Svelte Cycles without comproise

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Problem Solving...

I had some "issues" my first time out on the Edge's. The first major issue was that the front tire was not holding air. I generally don't like valve extenders as I feel you can never get an accurate pressure reading from them and they just seem like a quick-fix/unreliable thing in general. Initially I only had one replaceable valve core long enough for these deep rims so I installed that in the rear and used and extender for the front.... friggin' thing let me down as expected. Upon returning from Philly I wanted to get back on these things right away and didn't want to wait a few days for a new extra-long valve core so I decided to make one last ditch effort to make the front tire work. I ripped off the front tire and lined the threads on the valve core and then again on the valve extender with "PTFE Seal Tape". I rethreaded everything back together nice and snug. Mounted the tire again with a fresh roll of Tufo Extreme Tape. It worked like a charm!

Not only was the tire holding air rock solid, but I was getting accurate gauge readings on my new Joe Blow pump.
The second issue was that I was getting a strong "pulsing" when applying the front brake with reasonable force rolling to a stop. At first I thought it must be the brake tract on the rim but then became curious and thought that perhaps the problem was not from the rim, but from the brake itself. When I rolled to a stop at a red light I reached down and grabbed the Zero Gravity brake caliper firmly in my hand and pushed and pulled it back in forth in an effort to simulate the forced the rim placed on during braking. Sure enough it wasn't the rim, but the brake! Luckily for me Zero Gravity is just about the coolest company in the biz and they sent me out a new front caliper (in addition to a set of the new Neg G's for testing) right away. All they asked was for the existing front with play in it so they could figure out what the problem in hopes to fix it in future models. Thank You Zero Gravity!

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