Ever since I paid 260 dollars for my new torker dx I’ve been really nervous that somethings going to break, so usually every night after I’m done riding I check it over. But I’m not sure I’m checking over everything. What are some areas that I should really look over, that tend to break easier than others. Thanks.
Don’t say that the torker dx is like a tank either and isn’t going to break. For one I’m over cautious and two I’m 100 pounds, a beginner, and have had it for 5 days and I’m already beginning to see the rim tweak.
I have had the crank bolts come loose a bit. Tap the spokes and tighten any that sound real flat. If the whole wheel seems a bit loose, tighten each spoke exactly 1/2 turn, that will tighten it up without changing trueness. Once you start idling or riding backwards, your pedals may get loose.
Because of the way the cranks always power the same patch of tire on the down stroke, your tire will wear uneven. So once you start to notice that, remove and reinstall the cranks about 90 degrees to even tire wear.
The rim on the DX is accepted as being one of the strongest trials rims out there, something is definitely wrong (loose spokes?) if you at 100 pounds are tweaking it.
Yeah I weigh 170-180 and have taken that same uni off 5ft drops with bad landings when learning. I have also mess up 180’s down a 6set and hit the crank of the step and I run at a kind of lowish pressure so when I mess up I bottom out and mine is fine. The only thing you will break on a dx probably is the seat post and seat, but that is just about if not every stocky unicycle.
If the spkes are fine there should be no problems.
So when a spoke is loose what kind of sound does it make? I don’t really understand what sounding flat means. And I know the torker dx rim is very strong thats why I couldn’t figure out why it was tweaked.
you are either
1)paranoid
2)doing something really wrong to tweak it(and define “tweak”)
3)you are taking it off 10ft drops with no form
on the dx nothing really needs to be checked more than weekly.
spokes, frame bolts, 2 crank bolts, seat bolts, pedals…
the only thing that really breaks on a dx is the seatstiffener(nothing you can do about) and the frame (also nothing you can do about but find a welder to weld it back together when it breaks.)
flat in pitch. which means that it isnt tight. you dont want them flat but you want them all aout the same pitch when you stike them with something like a screwdriver.
all of our local ones suck. i can do better work on my own stuff and it is free. of course i have a friend, and my dad can do that stuff so i learned as opposed to payed for it.
Or take the tire half off and rotate it. IMO a lot easier. Eventually you will have four worn spots, so then rotate it 45 degrees and then 90 when it wears again.
Get a GB 4 seat stiffener, or CF base. Or make your own stiffener out of aluminum - lighter and stronger.
If it’s new it should be an '07, the frame won’t break. Even if it does it has a lifetime warranty.
I broke one of the four bars that go across the pedal to the outside pretty easily on mine. Replace them w/ ones that reinforces this area, like these Snafus. Pedal protectors will lengthen the life of your pedals (but didn’t help at all on my stock ones because where they broke), plus it’s a lot less noisy when it the uni falls.
to check your spokes grab 2 of em next to each other with one hand and try to squeeze them togeather, you should not be able to move them much maybe 1/8 of an inch. and you cannot have your spokes too tight, as when sideways force is applied the spokes are going to be pulled tight anyway so why not have em tight so there is very little give therefore for your rim to buckle it has to stretch or break spokes.
So that nipples break, parts break. That is much like saying a bolt can never be to tight. Maybe not, but threads can strip etc. The stretching of “not to tight” spokes is an important part of wheel shock absorption.
When I said tighten flat spokes, I did not mean you should become a piano tuner (no offense Terry). Tapping spokes with a metal thing will make them “ping”. I don’t try to make them all sound the same. “Good enough”, is ok. But if a spoke is loose enough to sound way lower (in musical pitch) , tighten it a bit. There is different things that can effect spoke pitch. You just want to find the ones that don’t go ping, near as high pitch as the others. You can be very tone deaf and do this well. Tighten spokes that go plah instead of ding.
Telling someone that they can fix their wheel tensioning problems by taking their wheel to a bike shop is about as helpful advice as you could get asking Paris Hilton. Why not buy a new KH and have your butler take it somewhere to be painted pink. If thats to difficult, get a better butler…
Some of us need to learn to do things ourselves. I always do this basic stuff myself.
Be careful with spoke tensioning. feel_the_light is right–you can very easily overtension spokes, which will lead to them snapping. There are even tools you can buy (I don’t have one, though) that measure the tension in a spoke so that if the “musical” method doesn’t work for you, you can assure relatively even tension in your wheel. I tend to go with the musical method myself.
But a word of warning. If you go around tightening some spokes and leaving others alone, you very well may mess your wheel up big time and end up needing to either buy a set of truing calipers or taking your wheel into the LBS for truing. I’m not a wheelbuilder, so I don’t claim to know all, but I’ve been advised by bike mechanics that if the wheel is true but there are loose spokes, you should go around the entire wheel tightening each spoke a quarter turn until they’re all (relatively) tight. This will keep the wheel true and get your spokes tensioned. Those same bike mechanics have said that people tightening their own spokes without knowing the rudiments of wheelbuilding account for more customers needing truing than anything else at their shop.
Geeze, im 190 and havent done anything to that rim except put it a little out of true. Ive rode my KH for maybe a month and the KH rim is already out of true. lol
I wish the Alex DX32 rim wasnt so tiny, cause if it were wider, that would be the only rim I would ride.
Im not sure how you guys are going through the DX32s like that. I do trials, and big sets. Jump off walls/ledges that are 8 feet tall, some taller, and land to flat, and when on trials, cause its mainly on all rocks, there is no flat landings, everything is on a point, in a crevice, or on a slope, I hit my rim tons, and there isnt one flat spot on that rim.
