Thursday, March 28, 2019

Novara Randonee: Epic Fail!


I was making good progress, with a bit of luck I thought I would have a ride-able bike by Saturday evening, like the random Randonee in the shot above taken from the web.


I cleaned up the cranks this evening while listening to some opening day Baseball (my Mariners crushed the World Series champs 12-4!).  After the game I decided to mount them up so I could proceed to other things like chains and cables tomorrow.

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Hmm why won't the crank turn freely... oh because the inner ring is right up against the chain stay...wait WHAT! The bb spindle is to short but how!?


I recalled measuring the spindle and it came out to 115 mm so that is what I ordered so I dug it out this evening and yes it did measure at 115 mm.  I recall thinking at the time that triples usually ran wider spindles than that, but hey I measured so it must be the right length.  Sigh.

Upon reflection I recalled that old school 3 piece bottom brackets are asymmetrical i.e. the drive side of the spindle is longer than the non drive side and more modern sealed cartridge bbs tend to be more symmetrical hence my drive side spindle as too bleeping short despite the overall length being the same.  Sigh.  New BB ordered but it won't be here until next Thursday at the earliest so the Randonee won't be done as soon as I hoped.  So much for Prime and two day shipping on old bike parts.

What I through was going to be a simple rebuild has been throwing up road blocks left and right but its not like I don't have other bikes I could ride and if I am a bit lucky the Cresta might even be back on the road before I have the Novara finished.  We shall see.

Measure twice. Think thrice. order once.

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