Fomas Road king rear bearing issue

FOMAS roadking deluxe quality issues again. this time the problem is again of poor quality build. Since I last wrote about fomas road king quality I have done 4000+km. fairly decent distance for a road bike. Any bike should be able to do 10000km before starting to break down, but roadking did not even last 50% of its life cycle. I had to completely remove the cycle hub and put it back to fix it.

I was on my usual morning ride, the cycle running condition was all normal. after about 20km the rear wheel started to grind. I could feel the read bearings rub. I stopped and check the wheel, there was a play in bearing of about 1mm . That didn't seem a big issue and I continued. After getting back home I checked the wheel again and the play was slightly more. I thought I will fix it over the weekend and left it at that. Tommorow morning I took it out and tried to move it. the rear wheel had locked. After inspection I realised that the rear bearings are jammed and the break wire is stuck in the liner. two whammies at same time.

On the weekend I finally opened the rear cassette and behold, it was full of sludge. It was combination of water grease and mud. Similar to Shrek's bath tub. Finally opened the rear bearings and as expected the entire rear bearings were ruined. It was as if the rear bearings had exploded. The bearings cone was completely warped and the ball bearings had huge pitting formation. Here are some sample pics.

distorted inner cone of bearings

front view of distorted bearings cone, the edges are all broken down

pitting on balls= completely ruined bearing

I know I don't treat my cycle very good, but this kind of damage seems a little too extreme for a cycle which has not even done 5000 km. I don't know the reason for the break down, I am guessing the sealing ring got damaged and broke loose. eventually water and mud played its part and jammed the whole thing. 

After 1.5 hours of meddling with it and running to local bike shop I managed to get a new cone and a set of ball bearings. After cleaning it completely put back all new shiny balls in the hub and applied good amount of grease and put back the rear axle. Now my cycle is back to its old glory. There is only one issue, now it doesn't make the tik tik tik noise when its coasting. cycle is completely silent, like a ninja. Well its not affecting and performance now so will postpone fixing it until it breaks down again. Or maybe I will buy a new cycle. 

Fomas road king deluxe

Since I came back from UK, I wanted to ride bicycle for daily commute. I have been riding my brother's octane for past 3 months and I had wonderful rides. In octane I even did Bangalore to Chennai in 20 hours. After 2000 km octane started to breakdown, the gears started to slip, the frame was creaking. It had never happened before but the frame had started to fall apart. It was time to buy new bike.

In market there is huge variety of bikes to choose from. Road bike, hybrid, mountain........ Many variety and at wide range of price. Considering that near Bangalore there are barely any off road track, mountain bike was absolutely useless. Even if I find a hill and go off road I wouldn't get time to do offroading everyday. Even if I want to go mountain bike, I would rather buy an expensive mountain bike than cheap one. The mountain bikes in the range of Rs.15000 are so bad that if I take it off road it won’t last very long.  Now the choice came to either road or hybrid. Hybrid bikes are great but why stop at hybrid when I can go lot faster in road bike.

The problem of Bangalore roads being horrible during rainy days and picture of me doing cartwheel on a pothole during my school days came to my mind. Well that will be painful with loads of puncher to increase my problems.  For an excess cost of about Rs. 50 a month and some heart ache repairing the punchers, the road bike would beat the mountain bike by large margin. Another problem is, with Hybrid bike my back would be saved. With road bike I will have to have strengthen my back a bit more. After some considerations I decided to get a road bike. The idea of going faster than most motorbike appealed to me than all its negativities put together. On road bike I could save 1 hour every 100km. Finally road bike for the win.

After the choice of bike type, even bigger problem................ which bike to buy. The cost of road bike ranges from Rs 3000 for a mach to over Rs2lakhs for a triathlon bike. My budget was probably at lower end. So low that when I went to some of the well known bike shops they turned me down saying you have to get lot more money before trying for a road bike. My budget was, Drum roll..........My budget was Rs.10000. after doing some research on internet I found that they were quite right. My budget was way too low. My requirements were it has to be a road bike with gears and reasonable weight. Cycles with such requirements and somewhat close to my budget were, BSA cruze, Fomas road king deluxe, firefox road pro and one by hero I forgot the name. All of them are quite bad, but then my budget was quite low, so I had to choose the best among the worse.

Gears, the gears are probably most important moving part on the cycle. The gears on all the bikes I had chosen were all quite bad. Kruze and firefox road pro has brifters, but then it was below the lowest range of shimano. On the ranking board of shimano groupset, it wasn’t even listed. So the gears were not the point of choice for my cycle.

With my experience from hero octane, I know that frame is something that should last very long. So frame was very important for me. Now the choice of frame also was dominated by roadpro. It has aluminium alloy frame that meant its light. The Kruze also has alloy but not as light as roadpro, but still good. The fomas had steel frame but it was amazingly light. Not as light as roadpro or Kruze but somehow I liked it a lot. It felt better than the other two when I rode.

Rest of the components like brakes, hubs, crank and bearings etc had nearly no point because all of them were equally bad. You won’t know when it will fail, if you are lucky it won’t fail, if you are unlucky then god save you.

Finally after going through all these qualities for nearly 3 months, I finally decided on fomas road king. There were 2 reasons for this choice. first, the cost. It costs Rs.11800 MRP. It was second lowest on my list and it had good components. Also there were many of these available on second hand market. Second reason, the frame was excellent. It suits my height perfectly and the ride was very smooth. Even though the gears are terrible, it isn’t so bad that it will stop working(hopefully). So fomas for the win. I wasn’t so happy with my choice because it was way too expensive for what I was getting. So I decided to buy a second hand. I got mine for Rs.8000 which included a pump btwin 7 count computer lock, couple of tubes, helmet etc. So finally bought fomas that feels OK.

After buying this, I was not a happy man. I have got complaints. To start with, the handle bars. The handle bar is attached to the frame by aluminium stem. The genius who designed has done such a wonderful job that they have used HT bolt to tighten them. The stem is not great quality aluminium either which can take the beating. It is some local aluminium casting shop job. The result of a strong bolt with weak flange results in flange being ripped off. The thread on the stem is like butter, it shears off at lightest pressure. I tried to re-tap the thread to a 7mm bolt, but even that sheared off. So I ended up changing the entire stem to a local steel stem. If you are a designer which one would you design to break first a Rs.5 bolt or Rs.200 stem. I am sure it is not just my bike’s fault. This will be the problem of many fomas owners. Next are the rims. It has good rims, double walled etc etc. But my front rim happen rip off on the side. I don’t know the reason for failure, I am guessing my previous owner had really abused it, but still the rims should not break off like that. So I am not happy with the rims.  After doing about 2000km the rear wheel started to wobble. After examining it, I realised that the inner race of the bearing had come lose. The reason for that is, the there is no lock nut for the rear bearing cone. It is not a big issue, the wheel still works, but there is lot more friction and I have to tighten every time it starts wobbling. Because if this the bearings will not be sealed hence dirt gets into it and poor bearings have to work in harder conditions.  It requires just an extra nut to fix. Its just poor quality construction, It won’t make big difference in cost. Well rest of the parts are working just fine uptill now. To be honest the quality of the bike is absolute crap, but then for 11000 bucks you cannot expect an audi ebike. So for the money I paid I got a nice looking geared road cycle, but I just have to fix a thing or two every now and then.

In all I am happy that I got fomas road king. It is not the best bike, but I can easily keep up with people who ride 10 times more expensive cycle than mine. 

tags: fomas road king deluxe, cheap road bike in india, road bike, cycling, bangalore, cycle, buy, review.

Pushing my limits for iron man training.

I was reading an article for iron man training. It said I need to put in my base kilometers on cycle before I start rigorous training. I have been cycling for about 3 months now but I never did any base training, usually I just went all out on cycle for one hour. After going through many articles and training fad, I was convinced to do long rides at lower heart rate (zone 2) for over 2 hours. That was supposed to make my body get accustomed for harder training, and my muscles get used to burning fat rather than glucose store. Wondering if this works or not, I decided to try out this new thing so decided I should do a longer ride at lower pace. To add to my experiment I decided to eat less so that I can burn even more fat (not so bright am I?). 

Initial plan was, me and my friends go to Nandi hills and come back making it a total of 150km with 10km of hill training. But thanks to my friends who promptly said no, I had to change my plan. Just before I left early in morning I decided to head towards Mandya and return back making it a total of 180km (perfect iron man distance). Since my light mako 150 fell down and broke, I couldn’t head out in dark. I had to wait for sunrise which meant heat will be my partner for the day. GPS said 6.15 in morning and I started off from home with good mood. First couple of kilometers were quite boring. Trying to keep heart rate below 150 meant that I had to go slower. It seems easy when I was reading the articles, but in reality going slow is hard. I reached Kumbalgud industrial estate and was already frustrated. I was thinking who ever who devised base training knew that it won’t work on idiots like me. It was like the self help books which teach something great but damn hard to follow. After some thought, to hell with heart rate, I picked up my speed. I averaged about 29kmph for the next 60km. Since I had decided not to eat much on this ride I had taken only 3 bananas and 2 liters of water. That seemed to be a bit too low for such longish ride. The thought of not having food makes hunger pangs quicker and stronger. 2 out of 3 bananas were finished even before I reached half way. The summer sun and hunger combined together was not helping my cause. I reached Maddur (72km) and was already feeling “shit this was a bad idea”. The thought of going another 90km without food was not great feeling. To hell with 180km I will cut it down to 150km and decided to head back from Maddur.

I started back from Maddur at 9, by the time the sun was on full blaze. The food and water limitation started to look like impossible task now. I had one banana and half liter water. That won’t last more than 20kms at best. I finished the banana water with best mileage and reached Chennapattana.  My body had already started to feel stiff. My gluteus (backside) started to hurt which meant low on water. At Chennapattana I had to eat a Samosa and buy 2 liters of water. I also picked up 1 more bananas for the road. With lot of determination that I should not eat more than that I continued my painful journey.

As I passed Ramnagar a senseless tractor driver was headed in opposite direction of the flow of traffic. I made him hand signs to tell him go left. But that nutter came right in the middle of the road. Well the bigger vehicle always rules the road, I went off road. Pttsssssssssss, the dreadful hiss of the flat tyre. At this point I was like...................come on!!!! Not now. The Bontrager tyre had chipped because of sudden off roading. There was a 1mmx3mm patch of rubber sticking out of the tyre. My stomach was already empty, now it bottomed. It felt like I am never going to make it back. I was thinking why the hell did I chose today to go on hunger ride. I thought of calling back home and asking for a pick up since I was only 40km away now. But i thought to myself, I will fix the flat then decide to call for a ride or not. Luckily the chipped of rubber was just a thin layer on top and the tyre held on pretty well. I fixed the flat in 20 mins and was back on saddle again.

The next 20 km was uneventful other than me thinking why do I undertake such idiotic rides. I must be demented to try to cycle 3000+ calorie ride with intake of less than 800 calorie. I must be plain crazy to put myself through such pain. I didn't even have someone along with me to complain, I had to suck it up and continue. The last 20 km was like nightmare. Most of it was blur and painful. As i neared my home it was catch 22 situation. I wanted food desperately, but I was less than 20 km from home. This meant that I had barely 1hr ride left. If I stop and eat then it’s shameful after struggling for so long, but I barely had energy to continue. With couple of more happy thoughts I decided not to eat and continue.  The sweet smell of fruit shops on roadside was all too tempting, but I had to resist and continue. 2kms from my home there is a slight gradient, which on regular days I would whizz through over 20kmph, but today it felt like Himalayas. I was so much energy deficient that I had to stop in-between. Thankfully there were 2 trees and that happened to be Jamaica cherry tree (gasagase mara). What a relief. I let my cycle fall to the ground, plucked couple of cherries and ate happily. At this point my body water level was so bad that I was having cramps all over. I stretched my body to pick a cherry up above, my calf and back froze immediately. Cramps again!!!! I must be getting old.  This doesn't happen so often. After resting for couple of more minutes of rest, Finally I was back home at 12.30.

This idiotic ride cost me dearly. I lost 750gms in 6 hours. For anyone who plans to do such idiotic journey I suggest please get a brain and listen to your body. If you do, please get some company because you won’t be as lucky as I am. After I got back home, I could barely move. I ate food, my body was in such bad shape, that I could not get up because I had cramps in my hamstrings. My back was throbbing with cramps. I went straight to bed without even bothering with shower. Even in bed I couldn’t be comfortable because my entire body had cramps and I couldn’t move. Seriously I was luck these symptoms showed after I got back home. I don’t think I have ever pushed myself like this before. For all the effort it was completely useless trip. I did not gain any base training or what so ever training. All the pain I went through for such a lousy ride. Only good thing about the ride was that I know exactly how my body breaks down. Now I know the feeling when I am out of food and energy and how my body reacts to the requirement. I don’t know if I am more mature rider because of this but I certainly know when to eat. Overall I learnt how to condition my body better.

My first triathlon

After contemplating the idea of being iron man for 1 week I finally decided that I should participate in CTC half iron competition. I arrived in Chennai on Saturday morning with one day buffer to the event. It was pleasant morning; I got my Fomas road king out of the bus and started riding from Koymbed station to Velacheri swimming complex. I did a recon lap of the cycling area just in case so that I don’t get lost. The Chennai heat was known for being troublesome, At 8 in morning it was already burning me down. I finally reached the running track and decided to help the organisers. It was fun to see some old faces and made friends with new ones. Later I headed to IIT campus to meet my host for the night Ajey. This guy started cycling 3 years back and great cyclist. He is crazy enough to do Chennai to Bangalore (350km and 1k altitude gain) as first long distance cycle. 

Me and Ajey went for a small cycling trip, had mega biryani and decided to call it a day. I was so excited for tomorrow’s event that I couldn’t sleep. Another reason was; there were mosquitoes that were bigger than butterflies which nearly drained all my blood. After sleeping for nearly 1hr I got up at 4.30 in morning and finished my usual chores. Finished couple of Chikki and bananas and started off to Velacheri pool. The sun was barely up and there were over 50 athletes out near the pool eagerly waiting to get started. I realised that for my category there were total of 15 participants. I was happy because I expected 25 participants and I was thinking I should not come over 20. I already finished my goal of being under 20th position without even starting the event. Before we all started the struggle I was talking to other half iron participants and some were capable of swimming 2km in under 45 mins. Which was nearly 30 mins quicker than me. That was a bit scary at first then realised they were all jolly folks. At that time Vallabh ortho our amazing physio started his warm regime. I was tired at the end warm up (never happened before). Later we all got into the pool and slowly started the long race. Rudra who was captain of water polo team went like rocket in the pool. I even tried to draft him but he was plainly too fast. At 1.2km something went wrong with my left calf muscles and it cramped. In my entire life I had cramps twice, first time in ocean sprint swimming with friends and now here. That was my OH SHIT! Moment. I thought I would quit without even finishing the first leg of the race. That would be pathetic so I decided I won’t use legs to paddle, Just hands. Using hands alone was a bit more tiring but it worked. I got out of pool and i was surprised that I finished 1.9km swim in 47 mins. That was my personal record and I was in 3rd position. I was happy with my time and did a quick change and started my bike ride. 

Me swimming

Bike was my strong point so I was telling myself I should be faster than others in this. To fix my cramped calf muscles I drank 1.5 liters of electrolytes in under 20 mins of cycling. That changed everything like magic. Now I was fast catching up on the other two guys who were ahead of me. I had read in many blogs that cycling is like buffet on wheels, and I should eat as much as possible on bike to help while running. I followed that advice and started eating like cow. Within 15 km I caught up with raghul. He had a big knobbly MTB, no wonder I caught him so early. Just one more guy up ahead of me. I was hoping that I can catch him in cycling before half way because I was bad at running. But the heat was killing me, Everytime I bent my head down it was a waterfalls from my helmet. I remember rahul dravid playing cricket and he was doing that. With all the water out of my system I had to refill it. Thanks to so many volunteers on road (in the heat) they gave me a quick refill. I rode at avg of 30kmph and The volunteers on the bike caught up with me and offered bananas and water which felt like heaven. Finally just after mahabs turn I saw a lone cyclist pumping away. Got him finally. Rudra also had an MTB, I was shocked. With an MTB he had such a huge lead, OMG he is good. I thought I should slow down a bit and started to cycle along with him. In an MTB he was doing avg of 25kmph after 50kms of cycling. I was thinking he must be zrazy to have this kind of endurance. We both talked for about 1hr. He gave me electrolyte which saved my life. I had the filled up two 600ml water bottle with 360 cal glucose. Out of which I had finished 750 ml, but to finish the rest it was impossible. My stomach had stopped working. Both of us tried to eat a banana, but both of us were unable to swallow it. It was miserable, at one point I felt like throwing up on the bike. Somehow my stomach managed it and did not give in. We were nearly 30km from end point I decided I should keep my original pace. I said bye to rudra and started my 30kmph avg. 20Km to go, rakesh in his car came next to me. He provided chocolates water from his car. It was like tour de france style. I felt really good when he came. I had run out of water and he was like god send. Last 10km were even faster and I did 35km average. Finally i saw the cycle to run transition point. Phew I had done 100km cycling in 3:20. Not bad after the swim. 

Me eating something and cycling

The gruelling part of the race, running, started. Since I was already low on water, I made a big mistake of gulping quarter litre of water just before I started running. Big mistake! My legs were already like jelly now the stomach became bouncy like water balloon. Jogged for 300mts, and waaaaak. Everything came out. I threw up all the water and banana. It was kind of relieving that everything came out but still felt uneasy. I ran another 100mts once more everything came out. The third time cleared everything from my stomach. I was happy at that time because nothing was left inside so no more vomiting. Now the real race started, started running at my regular pace. 2km(2laps) down I saw Rudra coming in for the run. I was happy I had 2km lead over him. But 4km down, feeling of diarrhea started. Another Oh SHIT! Moment. Thanks to organisers, there was a handy toilet nearby. I lost about 5 mins in the toilet, so Rudra was now 1km (1lap) behind me. I started my regular pace again and finished 10 km without stooping. At 13km fatigue started to kick in. 14th km was hell, I started to walk. I had to walk and run alternatively. Rudra over took me after couple of laps. I felt pathetic and lost steam thinking I will be coming second (damn!). With some effort I ran the rest of the distance at lower pace. Every time I finished a lap the volunteers and other athletes would cheer, it gave a huge boost. That stretch where there were lot of cheering I would run faster. And rest of the lap it would be gruelling slow pace. It was like sling shot for 100 mts. 4km to go, the sun was at its full fury (1 o’clock). Suddenly I could barely run, only walk. I thought I bonked (hit the wall). But after half a lap realised that it was because of the sun. I poured 2 mugs of water down my head and then back to normal. Phew that was a bit scary. Two more laps to go, completely tired I was walking. Sucharita came next to me and said I will jog next to you for motivation. It was really helpful, and lifted my spirits. She asked me to run faster, but I said I am coming second anyway so let me finish a bit slower. She shouted back at me, noooooo you are still leading. You have 2km lead so run. I was like whaaaaa????. Apparently he had rested for 2 laps and I missed that. I was super happy and started sprinting. Woot full steam ahead. The next 2km was like dream. I could see the finish line and all of them waiting for me. I was feeling super happy. The cheering was mind blowing. At the end for a nice finishing picture I leapt in the air. Yaay I finished. 

Me jumping with excitement

I finished the entire event in 6:33 hours. That was awesome timing for me. I was hoping for less than 8 hour finish. But I came in way earlier. I finished swim in 47mins, cycling in 3:20 and run in 2:24. So a total of 6 hours 30 mins. Yaay! 

vallab and rakesh lift me high in the sky :)

This would not have been possible without so many people. I would like to thank Akshay for all the training he did with me. I remember him saying your head still got to go underwater to be more streamlined. Man, all the effort paid off. Thanks to ajey for starting cycling and motivating me to do my first long ride to Mysore, and for hosting me even tho me being a pain in the ass. Thanks to Sucharita for all the cheering and time keeping and motivating. Thanks to many other organizer Vani, shumon, prabakar, rakesh and many others I don’t remember the names. Thanks to all of all your help.

Tag: chennai, bangalore, CTC, chennai trekking club, triathlon, half iron man, akash, cycling, road bike, fomas