. Though I've broken the left one twice from slamming shifts during uphill sprints while wearing winter gloves. Not rando wear, though. Next time I'll have to go to a 10-speed drive train and I'm not looking forward to that!

I think the largest share of expense is in expendables: weird bike food and tires. A friend dropped over $1,000 at Hammer Nutrition last year, and she doesn't use any of their pills, just the "food."

Hocam

Spray the rims with simple green or your favorite cleaning solution and give the braking surfaces a good wipe down after every wet ride. This helps your brake pads and rims last much longer.

hairytoes

Tires, chains, brake blocks and sprockets. On 3rd chain, 2nd cassette and fourth set of brake blokes this year. Lost count of tyres.

Cables seem to go forever - but that's just 'cause I use bar end levers, I reckon.

BTW, Steve A rides on steel frames, because of the longevity issues (don't think he can afford Ti).

charles vail

I'm keeping it simple by riding a single speed (actually two speed) most of the time and staying off the brakes as much as possible. Rim wear has got to be the most frustrating and makes me want to go with a disc setup. I split my riding between five bikes but its not cheap to replace parts.

Six jours

And yet some of the stuff -- the French rando bikes come to mind -- has lasted for decades. It seems to me that we've traded some longevity for performance, or at least the illusion of performance. I've got Campagnolo Nuovo Record equipped racing bikes that put in a decade of hard service followed by several more decades of pleasure riding, and the only things that have been replaced are consumables like brake pads and chains.

To me, things like shifters that wear out every few years, or 10-speed chains that have to be replaced every 1500 miles, are actually kind of shocking, especially considering how much these things now cost. Reassures me that I took the right route in finding 9-speed stuff and downtube levers, anyway...

Six jours

BTW, I can't help but believe that frequently wearing out steel frames means either A) frames that are much too light, B) a rider that is obnoxiously abusive and performs zero maintenance, or C) an active imagination.

Though I guess there's the time-honored D) "I just wanted another new frame".

robertkat

One reason I'm leaning towards simple downtube shifters. That and I kinda like them anyways. Been a very long time since I had a big equipped with them, but I still remember the simplicity and clean look.

Mr. Beanz

Good thing about do-it-yourself. I build my own wheels so I save lots of dough there. I've paid as little as $25 for Velocity Deep V hoop and $99 for a DA rear hub. Nice sturdy wheel, cheap. Got 11,000 miles out of the rear wheel on my training/beater bike wiht not as much as a budge out of true. I've had wheels built at a high end shop that didn't las the first 40 mile ride.

I damaged the Ultegra rear drailleur on a century (stupid mistake leaning bike on curb at reststop) but the brifters wore out. The shop wanted $600 to upgrade the components to DA. I found sales then did it myself for $300 including the tools. DA Brifters for $199 and DA rear derailleur for $64 no tax sale.

I no longer trust the shop with failure diagnosis. I've paid for adjustments that turned out to be worse than when I took in the bike. My buddy had a nice Italian rig with Ultergra. He took it in for a rear adjustment. The guy at the shop said it was the best he could do, that's why they made Dura Ace!.....I adjusted it for him on the road in less than 3 minutes. No problem since. I'd bet half the repairs/stuff people pay for is not needed.

Mr. Beanz

When you guys say the freehub wore out, wha do you mean? I've never had a problem with hubs and I'm a heavy rider. Maybe from rain and snow? Don't have that weather problem here. I have hubs from '98 with no issues. Can't they be repacked with new bearings?

Did have the tandem wheel hub overhauled with new grease and bearings about a year ago on a '98 tandem. But that was only $12!

Never any problems with the internal mech's on a hub though.

charles vail

I recently switched back from bar enders to down tube shifters on my Surly Trucker bike and I like them very much.........simple, clean and less available to constantly shift with. This actually puts a more relaxed pace to my rides and I find myself standing to climb small rises or otherwise modulating my cadence instead of trying to switch gears like a obsessed fanatic.

Six jours

Shimano, for some insane reason, is still making downtube shifters for nine and ten speed. I'm apparently the only one on the planet who's buying them, but for sixty bucks vs. three or four (or five or six) hundred bucks for brifters, I'm feeling like I can do without the quarter of a second per shift gained by the brifters.

Especially when it turns out that the brifters need to be replaced every couple of years...

Rowan

That's what annoyed me about Machka's bike. The adjustments we sooooo botched, I couldn't believe it. And while it took a little bit of fiddling to take it all back to scratch, the job didn't last more than 30 minutes, including the test ride.

I have a very strong feeling that there wasn't anything really wrong with the brifters, but it made more financial sense for the shop to declare them dead and sell her a new set.

But still, this was the bike shop I went into while I was in Canada and asked if they stocked fixed-gear sprockets... and the guy just looked at me with a dumb look on his face.

FWIW, I have older Tiagras, and they are still going OK, coming up to six years after purchasing the bike. Hence my comment about mid-range components being probably a bit more economical in terms of longevity.

As to the freehubs, in the sorts of conditions Machka has ridden, it's a wonder other things don't go amiss. The hub in question is a Formula, and while I love the run of sealed bearings, the weakness with these appears to be the exposure to water that gets into the pawls and spring and finally corrodes them into submission. It's probably one case where regular maintenance would help extend the life of the freehub, deaspite the "fiddliness" of the job.

Cyclaholic

You're not the only one...



This is my commuter and long distance ride (before lights & fenders were fitted), she does about 12000 miles a year. I've only replaced tires, the chain, casette, bartape, and one shifter cable. I'm about to replace the rear rim which is pretty badly beaten up and cracked, but that's from fairly agressive urban commuting. I can't imagine this frame ever wearing out.