Head Set, Pedals and Steel Frames
By Alastair Hamilton
© copyright by bikecyclingreviews.com
Lee Joo Mong is one of our regular questioners, this time he is having head set and pedal problems, the head set comes apart and the bearing are falling out of the pedals on his Peugeot Professional 600 bike. He also wants our suggestion on a replacement steel frame. We give him our cure for the head set and pedals and we give him our views on steel frames
Question: I bought a brand new aftermarket steel-framed PEUGEOT PROFESSIONAL 600 road bike from a friend.
Perhaps the route I cycle each weekend is self-loosening the head-tube nuts, even with locknut tighten every few kilometres?
After a 120-kilometres trip on a Saturday night, even one pedal ball-bearing worked itself loose?
Any below 9-kg steel-framed road bike to recommend if I need to replace this one?
Hi Joo,
Peugeot used to make great bikes in the past, one of first bike was a Peugeot, it wasn't the lightest bike available, but it was strong, until it was stolen!
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| External Head set |
I'm guessing that you have standard external head set and not an internal one. Your headset problem could be that there is no tag washer, this is a washer that goes between the top bearing cup and the lock nut, it has a small tag of metal on the inside and it locates in either a grove or a flat section on the steering column. This washer or small spacer stops the head set coming undone when the top nut is tightened against it and the top bearing cup. If the washer is missing or the tag has gone then the headset will keep coming loose, so undo the top nut and have check on the tag washer.
If a ball-bearing has worked its way loose on a ride then its time to replace the pedals with some better quality ones. The bearings shouldn't fall out, look for pedals with sealed bearing units, they are a much better arrangement.
Steel frames are becoming very rare as alloy, carbon and titanium are what every one wants. There are still some steel frame manufacturers, mostly small custom builders. Some of the bigger companies do build in steel, but they tend to be at the cheaper end and are not very light. Independent Fabrication in the U.S. and Roberts in Britain build some beautiful steel frames, these are custom jobs, of the more well know manufactures: Lemond, De Rosa, Pinarello, Basso and Colnago have all made top quality steel frames and if you can get your hands on any of those you cant go wrong.
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| Colnago Steel Frame |
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