dystaind

so i built up my first fixed conversion. seriously happy about that. learned a lot at my lbs and i'm excited to ride some more.

however-- i actually stripped my cog on my first little "test ride" out. luckily I was able to walk my bike back the shop and placed my cog/lockring on the other side of the hub (double track hub, thannnnnk god!)

here's what happened:

brought my stuff to the lbs. I shortened my chain to run a 40x16. i put on some grey loctite which was recommended to me by the lbs dude + the guy who built up my wheelset. I was told to put 'loctite' on my cog + lockring to prevent "cold welding" and to keep it lubed in case i need to remove it? it also is supposed to prevent stripping? in any case-- i put this stuff on my cog + lockring + hub and take my bike out for a spin. the guy who built up my wheelset recommended taking the bike out for a nice ride around the block after installing the cog/lockring and then immediately taking it back into the shop. The cog should then be tighter than when you first touched it (due to the chain spinning it)-- so grab the lockring tool and tighten the whole baby down even more!

it feels great!!! and speed up down a neighborhood street and then resist the pedals a bit... and it SLIPS! At first i thought it might be my chain so I take it back to the shop and try making my chain a bit tighter. I go out for another little ride and try resisting the motions... and it slips again! Then it starts slipping when i pedal forward. Suddenly I realize something is horribly wrong and i walk it back to the shop.

I take off the lockring and cog, and to my surprise, i stripped the thread around my hub down to nothing! The cog + lockring seemed fine, and lucky for me, my hub has 2 fixed sides. I switch out the 16 tooth cog to a 15 tooth and shorten my chain and set it up on the other side of my hub.

This time I consult my LBS dude. he said that I need to let the loctite settle for a while before riding on my fixie. He said the advice the wheelbuilder was good-- just make sure not to ride the fixie hard until the loctite has "settled."

I went for a 2nd ride... this time a lot shorter and with barely any backwards resistance or weight. All forward peddling... and conservative peddling at that. Then I brought my bike back to the shop and tightened down the lockring (In my zeal to tighten it down, I slightly stripped one of the 'indents' on the ring... oops!)

My question is: did I ride it all too hard before letting the loctite settle? I also rode it a bit hard before tightening the lockring down for the first time... I guess I got carried away. How long should the grey loctite stuff settle?

That's about all of my questions for now. Lookin forward to some insight and even more to riding my bike (which has hopefully "settled" down enough for me to ride it.)

mander

Loctite settling sounds like horse**** to me. What attaches a cog securely to a hub is torque and lots of it. The easiest and simplest way to get this amount of torque is to ride your bike up a big hill. Tighten the lockring afterwards and you're done. It sounds like the first time, you resisted before tightening the lockring.

j-lie

skip the locktite and go for grease. chainwhip or rotofix the cog on as hard as you dare and then thread the lockring on and wrench it tight. don't skimp on grease! what kind of hub is it? what cog? what lockring? maybe there are some compatability issues that haven't been adressed.