New Crankset

I was on a mountain bike ride when I noticed my left crank arm was feeling a little weird. I stopped on the trail, checked it out and realized that the bolt securing the arm was on the verge of falling off. Luckily I wasn't too far from the trail head so I walked my bike back to my car. I checked the bolt on the drive side and realized that it was loose as well. To make a long story short my crankset was shot. I had been tightening the bolts before each ride but they never really stayed tight. According to everything I had read online, once you have ridden on loose crank arms with a square taper spindle, they will never tighten up properly again. I usually try to spend as little as possible on bike parts but I splurged on an FSA singlespeed crankset from Bikeman. After a quick install, I went out to Sansom Park and tried it out. Nice and smooth. The crankset came in a cool little box that I almost hate to throw away.

1x9

It's back to work on my low budget project bike. Thanks to my income tax refund I was able to buy a decent tool kit and a really basic repair stand on sale at the new Performance bike shop that recently opened just down the road from my house. Even though I've been riding since 1987 I'm a complete novice when it comes to maintenance. At least I've got the right tools now. The bike repair videos I found on YouTube helped a great deal. My plan has been to turn this bike into a 1x9, for simplicity more than anything else. I was focusing on the crankset today. I picked up some short chainring screws from Colonel's Bike shop here in Fort Worth. I removed the outer and inner chairing on a Specialized Strong Arm crankset I stripped from my old bike. I was then going to use the shorter screws to remount the 32 tooth middle chainring. I removed the cheesy Suntour crankset from my Kona and realized that the chainrings were bolted on but were riveted together.



I also discovered that the bottom bracket was some cheap Chinese cup and cone model. This thing would need to be replaced. I replaced the old bottom bracket with a sealed Shimano bottom bracket with shorter spindle to bring the single chainring in a little. I was told that I might be able to get away without having to buy a bash guard and a chain guide. I put everything together and found that the chain would jump to the inside of the chainring when I shifted to the two largest rear cogs. I'm going to buy a an unramped chainring, bash guard and chain guide and see how things go.