Recently upgraded "well serviced" campy veloce bike showing symptoms

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alcatraz
Posts: 4064
Joined: Mon Aug 29, 2016 11:19 am

by alcatraz

Hey fellow riders. I've stumbled onto an issue that I can't really put my finger on so I'd love to get some input from anyone that dare to touch the subject. :)

A friend is using a wilier izoard that has a cp veloce groupset on it and fulcrum wheels. Everything looks real nice and clean. Bike has always been serviced at the same BHS and the owner is an old customer and long time enthusiast. He rides on group rides few times a week and is not afraid of weekly gran fondos. He's around 50 and maybe 175cm tall. (The BHS is in his home country and not in the country where he lives. He occasionally takes the bike back home to service it and so on. It's a habit of his.)

He recently went from 175mm cranks (which he felt comfortable on) onto 170mm cranks (same ultra torque veloce) and changed from short to mid cage derailleur to support his new larger 12-30t cassette. The problem is that ever since the upgrade he's put over 300km (break in should be over) and the drivetrain is under more friction than he's used to. His strava numbers (i'm not that familiar with strava) are like consistently 10% weaker still and he feels weaker. Possibly it's just the lack of leverage but an immediate and sustained 10% loss is tricky to explain.

He recently went through a bike fit where they adjusted something a few mm. Not big enough for us to explain the power loss.

Yesterday I had a chance to look at the bike and I took off the chain checking the cranks, derailleur pulleys and freehub spinning friction. Crank friction is adequate and unimpressive but not really bad. Same goes with the derailleur pulleys and the freehub mechanism to some extent. Almost new looking look pedals seem fine. No play in any bearings except the derailleur pulleys, which I'm guessing is normal.

I loosened the crank bolt a bit and the cranks spun a little better without play but not a world of difference. The limited tools available at the time only allowed me to feel the left crank sealed bearing and it was buttery smooth. Certainly smoother than the resulting crank movement.

For some time this rider has, by my measure, overtightened his skewers to the point where I barely can open them (due to a previous skewer related accident). I was suspecting some form of bearing compression but after loosening the skewer a bit the wheel did seem to spin better but again, not a whole world of difference.

A friend's Trek endurance bike using an ultegra group and confirmed damaged bb bearings is still spinning significantly smoother than this veloce bike.

I suspect maybe the preload on this new crank is set incorrectly. I'm trying to figure out how it works. I see some funny looking washer/spacer on the drive side crank that didn't come off and couldn't be observed more closely. No wavey washer.

So I'm turning to you guys to help me shed some light over this. Thank you for reading and for any advice/remarks. /a
Last edited by alcatraz on Sun May 21, 2017 12:47 am, edited 3 times in total.

by Weenie


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wingguy
Posts: 4318
Joined: Thu Mar 08, 2012 11:43 pm

by wingguy

Nothing in the drivetrain is likely to make someone go 10% slower. Every bearing would have to be running like a bag of rusty spanners.

It's probably the crank length (especially if he hasn't reset his saddle position to it) along with maybe having more bailout gears available and using them too often?

jobvisser
Posts: 120
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 10:24 am

by jobvisser

is the chain long enough ? made that mistake once
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alcatraz
Posts: 4064
Joined: Mon Aug 29, 2016 11:19 am

by alcatraz

jobvisser wrote:is the chain long enough ? made that mistake once


How would this problem manifest itself? Would the easy gears be harder because of the chain tension?

wingguy wrote:Nothing in the drivetrain is likely to make someone go 10% slower. Every bearing would have to be running like a bag of rusty spanners.

It's probably the crank length (especially if he hasn't reset his saddle position to it) along with maybe having more bailout gears available and using them too often?


Interesting! Thank you...

jobvisser
Posts: 120
Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2016 10:24 am

by jobvisser

alcatraz wrote:
jobvisser wrote:is the chain long enough ? made that mistake once


How would this problem manifest itself? Would the easy gears be harder because of the chain tension?

i changed from 52/36 with an 11-25 and a short cage to 50-34 with a 11-32 with a long cage. i had a lot of friction even in the lower gears like 34-14 . turned out my chain was too short and when i installed a new chain it was fine
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by Weenie


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vejnemojnen
Posts: 406
Joined: Fri Nov 08, 2013 7:11 pm

by vejnemojnen

take into account, that the huge jumps can make you go slower on the flats, as you will simply won't find the ideal cog at the rear so easily..

I'd hate to get a cassette, which does not have 15-16-17-18-19 cluster. It'ds kill me, for sure, and I'd have to click the rear shifter every 2 seconds or so..

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