Bicycle Mechanics of BARF, I need some assistance

[DannoXYZ]

I bought a Giant from a local bike shop that I think was around for ~30 years, a few years ago. ~$900. Surely there is no support on that bike. Could I even get a wheel spoke? I think the place is out of business, and not covid. Just the way it was before that. 90 day warranty maybe.

Now we're talking about service. Which is where traditional mom & pop real bike shops make their money. As opposed to modern big-box stores which focus on sales for their profits. Find another Giant/Trek bike-shop. With techs that know how to build spoked wheels from scratch.

 

[ctwo]

Do you know how much a place like that charges for a spoke? The guy was asking me what size as I'm holding the wheel? I could tell he didn't really want to sell me a $5 spoke for my 30 year old competition MTB.

 

[wilit]

This. That gear set is completely shot. Buy a new one. Then teach your son how lubing a bicycle drive chain works. I don't think I've ever seen one so bad.

If you bothered to read the entire thread, you would've seen the bike is 4 months old. It's not worn out.

 

[Tom G]

This. That gear set is completely shot. Buy a new one. Then teach your son how lubing a bicycle drive chain works. I don't think I've ever seen one so bad.

Having built a few MTB wheels myself I would say get a used wheel and call it a day. It is a lot of effort to find the proper parts and then put it all together. Shimano alone always had different lines of products and they changed every few years, so I would expect it to be very hard to impossible to find parts.

Regarding "shot" I have to politely disagree. I don't think it is possible to tell from the photo how "old" these gears are. Even when brand new these teeth look very funny, supposedly to make it easier for the chain to change gears. I have a Rohloff chain and sprocket tool in order to be able to measure the wear, I could not do it by eye.

 

[Matty D]

I disagree with buying a new wheel. If you do that you would still need to buy a freewheel separately, so that doesn't solve the problem.

4 months is enough time to wear out a couple of freewheel cogs if the bike is used a lot, the drivetrain is never lubed, the parts are not good quality, and the rider only uses those couple of gears. I don't know if that's what happened here but it looks like it.

Many (but sure, not all) bike shops will be able to service a bike that is 30 years old, particularly if it was decent quality and has parts that were widely used at the time. The bigger question is whether it will be worth it. Just like moto shops there is a broad spectrum of shops and quality of service. And just like moto shops, good bike shops are becoming rare and deserve your support if you find one.

With bikes, you truly get what you pay for. There are diminishing returns after a certain point, but that doesn't happen until you're into several thousands of dollars.

I was a shop wrench/manager for 15 years and am still involved in the industry, and I'm not the only knowledgeable person here telling you what's up. The last couple of cogs on that freewheel are shot. If the freewheel was still together you might get lucky and find a shop with a couple of replacement cogs, but that's pretty rare these days. Regardless, since it fell apart it's not worth the time or effort trying to rebuild it. Take it back to where you got it or suck it up and buy some new parts. Sorry/not sorry.

 

[ctwo]

The last couple of cogs on that freewheel are shot.

I think the op would need to post a better pic to resolve this question. He says they're not, and I can look past the compression artifacts and lighting effects in that image and it looks fine to me.

 

[bpw]

Do you know how much a place like that charges for a spoke? The guy was asking me what size as I'm holding the wheel? I could tell he didn't really want to sell me a $5 spoke for my 30 year old competition MTB.

Unless you can replace the spoke and true the wheel yourself it's going to be cheaper to pick up a used wheel for a bike that age. The shop likely wasn't that interested since they knew the labor charge would be about as much as the bike is worth.

3 months ago I could have given you a complete wheelset, but I left the whole bike on the curb to get it out of my basement, stuff that age is cheap or free even if it was expensive at the time.

 

[wilit]

The new gearset showed up today and it's essentially the same as the original. All the same bevels on the gears, weird cutouts and twisted teeth. I spot checked some teeth with a dial caliper and the new one is the same as the old one. So, no, not worn out.

 

[auntiebling]

Those weird features are intended to make shifting smoother

 

[ST Guy]

I do notice a difference between the two on the interior.

 

[rcb78]

Do you know how much a place like that charges for a spoke? The guy was asking me what size as I'm holding the wheel? I could tell he didn't really want to sell me a $5 spoke for my 30 year old competition MTB.

A basic straight gauge spoke should be a $1 or less at a retail shop. Labor for a shop to install will vary from $30 upwards of $100 depending on what the wheel is and how bad the tension balance is. Spokes come in 1mm increments, there is no 'one size fits all' option here, you realistically have a +/- 1mm tolerance for best practice. Good shops will have a tool to make spokes so that they don't have to stock every size, it gets pretty expensive to try and carry stock on hand when it comes to spokes based on box qtys.
No idea what the issue with the guy is at that shop, spoke installation is easy money and back when I was in retail I'd be all over jobs like that.

 

[DannoXYZ]

Most likely they didn't have any employees that can true spoked wheels.

Kinda like moto shops and carbs.

When I bought my race-bike, I figured I'd take it in for carb-cleaning since it sat for years. Nothing for 3-days. Then I get call from shop with, "We can't find where to plug in OBD scanner"... ahhahahhahahahhah!!!!

 

[afm199]

Most likely they didn't have any employees that can true spoked wheels.

Kinda like moto shops and carbs.

When I bought my race-bike, I figured I'd take it in for carb-cleaning since it sat for years. Nothing for 3-days. Then I get call from shop with, "We can't find where to plug in OBD scanner"... ahhahahhahahahhah!!!!

:laughing

When I was racing bikes I built my own wheels. I still true them.