Flying with a bike & Fork regrease on MTB (Merida Ninety Nine 9.600)

I recently had to fly with my bike, and the airline wasn’t going to take it for me, so I ended up having to freight it. I used Emirates SkyCargo, and they first look at the weight of your item, and then calculate a volumetric weight, based on the dimensions of your package (LXBXH div. 6000).

My bike as it should look

My bike as it should look

Their minimum billing amount is 30kg. My bike and accessories definitely weighed less than this, but the standard bike boxes are significantly larger than what is considered a volumetric 30kg. As such I went to town cutting my box down to size. But to get the box small enough, I also had to almost completely disassembly my bike. I removed the wheels, and took my tubeless tires off the wheels. I removed the saddle, the rear dérailleur, the pedals. Then I took the fork out and separated the brakes from the fork. And then squashed it into my box. And it all fitted. I even got my tent, helmet, pump and one or two other items in.

Cramming my bike into a box

Cramming my bike into a box

So my dad helped when I did all this, and I didn’t pay too much attention when we removed the fork and put all the bearings loose into a small bag. I wish I had, as it would have saved me a couple disassemble and re-assembles of my headset. Regardless now I know a lot more about the topic. After all that, I decided quite a bit of dirt probably got in during the hassles and decided to re-grease the bearings.

How my bike sometimes looks

How my bike sometimes looks

It seems like the number of variations for headset bearings is a lot. I couldn’t find an example the same as mine, so I figured I’d put some pictures up here. I tried recording the whole thing, but that was humorously terrible :) So instead I just took some screen shots.

The bike is a Merida Ninety Nine 9. 600. The headset is described as “big conoid semi”. It makes use of non-sealed roller ball bearings. The lower bearing is just a bearing, and the upper bearing consists a bearing, a seal, an upper race and a centring ring. If you do do this, I really recommend getting a nice bike stand, my bike was falling all over the place while I was trying to hold it together.

  • Loosen clamps on fork stem
There are two bolts on the stem (one on either side) and one on top for tensioning

There are two bolts on the stem (one on either side) and one on top for tensioning

  • Remove fork and bearings
  • Clean bearings and races (I just used paper towel, but some degreaser will help)
Bearing after having grease removed

Bearing after having grease removed

  • Place some grease on the races and bearings (I just bought a small tube of automotive grease from local hardware store).
  • Replace all bearings in order you removed them
Bottom bearing goes in with balls upwards (towards bike frame)

Bottom bearing goes in with balls upwards (towards bike frame)

Top bearing goes in balls facing down (towards bike frame)

Top bearing goes in balls facing down (towards bike frame)

Top bearing gets additional seal, upper race and tension cone

Top bearing gets additional seal, upper race and tension cone

  • Tighten bolt on-top of fork (to tension the package), then tighten clamps on stem.
    • If you’re unsure how tight they must be, find specified torques in your bike’s technical manual.

“This seller does not ship to South Africa.”

I’ve always been a big fan of eBay. It’s allowed me to get hold of lots of things which I otherwise wouldn’t have got, or payed a ruddy fortune for, well relatively. My first purchase, if I recall correctly, was a new lithium ion battery for my Archos Media Player. The old battery had kinda “swelled” up and no longer retained much of a charge. So for R150 or so on E-bay, I got a new battery shipped out of Hong Kong, and on my doorstep 4 weeks later.

I’ve had both good and bad experiences. Majority of my purchases have been from Hong-Kong sellers, whether it be dodgy memory cards and electronics or plain USB cables. I’ve received packages in 3 weeks and I’ve waited 8 weeks as well for a package to arrive. But I understand this, that’s what

But alas, I’m currently trying to acquire one or two products from my old Chinese friends and I look through the lists of pages, sorted by Price (including shipping to SA) and I click on a few products, find one that looks good and go on to buy it, only to be met by a page boldly proclaiming: “This seller does not ship to South Africa.” This is quite disappointing, because it happens over and over again. I’m battlign to find Honk Kong shops that will ship to SA, or practically any other country for that matter. If you check their shipping preferences, most of them look somethign like this:

Item location: HongKong, Hong Kong
Shipping to: Worldwide
Excludes: Aruba, Afghanistan, Angola, Anguilla, Albania, Andorra, Netherlands Antilles, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Armenia, Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Azerbaijan Republic, Burundi, Belgium, Benin, Burkina Faso, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Bahrain, Bahamas, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Belarus, Belize, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Barbados, Brunei Darussalam, Bhutan, Botswana, Central African Republic, Canada, Chile, China, Cote d Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Cameroon, Congo, Democratic Republic of the, Congo, Republic of the, Colombia, Comoros, Cape Verde Islands, Costa Rica, Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Algeria, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Western Sahara, Spain, Estonia, Ethiopia, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), France, Gabon Republic, United Kingdom, Georgia, Ghana, Gibraltar, Guinea, Guadeloupe, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Greece, Grenada, Greenland, Guatemala, French Guiana, Guam, Guyana, Hong Kong, Honduras, Croatia, Republic of, Haiti, Hungary, Indonesia, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia, Saint Kitts-Nevis, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Saint Lucia, Sri Lanka, Lesotho, Lithuania, Latvia, Macau, Morocco, Monaco, Moldova, Madagascar, Maldives, Mexico, Macedonia, Mali, Malta, Montenegro, Mozambique, Mauritania, Montserrat, Martinique, Mauritius, Malawi, Malaysia, Mayotte, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Puerto Rico, Portugal, Paraguay, Qatar, Reunion, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Saint Helena, Sierra Leone, El Salvador, San Marino, Somalia, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Serbia, Suriname, Slovakia, Slovenia, Swaziland, Seychelles, Turks and Caicos Islands, Chad, Togo, Thailand, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Tanzania, Uganda, Ukraine, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Venezuela, British Virgin Islands, Virgin Islands (U.S.), Vietnam, Yemen, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Africa, Central America and Caribbean, Middle East, North America, South America

Now by looking at that page, I honestly can’t see a country it doesn’t mention, although it claims to ship worldwide, the list of exclusions is ludicrous! North America, Africa, South America as continents are all excluded. Heck they don’t even ship to Hong Kong or China, so wtf do they actually ship to?

I hope this won’t be the end of my ebaying days, because I’ve always revelled in the variety and ease with which one can purchase, and always envied the Americans and their “Daily Deals”.