LOOK Carbon KEO Blade Grease Failure

About half-way home yesterday, on my 1st good ride since dental surgery (hammered the hell out of it!) I started to hear the birds chirping like it was a beautiful spring day, not a beautiful winter day. The "birds", I started to notice, stopped singing when I stopped pedaling - well at least when pedaling hard. I was hoping it was a dry chain, or even the bottom bracket, but after some 1-legged pedaling, pretty sure it was a dry pedal. 

I just checked my tracking info, and I got those the last week in October, so, gulp, that just flat out SUCKS! Here's the deal (channeling Joe Biden already), a lot of bike shops are struggling to stay open, so are selling anything and everything they can get their hands on. Shimano is back-ordered for months I'm told (somehow Competitive Cyclist was able to get me a replacement set of R-8000 shifters so I can fix the front, L-hand shifter. Giant Kudos there), and bike mfgs are complaining they could make more bikes if they could get components from mfgs. Post COVID, people have rediscovered the Great Outdoors, apparently all at once. Manage your gear accordingly.

BOTTOM LINE: Don't assume new purchases are new, were stored correctly (why run the AC when the physical store is closed?), handled correctly, or even assembled by the usual assembly fairies who may be sick with COVID. When you buy something that can be greased, grease it before installation. 

I'm hoping against hope that the spindle on the right pedal isn't ruined, or wasn't ruined by spalling of the needle bearing, I did use a very fine polish to polish the spindle, and it looks much better now, but I won't know for a few rides if I caught it in time.

Visine bottle repurposed with 0W20 Mobil-1

 First, remove the pedals like this. A great cheat is to remove the Right pedal first using a socket wrench with a ratchet, as it's threading is normal. When you're all finished with it put it back on & tighten it down per torque spec. The socket wrench's ratchet will now be set correctly to untighten the Left pedal. I bought a 3/8", 8mm allen tip as a 1/4" socket wrench is too small to untighten the spindles as they tighten themselves ever more as you ride. If you're dead certain you won't screw this up, I'd RX a 1/2" to 3/8th socket adapter so you can use a breaker-bar to break them loose. I'm not that certain.

 Right pedals loosen by turning counter-clockwise, left pedals loosen clockwise. 

Right pedals tighten by turning clockwise, left pedals tighten counter-clockwise.

Shimano marks their pedals with arrows, so use those as a guide if in doubt.

 A ~ 32" length of 2x4" lumber makes a great crank-arm crutch to keep the crank fully extended upright, which you can push down on without impaling your knuckles on the teeth of your chainring. Just flip the bike over and tuck the 2x4 under the flat side of the pedal, step on the horn of the seat, then wrench away!

I don't have the special 5-tooth tool to remove the lock-caps, but they came off with a rubber spacer (a piece of leather belt would probably work too) from an old tail-light and a shiny new Vice-Grip with a circular jaw pattern. I used Q-Tips to clean out the tiny bit of grease left inside. I then used Mobil-1 oil (from a repurposed Visine bottle) to clean out the needle bearing by flooding the inside of the pedal with oil & then turning the spindle with a small drill and 8mm allen wrench at ~ 300 rmps. 

Mother's Headlight Polish

 If you're going to polish the machined needle bearing interface on the spindle, do so before using the 0w20 oil and spinning the bearing with the drill, because if there's debris on it you might scratch the rollers of the needle bearing with a chewed up spindle cone. I used this Mother's headlight de-fogger which has an "ultra-fine abrasive" - probably hydrolyzed silica, AKA soggy sand, which is used in toothpaste, based on the color. Lapping compound at ~ 2,000 grit would be safer, if I had it on hand. A hard piece of denim or quality paper towel work well to hold the compound against the spindle with a hard hand pinch. More is less, so tread lightly, but get them nice and shiny without reshaping the spindle. 

Whatever you do, make DAMNED SURE there is no abrasive of any kind left on the spindle. I washed mine off with hot, soapy water, dried it with paper towel, and then immediately wiped it with oil.

Note rubber jaw-shield in ViceGrip

After cleaning the threads of the lock-cap and upper part of the inside pedal body with alcohol, as those threads need to be squeaky clean to allow the LockTite to bond during final assembly, I used FinishLine Teflon-fortified grease for the body and the main "permanently lubed" sealed bearing. After cleaning out the hollow at the end of the spindle with a Q-Tip, I packed it with grease too.

Using the Krytox syringe, I applied a zig-zag pattern of grease on the machined bit of the spindle that engages the needle bearing. As there's no way to reach the needle-bearing, I carefully reassembled the spindle and spun it with a drill to get some Krytox onto the surface of the needle-bearing itself. I repeatd this 3 times until I was sure I had a good Krytox coating on both the bearing and the spindle.

I then squeazed about a 1" length of lube into the pedal body. Not wanting to push the Krytox GPL 205 off the machined needle-bearing interface of the spindle when pressing it into place, I then repeatedly slammed the pedal body down onto a rag-covered bench to force the grease to the bottom of the pedal cavity. I had to repeat this process twice, adding grease again, to fully pack the pedal. 

Listen for a grease "crack" when doing a trial reassembly and tightening of the lock-cap. Excess grease will get pushed past the cassette bearing's seal in time, guaranteeing it gets relubed, even if it's supposed to be "lubed for life". The primary job of grease is to slowly bleed out the oil it holds. More grease, more oil, more bearing life. It will add 50gr to the weight of your bike. Do you care?

Once fully packed, turn the pedal with the drill and 8mm allen tip. You should see grease coming out of the pedal end of the sealed bearing interface. Wipe with a clean rag and repeat until the grease stops oozing out. You should then be ready to back the lock-cap off to expose the threads so you can apply LockTite. 

The seals on the lock-cap are very good, so if you cleaned them thoroughly with alcohol they should still be clean & dry. Apply 2 drops of BLUE Medium strength LockTite (I used Permatex. Same stuff AFAICT) covering 3-4 threads from the outside in. Hand tighten (the left side lock-cap is left-hand threaded - as is the spindle) as tight as you can and then use the 5-tooth special tool or soft-mouth pliers or Vice-Grip to tighten until snug. There's a thin rubber seal at the base of the threads the lock-cap is meant to engage AFAICT. The seal on mine was cracked & dried, but the Lock-Tite is both a thread-locker and a sealant, so don't sweat the O-ring seal quality.

Blue "LockTite", by whatever name, takes 24hrs to fully cure, so no pedaling until TOMORROW. 

Remember, the left pedal spindle is reverse threaded. Turn it clockwise to remove the pedal when facing the crank arm. The right side is normal, so turn it anti-clockwise to loosen it.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving! 

Excess Grease Oozing out of Bearing

PS: Did a hard climbing ride just now and happy to report the pedals are quiet. It will take a few more rides for the grease to get pressed out to an equilibrium quantity, but this is very encouraging. No indication the lock-caps are going to unscrew themselves, and no grease leakage on the left side spindle at all. 

PPS: I've put about 175 miles on these pedals in the last week and they are now glassy smooth, smoother than when I first took them out of the box and mounted them - by far. Weather has been 45-65F and there is still a small bit of grease coming out of the seal on the R pedal (packing the hollow of the spindle is probably responsible for this), which is just fine with me. It guarantees all the rust, debris and microscopic bits of spall, if there are any, are getting pushed out of the main bearing, and no water or dust is getting back in. 

Cheers!

Biking To-Do List: November 2020

First, yes, I still owe you all 2 posts on the theory and practice of half-step gearing, which is slow going at the moment, but I'm working on it. 

Second, I decided to repack an old set of Shimano Ultegra 6700 carbon pedals and was shocked to find there is no main bearing, and the "needle bearing" isn't a needle bearing at all, it's a home-brew dual ball bearing where the cups are ground into the ends of a ~ 12mm steel barrel, and those balls are teeny tiny, like something out of a Swiss watch. We're talking flat-sided toothpicks for handling all 36 of these 3/32 little devils. The PD-R8000 is made exactly the same way.

Third, I'm still trying to figure out a way to salvage my old bike's headset by using a thicker grease meant to resist being hammered out of the contact area (pound-out). Turns out there's a grease sold by AmsOil made specifically for this purpose used in heavy duty off-road earth-moving equipment - Synthetic Polymeric Off-Road Grease, NLGI #2

Think articulated joint in the center of a bucket loader rolling over rough ground with a bucket load of ore and a huge weight stack at the extreme other end of the machine. (these guys couldn't get laid in a mattress factory, but watch the video anyway) You'd want the thicker NLGI #2 grease for headsets retrofitted with sealed bearings with much smaller engagement areas than the original press-in ball bearing cups.

This, and repacking my Ultegra pedals led me to a lengthy investigation of grease, and especially, compatibility of greases with different bases (they're not), because I bought some of Park Tool's PPL-1 Polylube poly-urea grease, and I wanted to be sure it would play nice with other (primarily lithium-based) greases. Park Tool says it does. My research says NO. 

BTW, the base isn't the lubricating agent. The base is the stuff that gels and suspends an oil, and slowly weeps the oil onto a bearing over time, but it's NOT the primary lubricant (some additives like moly or graphite provide lubrication as well). That is to say, the base is what makes something a grease instead of an oil. There's a fairly wide window of bearing speeds and loads where grease works, and bicycle bearings are way, way inside that window. Easy-peasy. 

10% ball bearing failure @ 45,000hrs

By way of contrast, high speeds, high loads, and high heat make active lubrication under pressure with oil absolutely necessary for ICE engine main "bearings", which aren't bearings at all, but bushings with oil galleys cut into them, while hypoid gears' very high pressure loads in manual transmissions require very thick oil that can stand up to molecular shearing, but no active, pressurized lubrication system is needed there.

At any rate, I leaned a ton of interesting and important information about grease, when it's used, and how to select it. There's a really brilliant blog post in this if I'm up to the challenge. I do want to assure you all though that I'm very happy with all the RX-es I've made on this blog, and in particular, I still think for ball bearings running at the speeds (50-250 rpms) and pressure loads of bicycle hubs, BBs, headsets (my special need notwithstanding) and pedals, pure Teflon grease directly on the balls, cups & cones, and Teflon fortified grease to displace dust, water, etc in the rest of the grease cavity, makes the best possible lubrication. 

 If this changes I'll shout it from the rooftops, but I don't see that happening for decades. FinishLine makes both the pure Teflon grease and the Teflon fortified grease. I bought some Krytox GPL 205 10yrs ago and paid $65, but it's gotten cheaper. I still have about 1/4 left, so yes, I use it sparingly, but it will never leave you metal to metal and is chemically inert, so it won't react to metal, plastic, paint, etc. If you're riding disk brakes and the hub is soaking up a lot of heat, PTFE grease is about as good as it gets.

With COVID-19 running rampant everywhere again, as predicted, please do take care to stay safe at all times - 90% of the time will get you killed with this remorseless executioner.

How to Evaluate Winter Clothing

Have you ever gotten a recommendation for cold weather riding gear and found yourself frozen stiff or steaming hot, despite that recommendation being from a usually reliable source or friend? Me too. It's been over 10yrs now since I posted this, but my metric has held up very with experience, so I'm going to repeat it in plenty of time for Christmas shopping. 

Here's my RX: 

Multiply your average ride wattage by your BMI (body mass index) and use that number to compare with others when they recommend winter clothing.

It turns out this is an excellent way to estimate how much core you have to retain the heat you generate in making whatever power you do.

For example, after working out in the gym for 20+ years I have a LOT of core, and am also somewhat barrel chested. I also have short legs, so I have a high BMI of 28. I also make pretty good power (for my age), 225 RWGPS or 115 Strava watts, so not surprisingly I don't need much clothing to keep warm when riding. As long as you both use the same reference watts the fact that RWGPS and Strava differ doesn't matter. For me the challenge is to keep from over-dressing and sweating profusely, which can actually become quite dangerous when riding near dark, or if you have a mechanical and need to wait for a ride. Hypothermia kills. 

On the other hand I used to ride with a woman who was 5'2" and 105lbs (BMI=19), making 55-60 Strava watts and 100-110 RWGPS watts, she would freeze to death trying to get by with the clothing appropriate for me (drafting off someone can be a big help if you're getting cold as they break the wind and pass heat back to you - it works). However, one of our older ride leaders was 6'4" and weighed about 150lbs, with a BMI of 18, making about 150 RWGPS and 65 Strava watts, so his recommendations were pretty helpful for her. The closer the product of BMI x Watts is, the better the recommendations will be.

Worth mentioning here that your head is the one extremity you can't completely cover, so what you can cover, cover with the best stuff money can buy. I have 4 Balaclavas, and find them priceless in keeping warm. It's also worth considering buying a winter helmet that isn't so aggressively vented, which is just the opposite of what you want in summer.

Of course, there are always subtleties to be aware of. For example, while it is slightly uncomfortable, especially at the start of rides, I've found having my arms cold doesn't really affect my performance, while having my hands cold seriously impairs my ability to shift and brake. Also, my size 11 feet tend to get cold easily, and that leads to a lot of discomfort and eventually, calf cramping. Finally, my quads just above my knees tend to cramp easily in the cold.

If you want to dress for comfort in winter, start keeping a log of temps before, during and after rides and the clothing you selected. In a month or two you will almost NEVER get surprised and be inappropriately dressed. 

One bit of hard-earned wisdom. If riding with a group, especially at night, carry an extra layer of clothing in way it stays DRY, because when riding in winter with a group you're almost always going to have to wait for someone to fix a flat or mechanical, because some idiots just don't get that winter is the worst time of all to compromise on tires, lights & other gear, so you'll be somewhat wet with sweat, and then have to wait for 10-20 minutes in the cold while making zero heat. 

Adding more layers, which will also get soaked with sweat, only makes things worse. You'll be more sweat-soaked and much quicker. You need a layer you've kept dry that you can quickly don without losing much body heat. For me this is a jacket over my vest or a convertible jacket I can zip the arms onto. Whatever you do, time is of the essence. Save all that beautiful heat ASAP. You'll be thanking yourself in < 10 minutes.

Hope you have a long, fun winter of riding, and don't ride alone after dark. Fun at times, and beautiful beyond belief at others, but very unforgiving.