It's May and the Bluebells finally came out today.

Went for a spin out this morning; my third in three days. Weather fantastic and today I had the trails to myself. So I took this little image of my PACE RC303.


Really rather pleasant.

This was taken along one of my favoured trails....


 Which rather nicely leads to my favoured bit of track here in West Surrey; the sandstone drop. This is a little unnerving, as it's quite steep with a 40cm vertical fall over a sandstone outcrop. Kind of odd having your front wheel drop straight down but this is actually quite an easy bit to ride.


I'll try and get an image of me riding the outcrop as it will be a tad more interesting than this! Bit hard to do when you are out on your own though.

Naturally amongst all this natural wonder the PACE developedan annoying creak from the rear Hope Pro II hub. Bet anything it's the bloody pawl springs rusted through again. The hub also seems very quiet, also suggestive of pawls not engaging properly. Although saying this I have a slight suspicion that my LBS, who did change them for free, quite probably didn't and just sprayed a bit of lube in there. I'll tear it down and see*.

*Did do later on once home. Springs rusted through, two snapped, final two not working as springs. Why? Oh because of the wax lubricant I'd used. It had somehow worked its' way into the pawls, and any water that followed got held in, rusting the mild steel springs. Now given that 2012 was the second wettest year for 100 years I know full well that the last time I used a wax was prior to my LBS 'fixing' the hub last summer. Suspect they just put a bit of lube in and didn't bother to clean it all up, or even put in new springs as the hub was oddly quiet for a Hope unit. Needless to say it's a service I'll be doing from now on. Man, the springs are only £3 a set. Why make a good customer walk away, or start to doubt the service, for the sake of a few pennies?

08/05/2013 update: Bought some new pawls and springs for the Hope Pro II hub and did the service myself. Didn't take too long. Filled down the burs on the alloy freehub body whilst I was at it. Hub now makes that wonderful Hope clicky-clicky noise again and I'm happy. Needless to say I'm a bit miffed at the LBS. Now we're all Internet savvy the High Street shops moan that we go on-line to buy our bits cheaper and that they are struggling. OK, then offer a better service and I'll shop with you, as I have been doing for years out of guilt and local business support. But when they start to take the piss, and don't even do simple jobs, what are we consumers supposed to do? I like to support my LBS but if they are not going to support me, then it all becomes a bit one sided and slightly sad.
 

Comments