Re: wtf chain ring bolts

On 3/6/2025 6:59 AM, Roger Merriman wrote:

zen cycle <funkmasterxx@hotmail.com> wrote:

On 3/5/2025 5:06 PM, AMuzi wrote:

On 3/5/2025 3:08 PM, Catrike Ryder wrote:

The chain ring guard came so I set about mounting the chain rings and
the guard. I ordered new chain ring bolts because I didn't want to
disassemble the old crank. The new inner bolts had hex deep down
inside and I figure that was fine until I could not find a allen
wrench that fit them. I tried both metric and standard and nothing
fits. The bolts on my old crank take a #5 allen.
>
Does anyone know what's going on?
>
I ordered another set of 16mm bolts and they look like they have a
larger hex that's not set deep inside it.
>
-- C'est bon
Soloman

>
News to me; 5-arm 110mm chainring bolts are a universal commodity AFAIK.
>
With a magnifier, see if they are just broached poorly or maybe if they
are Torx.  If you succumbed to the bad idea of an aluminum chainring
bolt that's very possible.

>
I have a set that are torx, and it's a known "problem"
>
https://www.reddit.com/r/cycling/comments/6drndl/shimano_chainring_bolts_t30_torx_why/?rdt=44490
>
If the bolts have crud built up and the light isn't really good, they
can look like Allen,
>
Just make sure whether they're Imperial or Metric :)
>

 Talking of standards, my dad had loads of fun, at Halfords which is car and
bike chain stores, getting some new tyres for the New Hudson bike which is
old much abused bike and has 26inch tyres but not the “normal” ones which
resulted in lots of head scratching by Halfords, I think there are 3
separate similar sized but different sizes with out checking the bible aka
Sheldon Browns site!
 Roger Merriman
 

Right.  Historically, tire diameters are described by (roughly) outside diameter like a carriage wheel of the late 1800s.
Trouble is, the rim-tire fit is described by the tire inside diameter which also equals the rim bead seat diameter. More, every country and many large manufacturers set their own standard.
We currently see large numbers of 26 decimal (559mm) and 650B (584mm) rather than the once-ubiquitous British lightweight (590mm) or its American variants 597mm and 26 lightweight decimal (610mm). Good luck finding tires for German 590 which are ever so slightly smaller than British 590, or Swedish 558mm or 562mm. There are (were) others.
All of those are called (and tires marked) "twenty six inch".
As an aside, tubulars, the oldest standard which size has not changed since the 1890s, are variously labeled "700C" (they are not; the 700 type C was developed later to exchange wheels with the same brake height as a tubular) or "27 inch" (they are not; 27 inch systems are larger) or "28 inch" (again, 28s are all much larger) even down to today by various tubular makers in some weird vestigial rite.  The net effect is confusion to riders and is not at all helpful.
--
Andrew Muzi
am@yellowjersey.org
Open every day since 1 April, 1971