I finally did it.

I killed the thing.... here is a list of what went wrong.

1. the axle kept slipping out of the semi-vertical dropouts and dropping the chain.
2. I kept putting it back in.
3. I tightened it up.
4. Rode a few blocks and bam, it would slip out again and drop the chain.
5. I put an extra link in the chain and pulled it back farther into the drop outs...
6. same problem... repeat steps all over again.
7. I tried to remove the axle nut and it seized up about half way out...
8. I kept turning it, and it seized up on the bearings... wheel will not spin anymore.
9. I have no other road bike to use.
10. I will not use my track bike to ride to work...
11. I will not ride my unicycle to work.
12. I will not ride my g/fs wackmart honda mtb to work either...
13. I have the worst luck on earth. now I need another bike.


I am seriously considering going to the LBXXX and getting a basic road bike.

I need a bike ASAP. I may have to actually .. get in ... my ............... car tomorrow ... and ......... DRIVE it...... to the LBS.

This suxors, I suxor. The world suxors.

Put your track wheel on the Scwinn, then ride to work and LBS?

Must be hump day, things will roll your way the rest of the week.

Why NOT ride the Mercier to work? Yer not gonna break it. People ride them on the road all the time, in fact most of them never see the track. If you want another bike, go ahead and buy one, but in the meantime I don't see any reason not to ride the Mercier to work.

yeah the mercier is definitly a commuter track bike. Ride it and have fun.

uh.. i think bad luck has nothing to do with it.. you need some nuts..in a few different ways

+1 on riding the track bike.
Especially if it's just a Mercier.

ride the mercier, 99% of them are ridden exclusively on the road.

yeah, the mercier would be good. i mean, it's on a level with khs, or a bianchi pista...i ride my pista all the damn time, even with upgraded components, i'm still not afraid of taking it for a ride in some of the rainy weather we have here.

yeah i would ride the mercier. i dont think you have to worry about theft too much. it looks a step above a beater but people daily ride and lockup much more expensive bikes.

I don't think you need a new bike. it sounds like you just need a new axle assembly. You probably messed up the threads and now it won't tighten down properly. You should be able to get a used axle somewhere and swap on your old cones without much trouble.

yeah i commute on my mercier, well, this week i havent cause its getting a fantastic overhaul that i'll probably post a thread about when i get it back today/tomorrow

but anyway, yeah, why dont you want to ride it? worried about brakeless? slap the schwinn's brake on it for a hot second till you get things sorted

I don't want to ride the merc because I don't have a spare set of tires ... I have some TUFO's on there and if I get a flat I'll be screwed for the weekend racing.

=(

It also doesn't have brakes... and I don't want to bolt-up the schwinn brakes on it, and then remove it for the weekend... that will leave marks on the track bars..

I know that some day the merc will be my daily beater, but for now its my campy ! lol

doesnt sound like your problem is that huge.

adjust your hub, make sure the locknut is secured tightly against the cones. a perfect adjustment doesnt matter at this point. grease you axle threads and spin the axle nuts to spread the grease.

put your wheel back in the frame, and tighten the unseized axle nut, thus half securing the wheel to the bike. now your bike has become an axle vise. now if you're lucky you may be able to get that seized nut past the messy part.

what to do next? i dunno it depends on you effed you ***** is!

You don't have tires on the schwinn? Tires are $10 at your LBS. You're making problems where there aren't any. You used to ride a Huffy to work so suck it up, and ride your girlfriends MTB, put some tires or a brake on your Track bike, or drive your car and quit yer *****in'

The schwinn has 27" tires...

+ ... have you ever tried to install or remove a tufo tubular clincher ! **********?

Its hell.

The only place those TUFO's are going whenever I have to pull them out of those rims is into the trash heap. lol

I made up my mind.. I'm going to the LBS to LOOK @ what they've got. If I find something reasonable I'll go with it if not I'll just order another ebay track bike to use as a commuter.

I think you have a tendency to make things out to be worse than they seem.

One way to use your Tufo's on the street is to buy some Tufo sealant and squirt it in your tires. I got close to two years out of a set of Tufo tubulars this way, riding daily on streets and bikepaths strewn with goatheads. If you get a puncture, the sealant rapidly fills the gap, and you're good to keep going.

Another alternative would be to realize that you probably haven't killed your bike. When you go to your LBS, take the seized wheel and the bike to have them look at the problem. As legalize_it said, you've probably just screwed up the adjustment on the hub bearings. It's fixable. However, you have to recognize that you may not have the skills necessary to fix it yourself. Have your LBS do it instead... that's what they're good at.

Deep breaths, man... deep breaths.

I think i'm just ready to try a regular road bike. I hate the shifters and all the other junk but all of the other guys on the track train on road bikes and they get to participate in criteriums and road races and I can't because I don't have a road bike.

ALL of them are faster and stronger than I am. I figure I can only improve if I get a road bike.

I have the tufo sealant but I have not put it into the tires yet. Hopefully I'll get to rebuild the schwinn using the ebay wheels & tufo's when I get my new wheelset from the builder but at this point I have no idea when he'll have them ready for me.

DAYUM. And this is true.. I always make things sound worse than they really are. lol

eff that. use the mercier as your commuter and look at another track bike as your track bike. you've already been bit by the bug, why stay in the low-end. move on up. suggestion: buy the jamis sputnik. you know you wanna.

get a commuting-oriented set of clinchers for the mercier. way cheaper than buying a whole new bike.

Ok, the LBS has nothing that I want or like... at least not for more than $ 4fiddy.

This is lame. I have to keep looking.

$450 will not get you a decent new road bike. At least to race on. You'll need at least $1k to get decent components.

Don't buy a $450 bike new if you're gonna race.

So, the what you're really saying is that you've just been itching to get a new bike for awhile, and while you could probably fix the Schwinn, you'd rather have a shiny new road bike. Right?

Just checking.

Well DUH! This'll be the third bike he's bought since he first posted about converting his Huffy to SS back in December. The guy likes to talk himself into buying bikes, and who here could blame him? I'd add one ever other month too, but I'm running out of space.

seriously... the mercier is your intro beater track bike. why worry? if you are seriously worried about it affecting your peformance on the track, you should be more concerned with the frame and parts themselves, not the tires. we've got people on here who ride upwards of 1.5k just for work. the first new bike i ever bought for myself was 300. that was a major decision for me. now i drop 250 on bike parts without thinking twice. its all relative. once you make the jump, looking back at this thread will make you laugh.

not knocking your bike, its just that on the greater scale.... you aren't really risking too much!