Previous sections of my long-term review of an Azor Secret Service are here:
In the few months I have had it so far, I have traveled roughly 1200 miles now on my Azor Secret Service bicycle. I’m past due for an update, and I do have a few things to report.
Service, Please
Let’s start with the most important part, and the reason for the title of this post: service! And by service, I really mean “things I should know how to fix but don’t, because I’m not much of a bicycle mechanic, so I take it into a shop instead.” Of course, there are a lot of bike owners, like me, and perhaps even more so in this category, which bills itself as a bicycle for everyday commuting, wearing regular clothes, being a main form of transportation, and so forth. Anyway, I have had to take my bike in three times since I bought it.
Feeling “tired”
My first service incident occurred when I was riding back from Tour De Fat with my wife, and got a flat on my rear tire, somehow. Not bad, really, to have been biking in this town and not get a flat every week, I would say. We have enough glass and construction debris on the sides of the roads to give every cyclist in town a flat every single day. Now, I don’t, as I said, have much in the way of bicycle mechanic skill, so I wasn’t about to try something like patching the tire in place, as some would recommend, when you have an internal hub. Now, it was our great fortune that by the time the flat tire had gotten so low that I actually noticed, I was no further than 100 yards from great local bike shop Tsunami Cycles on South Congress! Amazing luck. Not only was I able to get my flat fixed in a very timely fashion, but I also got a great dinner out of the deal, and I also got the chain tension adjusted, because i figured it was time (and hill climbing had suddenly begun to get a big harder).
What the hell is that noise?
Only a couple of weeks later, I was biking to work and started notice that, every once in a while, I would hear a horrifying clunking sound, a sound you really don’t want to hear on any mechanical object - the sound of metal scraping on metal. I stopped, looked very carefully at everything, and didn’t see anything at all that would be the cause, so I went on to work. I’m not sure why parking my bike for eight hours would have made any difference, but as I started to head home, the noise became even louder, and I could feel it with each pedal stroke. This made me… nervous. Elliott and I looked over the bike again, and still couldn’t determine what the noise was from. Very frustrating. I decided to leave the bike and take it in for service first thing in the morning. It’s a good thing our building houses security and is well lit. Otherwise, I’m sure that would have been a bad idea. The next day, when I brought my bike in to Tsunami again, I found out what the noise was, and it was quite surprising – It was the brakes! Apparently, the force of roller brakes can eventually make things loosen up a bit in there, and then the cooling fin starts to slide against the frame a bit and, well there you go. Whew. At least it was nothing all that serious, the noise notwithstanding.
There is the culprit...
Calm down, you’re all tense
Things were rolling along just fine for several weeks, and then the last item I mentioned two sections above started happening again, except this time a bit differently. I began having a little more trouble than usual climbing hills, which I ignored for a few days and tried to pass off as just fatigue on my part. A week or so after that, more symptoms began to develop. Most noticeably, third gear just stopped working. Now this was a big deal! I generally am in third, fourth, or fifth gear on any flat surface, depending on my energy level, and it’s hard to get through the gears when you have to skip one. Additionally, fourth wasn’t working too well either. Fifth was still all right, but having to go between second and fifth wasn’t too fun. The day shifting got bad enough that I finally decided to take action was fortuitous, as I was already headed to Eastside Pedal Pushers to take photos for the review that Elliott wrote of their shop. Naturally, I gave them the Azor to work on as well, and walked back to the office. These guys were also quite fast, and had my bike done by the end of the day – and yes, it was the chain tension again. I’m not sure how often chain tension should actually be adjusted, but it does seem to be needed somewhat frequently on this bicycle, and I’m almost tempted to learn how to adjust it myself! Shocking.
All’s well that ends well?
So that’s it! One flat tire, two chain tension adjustments, and a brake adjustment. Not really anything serious, so far. It’s a well made bicycle. As I left Eastside Pedal Pushers that day a few weeks ago, I joked with them that this bike just might outlive me. Pretty good investment, especially compared to that other form of transportation.
Related posts:
on Dec 11th, 2008 at 7:58 am
Since you have horizontal dropouts you just have to move your rear wheel backwards to re-tension your chain. You also have some nifty set screws/tensioners to control how far back you can move the wheel, which simplifies the job considerably. Remember to loosen the bolt which holds the arm for your brake in place, otherwise you’ll be frustrated as to why that side won’t adjust. Voila, now you won’t have to resort to a bike shop if you need your chain worked on.
I kinda carry self-repair to the extreme though. I try to be self-sufficient when riding to the point that I’ll carry spare links of chain and a chain breaker in case something went catastrophically wrong while riding and I BROKE a chain. Guess it’s the old boy scout in me or something, always be prepared…
on Dec 11th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Marcus, Jason,
Yes, do be careful about tensioning the chain. There is always some eccentricity in the chainring and rear cog so you have to adjust the tension for the tightest spot. Otherwise, as many a newbie trackie (or fixie rider these days) has learned… you can easily tear a chain apart. At the same time that super tight chain is generating some enormous forces and definitely doing some nasty things to your bottom bracket and rear hub bearings.
Just to note, I rather doubt the problem with third gear was actually related to the chain tension. My guess is that the cable had loosened (the various cable junctions tend to bed in) putting the cable out of adjustment. While adjusting the chain the mechanic probably just fixed the cable tension as a matter of course. its a couple second task.
on Dec 11th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
First of all, learn to change a f@#!ing flat already, Marcus! You wouldn’t drive a car without knowing how to do this, and I’m puzzled why you still haven’t learned this basic skill. This is giving me a new drive to write the changing a flat article for our Getting Started section when I get back to town.
Second, I agree with Henry on the internal hub issue. My limited experience working on them leads me to believe there is an adjustment issue with those symptoms. I’m a little dubious of the idea of breaking the beefy chain on that thing, but what do I know?
on Dec 12th, 2008 at 1:54 am
Fixing a flat on a Dutch bike with a hub isn’t so easy, because it’s really difficult to remove a rear wheel with a hub. Clever cycles here in Portland just offered a free workshop on how to fix a flat by leaving the wheel on the bike — a 13 step process. Hope I never have to do it, but at least I know how now.
Congrats on your Azor. I have an Oma. Having ridden the Amsterdam and Batavus, I think you made the right choice out of the options you narrowed it down to, although I never did get to test ride a Breezer or Velorbis. Good luck!
on Dec 12th, 2008 at 9:05 am
Brett, that’s why I actually had linked to the Clever Cycles trip story in that section, where it showed them patching a flat in place. Looks like a good idea. I would love to learn how to do that, sure, but where could I learn it in Austin? Probably not too many places.
I’ve been a to a few of the “free maintenance classes” offered by bicycle shops and, frankly, they don’t teach you much at all, and even less if you have a bike that isn’t their store brand, like this one.
I can, and do, make simple adjustments on my bicycle. However, I’m not going to go attempt some repair I don’t know how to do in the middle of the street. See Henry’s comment on adjusting the chain tension: I have been shown where the adjustment can be done, but will I do it correctly the first time? Doubtful. Do I want to break something on my fairly expensive bicycle because of that? Nope. I would much rather pay $5 to a local shop.
on Dec 13th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
13 step process? I guess it depends how you define “step.” If you already know how to patch a flat by taking the wheel off first, it’s really only simpler: don’t take the wheel off! Pry off the bead, fish the tube out, pump, find hole and remedy cause, patch, stuff back in, re-seat bead, pump up, ride. None of these steps are unique to bikes like this.
Admittedly, if the tube is damaged beyond repair, then it is a fairly onerous task to replace tube, especially with the vinyl type chaincases.
on Dec 24th, 2008 at 1:11 am
[...] Vote 1200 Mile Update: Azor Secret Service, Service, Service [...]