I never heard that about the cages/loose balls interesting stuff but does that apply to a NR/SR era HS or all HS? I have heard the trick of rotating the lowercup or crown race (depending which is bad) 90'.
Just which Athena HS do you have? One bad thing about the first gen C-rec era HS is that if they are factory installed you may have a threading issue getting something really low like a DA or 105 on the fork.
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“One morning you wake up, the girl is gone, the bikes are gone, all that's left behind is a pair of old tires and a tube of tubular glue, all squeezed out"
Sugar "Kane" Kowalczyk