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PSA: Overheard a kid at my LBS say he just replaces the whole chainring when a bolt strips, and I felt old
I was picking up some cables at the shop on Grand Ave last Tuesday and two guys were talking about a stripped chainring bolt. The younger one shrugged and said he'd just swap the whole ring because bolts are a hassle. I kept my mouth shut but it got me thinking about how I came up. Back in the day we kept a coffee can of spare ring bolts and filed our own spacers, and a chainring lasted as long as you took care of it. Now a full ring runs $40 to $80 and people toss them over a $2 bolt. I get it, time is money, but it feels like we lost something. Any of you still keep a bolt jar going, or am I just the last guy doing it?
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jamesf2620d ago
Parts availability is the real issue here, not just the throwaway mindset. Try finding a single chainring bolt at most shops now and you'll be lucky if they have your length in stock, so the path of least resistance becomes a whole new ring even for someone who wants to fix it. Add in that a lot of modern cranks use proprietary bolts or weird integrated designs and suddenly the coffee can approach doesn't even apply. I keep a jar but half the stuff in it fits nothing I own anymore, which is its own kind of sadness. The know-how isn't gone, the supply chain just quit supporting it.
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