GVRace Tech does it again

With winter coming up and a hard season of summer dirt crit racing behind us, it was only sensible that the Q850 that I ride get the winter treatment. So over the GV Race Tech we went with the bike stripped to a bare frame, ready for the rebuild. All the moving parts had a healthy soak in degreaser, then were washed and air dried with a compressor, a seemingly inocuous task that makes a huge difference by allowing the dirt to travel in the water, picking up other pieces of dirt on its way to the floor. The flip side is that it also pushes dirt further into the pivots, but in my opinion, its worth it. Finally a layer of WD 40 is applied and wiped off.

So with all those parts looking sort of shiny again, the business of reassembly was at hand. Starting with the frame, it was blown dry again with compressed air, and then lanolin spray was injected into the tubes at all openings, followed by a smearing of grease in an attempt to block the frame holes from water ingress. The water ingress is the main problem with these winter race bikes, as it kills everything its in contact with from bearings to steerer tubes to bottom brackets. So GV Race Tech attempts to seal up all the holes. Beeswax would also be a good thing to use.

By stretching an inner tube over the seatpost junction, where it slides into the frame and zip tying it top and bottom is another great way to seal it up, and partiuclary helpful with keeping dirty water from the rear tyre at bay. With the frame basically prepped, the headset was reinstalled, at a 90 degree angle to what it was previously installed as it was deeply pitted, so now it has a fresh surface to fun on. In the cups was heaped equal parts antisieze and grease, with the copper particles in the antisieze designed to keep surfaces smooth and the grease is there obviusly for lubrication and secondly for water resistance. The back side of the bearings was also heavily coated in grease, making it one greasy mess, but working as a sort of hydraulic water barrier. Also, the steel steerer tube got a healthy coat of grease to keep the rust at bay.

Onto the most important part of making a bike go fast, the cables. Now, hands up who ever changes the wires in their cables. This is a dirt cheap way of making your gears perform like new again, and should be done about once a month if you can afford it. Changing the housing is another easy way to help out, in fact it probably makes more of a difference than anything else. But as we are talking about winterising, GV Racetech went the whole hog, and made this bad boy as good as he can be. Starting with full length housing, the ends are filed flat with a magnet attached to get all the metal filings. The endcaps already have o-rings in them, further sealing them, and the housing is internally greased. The housing is then put in place with electrical tape (not cable ties with jagged ends to cut my leg- again) so it is permitted to move around in the event of a crash etc. It doesn't need to be secured too hard as the housing is full length and the shifting won't be affected by flex. Gore-RideOn make fully sealed cable systems, which are great- in fact the best if they are set up perfectly, but without gobs of money, this method will suffice. They do make lots of little boots and seals tho, and pirating some of these for your setup is a great move!

So with the cables secured in place, and the brakes (Avid Juicy Sevens- no need to work on these) in place, its time to re assemble all the other bits and pieces. Tommorrow :)