A few rides ago Douglas related to me the story of his stuck cog. He visited his LBS (Performance) and they were just as unable to chain whip it off as he was. Relagated to what he thought was the final option (heating it with a blow torch), Douglas (as I recall) gave up and got a new wheel.
Tonight I also encountered chainwhip failure. I cranked on that seized cog for a good 15 minutes with various methods of leverage trickery, but my seized track cog just wasn't coming off. Did a little searching, but didn't find any suggestions that didn't involve a vice or blowtorch or other tools I don't own. So I tied the wheel to my rack with the intention of going LBS to LBS tomorrow until I encounted a mechanic with the skills to get it off.
And then I discovered the magic of a technique known as rotafix. Or rotaunfix, as the case may be. She came right off.
So the next time you're having track cog removal problems due to a stuck track cog on your fixed gear bike because non-freewheel fixed cogs are neat (do you ever find yourself repeating what you've just said with slighty different vocabulary so that today's lame search engines will find it?), give The Rotafix method a try. Or rotofix as some folks call it. Your track bicycle will thank you for unrotafixing (un-rotafixing, rotaunfixing) it. I don't know about rotafixing it to begin with, just use a lockring!
_________________ -Kevin
lantius
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 12:07 am
1337Joined: 22 Jul 2005Posts: 6705Location: right over
a few pointers from an experienced rotafixist:
1) watch your fingers
2) make sure the chain is wrapped smoothly, not sliding off to one side or another. if the cog is really stuck you'll deform the chain before you get the cog undone.
3) know which way you're rotating. you can make things worse if you muscle into it the wrong direction
joeball
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 7:26 am
Joined: 24 Jul 2005Posts: 6037Location: Ether
Lee, besides keeping all of your digits intact I thing you forgot the most important lesson that you have already learned. That is, if you rotofix on with all of your might you might be rotofuct when it comes to getting that cog off.
Kevin, if this is the cog on the IRO, then it was installed with this...
So likely if you have a chainwhip like this...
You wouldn't have been able to get it off very easily.
Typically if a cog is installed with the same tool by the same person they could also remove the item with the same tool and sometimes a bit more might. Your chainwhip would probably be sufficient to re-affix the cog. Make sure there is ample grease on the threads too.
Use discretion if you decide to tighten a cog with the rotofix because there are not many more options beyond that to get it off.
ksep
Posted: Mon May 07, 2007 9:15 am
Joined: 27 Jan 2007Posts: 1879Location: Westlake
Yeah it was the IRO, and I'll lube it up like a fluffer. The cog will only be normal cycling foot pressure on the pedals tight; I'll let the lockring do its job.
Just found another technique that doesn't even require you to remove the wheel. Just run a lock through your chainring and frame to bind the two and yank on the wheel.
Here's a man demonstrating this new "EZ Rotafixa" method.
_________________ -Kevin
joby
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 2:46 pm
goes to elevenJoined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 3899Location: The Cloud
There's this new system that totally fixes a lot of these problems:
Am I missing something? How is rotafixing a cog any different, leverage-wise, than using a cheater bar on a chain whip, besides fucking up the paint on your bottom bracket shell?
Don't feed the zombie thread etc.
Alex
Posted: Wed May 23, 2012 11:28 am
Joined: 18 May 2006Posts: 3128Location: Roosevelt
a better question is why are we still threading on cogs in 2012? splines work.
this is the biggest downside of the rohloff too (worse than the high price)
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