Way back last October when I was waxing lyrically about how buying the new Zwift Ride indoor trainer was going to revolutionise my winter training I mentioned that one of the side benefits was going to be taking the chance over the winter off season finally tackle the long overdue rebuild of my Sabbath Silk Road which has been faithfully serving as my primary roadbike for over the last ten years. (here’s a link to that post) https://thedecliningcyclist.com/2024/10/14/zwift-ride-my-answer-to-the-uk-winter/

Yeah……. that didn’t happen…… Not really sure why, I just tucked it away in the corner of my garage where my bikes live in a rather untidy heap and sort of forgot about it really. Its spent the the last six months sitting there gradually getting covered in metallic grinding dust from working on the car and sawdust from me making wooden bowls nobody in my extended family really wants anymore ( and they’ve stopped being polite about it) . Now as the tentative tendrils of spring are seeping into the UK mornings and the thick layer of mud that incrusts our country lanes is breaking up like the Antarctic ice floes my mind is turning to unrealistic thoughts about fast rides and big (for me) miles as the days get longer. The Moulton for all its quirky brilliance is not the weapon of choice for these sorts of riding aspirations so the sabbath has been exhumed from its hibernation and finally clamped into the workstand for its long awaited rebuild.

Now when I put this bike into the corner of the garage last year there was nothing desperately wrong with it but it was feeling a bit tired. the gears were no longer shifting with their usual Shimano ‘snap’, there was a faint but annoying bearing grumble from either a pedal or the bottom bracket area, the bartape which had been scuffed up in my last unscheduled meeting with the ground (https://thedecliningcyclist.com/2024/08/23/the-anatomy-of-a-crash/ ) still needed replacing and the whole bike needed a damn good clean.

The first order of business was attacking the built up grime with a selection of degreaser’s, soapy water and a range of brushes. Pretty soon I had a nice clean bike that no longer looked neglected and the pre-strip down assessment could begin. I’m not actually sure how old this frame is, I bought it in 2012 off a certain well know internet auction site and it certainly already had a fair few miles on it by the time it came into my possession, so anyway you cut the cake the heart of this bike is getting on a bit, and it was well overdue a decent inspection with my mark one eyeball. Ti frames are incredibly strong but have been known to crack at the stress points around the welds due to either fatigue or accident damage so once the bike had had a through clean the wheels were removed and I went over the complete frame very carefully using my most powerful reading glasses and a torch looking for any signs of damage or hairline cracks especially around the welds and the ends of the frame tubes. Luckily apart from a few places around the head tube were the surface finish of the frames tubes has been worn away by the rubbing of the outer gear cables the frame seems as fresh as the day it was welded together. I really don’t think you can beat a quality Ti frame for longevity, this frame has most definitely been one of my better bike related purchases.

I’d replaced the chain and cassette when the 9Velo wheels had gone on at the start of last summer so I was pretty confident they were still ok which was confirmed after a quick check with the faithful Park Tools wear gauge that every cyclist should own. Once I was happy they were ok for another few hundred (at least) miles off they came for a trip through my little ultrasonic cleaner. Next up was the rear gear cable, this most certainly needed replacing, the shifting performance was pretty woeful and no amount of twiddling of the barrel adjusters would bring it back into line. Now I could just have tried popping a new inner cable in, but since I was exposing the outer cable anyway as the handlebar tape was coming off it would have been false economy not to change the outer cable housing as well.

One of the big (to me at least) advantages of having an older frame like the sabbath is that its completely free of all those great design improvements that have come out over the last few years. There’s no internal cable routing or integrated bar and stem nonsense on this no frills retro bad boy, just good old fashioned external cables and slotted cable stops which makes changing the gear cables a quick and relatively easy job. After the nice new inner and outer cables had gone on it was time to root around in my spares box for the bar tape I’d bought six months ago post crash but had of course never fitted. In the cold florescent light of my garage it looked a lot redder and more garish than I remembered from when I’d plucked it from the ‘sale items’ shelf of my local bike shop but hey it was far to late to return it so on it went.

Re-wrapping handle bars is one of my least favourite jobs on a bike ever. I don’t know why (must just be the way my neurons fire) but despite probably doing it at least twice a year for the last 35 odd years I still manage to get it wrong on my first attempt most of the time, but after a moderate amount of unravelling, re-wrapping and swearing the new tape was on and I could move on.

Finding the elusive bearing noise / creak from the bottom bracket area was a little trickier. Removing the cranks and inspecting the Hope Industries bottom bracket failed to reveal any obvious problems, the bearings felt nice and smooth, the seals were in good order and nothing looked amiss so it all got a through clean and put back together – I even used my torque wrench for once just so I was absolutely certain everything was on spec and exactly how cleverer people than me wanted it to be assembled. Once the cranks were back on the freshly cleaned cassette and chain were reinstalled and the chain re-lubed with some of this new fangled ‘water & wax based emulsion’ stuff. I’m on the fence about this new ‘wonder’ lube – it seems great for a few rides and then when it feels like it needs re-applying I can’t seem to get its right, the instructions tell me not to clean the chain and just re-apply the stuff but that just seems to turn the chain into a big gloopy crud attracting mess. I must be doing something wrong but I’ve tried a few different ways of doing it and it just doesn’t seem to be working for me. I’m going to give it one last try this summer, and if I still can’t crack the magic formula for using it then it’s back to more traditional chain lube for me.

Anyway with the wheels back on it’s a quick and simple job to get the new gear cables tensioned and indexed and after that we’re on the home straight. After a quick squirt of the ever useful GT85 lube onto all the pivot points on the front and rear derailleurs the grease port covers are whipped of the Speedplay pedals and some loverly fresh grease is injected in until all the nasty black old stuff has been extruded out of the back of the pedal axle.

The final job was swapping out the lightweight latex inner tube in the front wheel. These lightweight tubes had seemed like a good idea when I’d built the wheels up, but the back one had only lasted a few hundred miles before starting to go flat almost over night and now the front one seemed to have lost the ability to hold any pressure for more than a couple of days as well. Now I don’t mind checking and adjusting tyre pressures before a ride, but pumping up the wheel from totally flat every time was getting old fast, and I was becoming more than a little paranoid about the tube failing completely when I was miles from home. Yes I always carry a spare tube with me but the Continental 5000gp tyres are so blooming difficult to get on and off the rims that its most certainly a job that I want to minimise the risk of having to do a the roadside.

All in all this whole job took me less than a morning in the garage and hopefully now the sabbath is good to go for a long productive summer of riding. Of course that doesn’t mean I’m never going to have to lay an Allen wrench on it again till this winter, things are still going to wear, break or just go out of adjustment but with any luck problems will now just be minor ones and easily fixed…. famous last words!