I competed in a local “Trailquest” bike orienteering event last weekend, and had
a great time, as no other unicyclists could make, it decided to mix it with the
mountain bikes and ride my Coker instead of a Muni. My coker had been sitting in
my garage thru’ the winter since last October’s Polaris, and as a set off on a 3
and a half hour mission to vie with any other teams entered in the fun category,
I was reminded of two things …
The bearings had been a bit squeaky after 2 days of off-roading in
Northumbria, they now sounded like a rather pleasant dawn chorus following
me around.
The wheel needed a bit of a truing and I wouldn’t be able to use my
brake safely.
I cycled 18.5 miles and walked 3.5, If I’d ridden my Muni only a mile or so
would have been unridable (with my 140mm cranks) but the Coker (also with 140mm
cranks) just isn’t optimised to uphill off-road tracks.
It came into its own however on some lengthy road sections where I could just
about keep up with tired or less fit MTB’ers.
I’d picked up 260 points (not including a 20 pointer that I couldn’t find) and
was coming was charging into the finish with about 15 minutes to spare and the
possibility of a fitting in a nearby 30 pointer when I was pitched forward as
the wheel locked up. I picked myself up and tried to push the wheel thru’ the
forks thinking that it had clogged with mud. No joy there it was rubbing the
forks so I had to carry it the rest of the way and hand in my score card.
Upon arriving home I undid the left bearing housing to be greated with the sight
of a few unrecognisable shards of metal and a pile of ball bearings (I took a
photo for posterity).
I am now trying to grind a channel thru’ the inner bearing race to remove it
from the axle as I cannot get a puller in behind it.
I don’t know how I fared yet against the other riders in my category but I was
just glad I hadn’t had to carry the coker 8 or 10 miles back to the start!
Leo White, Cheltenham England
I’m sure there’s a motto here somewhere … something like “A set of sealed
bearings in the hand is not worth two bearings singing in the bushes…”
Leo White <l.white@cableinet.co.uk> wrote: : I competed in a local “Trailquest” bike orienteering event last weekend, and : had a great time, as no other unicyclists could make, it decided to mix it : with the mountain bikes and ride my Coker instead of a Muni.
Good on ya Leo, sorry we had to pull out, I was at work boo hiss, and our car
has been so unreliable we have just got rid of it.
: N.B. that bearing only lasted 100 to 110 miles!
Mine have reached the noisey clonky stage with 99 miles on the speedo. Sound
familar. sarah
Rats ! Only came sixth out of 9 in the Fun Category - I’ll have to punch ALL the
checkpoints I ride to next time.
Also I got this response to my bearing problem from a helpful Cokerhead…
“…At first I went through a lot of bearings on my Coker until I realised that
the forks were spread out too far. When I put the forks over the bearings I had
to pull the forks apart. So after a while the frame would pull the bearings
“out”. After 4 bearing replacements in 2 months it dawned on me to push the
forks closer together. After that no more problems…”
This is also true of my Coker frame but I’m loath to just bend the forks in a
bit since that might upset the geometry if they don’t bend evenly. For now I’ve
just replaced the bearings with fully sealed ones. The stock bearings only had a
dust seal on one side !!!
It should not be a problem to bend the frame if the arms are only slightly off.
The other option is to consider bringing the bearings out, machine a pair of
spacers to fit in behind the bearings. There is space on the Coker hub to move
it out maybe 5mm without too much of a problem.
Roger
The UK's Unicycle Source <a href="http://www.unicycle.uk.com/">http://www.unicycle.uk.com/</a>
> Rats ! Only came sixth out of 9 in the Fun Category - I’ll have to punch
ALL > the checkpoints I ride to next time. > > > Also I got this response to my bearing problem from a helpful
Cokerhead… > > "…At first I went through a lot of bearings on my Coker until I realised > that the forks were spread out too far. When I put the forks over the bearings > I had to pull the forks apart. So after a while the frame would pull the > bearings “out”. After 4 bearing replacements in 2 months it dawned on me to > push the forks closer together. After that no more problems…" > > This is also true of my Coker frame but I’m loath to just bend the forks
in > a bit since that might upset the geometry if they don’t bend evenly. For
now > I’ve just replaced the bearings with fully sealed ones. The stock bearings > only had a dust seal on one side !!! > > Leo White > >