Moin Schwarmintelligenz,

​ich nutze seit Jahren diese Momo Sticks und will eigentlich nicht mehr ohne.

​Hab jetzt ein neues Handy mit einer eigentlich geilen Hülle.

Das Problem: Die Rückseite ist leicht strukturiert/gummiert. Der Kleber vom Stick hält darauf maximal 24 Stunden, dann fällt das Ding ab.

​Penibel entfetten und stundenlang andrücken hab ich schon durch – bringt absolut nichts. Die Struktur killt den Standard-Kleber.

​Habt ihr Ideen, wie ich das Ding da dauerhaft festbekomme?

• ​Gibt’s irgendein krasses 3M-Tape, das auf so Gummi-Strukturen hält?
• ​Die Stelle an der Hülle vorher glatt schmirgeln?
• ​Einfach mit Sekundenkleber oder Sugru draufklatschen? (Optik ist mir an der Stelle egal, der Stick bleibt eh für immer drauf).

​Bin für jeden Tipp und Klebstoff-Empfehlungen dankbar!

Update 3 — real progress, and one clear question

Earlier context: original thread with the full backstory and the follow-up thread with Updates 1–2.

What I'm after this time: things have improved (details below), so I'm not desperate anymore — I just want fresh eyes on the photos to tell me what's left to optimise on the fit itself: saddle height, setback, tilt, stem length/height, hood position. The training/core side I've got covered; what I can't judge is how the position reads from the outside.

Short recap for anyone new: chronic hand pain on my Scott Speedster gravel build — numbness, base of thumb, pinky side, onset within ~15 min. Pain-free on all my flat-bar bikes (4,000+ km/yr). Doctor cleared me structurally. Purely weight-bearing. Pro fit didn't fix it, and neither did the fitter's full follow-up list (stem flip, max spacers, bar rotation).

What changed since Update 2:

Saddle moved back. Still within the rail range — didn't even need to slam it, and no layback post required so far.

Bar swapped 43 → 42 cm. SQlab recommendation for my 40 cm shoulder width. Cables run internally through the frame but externally at the bar, so realistically closer to an hour than the 30-minute job I'd seen quoted. My gut had been pointing this direction for a while — the fitter argued against it, so thanks to everyone here who pushed me to just test it instead of theorising.

Hoods re-levelled with the new bar.

Results:

Pain onset is now past 15 minutes — it was consistently under 15 before, every single ride, regardless of what I changed at the cockpit. First real movement on that number.

The hover test has improved meaningfully: I can hold it for about 5 minutes now without firing my lower back. Before these changes I couldn't hold it at all beyond a few seconds. That's the metric I actually trust, and it moved.

Still not pain-free on longer rides. But better, and for the first time it reads as a solvable problem rather than a dead end.

Still holding the 175 mm cranks. Knee reasons aside, the bike ships with 175 as stock spec, so it's not some outlier setup. Core / posterior chain work is running in parallel, though I'm honestly not convinced it's the main lever.

So — what's left on the fit? Four photos attached, including a top-down shot of the bar for the hood angle and inward cant. Based on what you see: does the position still read as too far forward? Is saddle height/tilt right? Would you touch stem length or height? I can handle the training side myself — what I can't do from the saddle is see the position from the outside, so if something looks suboptimal, I'd rather hear it and test it than leave it on the table.

TL;DR: Saddle back + 42 cm bar + levelled hoods → pain onset pushed past 15 min (was always under), hover test up from seconds to ~5 min. Real progress. Now asking: based on the photos, what's left to optimise on the fit — saddle, stem, hoods?

Hi everyone,

​Fresh New Bike Day (NBD) pickup! A vintage Cannondale R600 (CAAD5 era, smooth welds, beautiful condition). It's got a Shimano 105 2x9 groupset with 'Flight Deck' shifters.

​I love this vintage beauty, but I need your wisdom before I commit to a serious ride. I have two specific, interconnected concerns that are holding me back:

1. ​Point 1: Is this 20-Year-Old Slice Carbon Fork Safe? It’s the original Cannondale Slice fork, which I believe is a bonded aluminum/carbon construct. Visually, it looks great, but I’ve read about the risks of adhesive fatigue and galvanic corrosion in older bonded components. Is this safe to inspect and ride hard, or is it a ticking time bomb that needs immediate replacement?
2. ​Point 2: The Tire Width Clearance Horror (700x23c vs. 700x25c)! I’m currently running classic 700x23c tires. Look closely at the provided photos: there is almost ZERO clearance under the Gabelkrone (fork crown) and the brake calipers (Cannondale Theta brakes). I was desperately hoping to upgrade to 25mm tires for more comfort, but visually, it seems impossible. Has anyone successfully fit a modern 25mm tire on a CAAD5 without it rubbing, or am I stuck with 23mm as the absolute limit?
3. ​Point 3: Recommendations for a non-breaking-the-bank 1" Threadless Carbon Gabel replacement? If it has to go, what's a budget-friendly but safe carbon option (perhaps part-carbon) for the classic CAAD look? (Rough budget of $100-$150?). I need this fixed fast to honor the vintage look and use it as a dynamic ride.

​Thanks in advance, you guys are the best!

Hallo zusammen,

​ich brauche mal euer Schwarmwissen. Meine Tochter ist leider gegen unsere relativ neue Windmaschine gestoßen. Dabei sind die Aluminium-Rotorblätter innen ans Gehäuse geschlagen und haben sich verbogen.

​Ich habe zwar versucht, die Blätter mit Werkzeug wieder vorsichtig in Form zu biegen, aber sie laufen jetzt unrund. Die Unwucht ist so stark, dass das Gerät unangenehm vibriert und nicht mehr wirklich nutzbar ist. Da die Maschine noch nicht alt ist, wäre es extrem schade, sie einfach auf den Elektroschrott zu werfen.

​Hat jemand eine Idee, wo man solche Alu-Rotoren als Ersatzteil herbekommt (der Kundenservice des Herstellers konnte leider nicht helfen). Hier sind die wichtigsten Daten zum Gerät:

• ​Marke: CASAYA
• ​Modellnummer: FE-45 /930351
• ​Leistung: 110W
• ​Durchmesser des Rotors: 45 cm
• ​Motorwelle: Komplett rund (keine Abflachung), 8 mm. ​

​Habt ihr Tipps für gute Ersatzteil-Shops, die vielleicht generische Rotorblätter verkaufen? Oder gibt es einen Trick, wie man solche Alublätter als Laie wieder perfekt ausgewuchtet bekommt?

​Ich hänge euch mal Bilder vom Typenschild, der Verpackung und dem Gerät an.

​Danke euch schon mal für jeden Tipp!

Original thread (with full backstory and earlier updates): Link

Recap for new readers: chronic hand pain — numbness, cold hands, pain at the base of the thumb and the pinky side — on my Scott Speedster gravel bike, within ~15 min, despite a pro fit. Pain-free on all my flat-bar bikes (4,000+ km/yr). Doctor cleared me structurally. Purely weight-bearing.

What I tried since Update 2

Worked through the fitter's whole follow-up list: rotated the bars up a touch, flipped the stem, ran the spacers all the way up for max stack. Result: zero change. Same numbness, same pain, same 15-minute onset.

That kills the "front too low" theory for good. My saddle-to-bar drop is only ~16 mm, and my trekking bike has more drop than this and is completely pain-free. Raising the front did nothing — the front was never the problem.

(Some folks in the original thread pointed at stack height — appreciated, but it wasn't the lever for me.)

Re-ran the hover test: still fails. I can only lift my hands by firing my lower back. Center of gravity too far forward, posterior chain / core not holding me up — so the weight keeps landing on my hands regardless of what I tweak at the cockpit.

I looked hard at the two obvious "buy a part" fixes and ruled both out:

• Crank length. It's on 175 mm and it's staying there. I've got a slightly cranky knee, and longer cranks give me more leverage / less pedal torque, so they're easier on it in the power phase. Going shorter would only help knee flexion at the top of the stroke — but my issue is under load, not at max flexion. So for me, longer wins. Not touching it.
• Bar width. Ritchey VentureMax, measures 43 cm; my shoulders are 40 cm — only ~1.5 cm per side. For gravel (and I've got some shoulder stuff) I'm not interested in going narrower, if anything wider is appealing. So width isn't my villain either.

The reframe: this is a LOAD problem, not a wrist-ANGLE problem, and not a "new component" problem. I already run an ergonomic flared bar (inward-canted hoods) — the thing everyone recommends for a neutral wrist — and it still hurts. So getting weight off the hands is the whole game, and with the crank and bar staying put, that comes down to balance and the engine, not the cockpit.

The plan, all free:

1. Proper balance reset: stop chasing "forward." Move the saddle toward neutral / level it, and use the hover test as the success metric — not "looks good on video." Reproduce the real failure: it only shows after ~15 min under load, so every test gets a real load phase. (Caveat: my "saddle forward AND back both hurt" was always tested on the current setup with no core fix in place — so I don't fully trust that result yet.)
2. Off-bike: posterior chain + hip mobility + core. Probably the actual root — no anchor means I fall onto my hands wherever the saddle is. Bonus, it may help the shoulder stuff too.
3. Plan B, no shame: flat-bar conversion. My pain-free bikes prove my biomechanics are fine with narrow, neutral hands.

Questions for the hive mind:

• Anyone with a failed hover test (hands only liftable via the lower back) actually fix chronic hand pain through saddle rebalancing + core work alone — no new parts?
• Anyone keep long cranks for knee reasons and still solve weight-on-hands purely through pelvic rotation / core?
• For anyone who went drop → flat bar: did it actually solve the hand issue, and any regrets?

Will report back once I've worked through the free stuff. Thanks again — this thread's been more useful than the fit itself.

TL;DR: Did everything the fitter suggested (stem flip, max spacers, bar rotation) — no change. Front height was never the issue (trekking bike has more drop, pain-free). Ruled out the two hardware fixes too: keeping the 175 mm cranks (better for my knee) and my 43 cm bar is fine (shoulders 40 cm). So it's a load problem, not a parts problem — plan is a free saddle/balance reset + core / posterior-chain work, with a flat-bar conversion as plan B.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE 1

Thanks all — and fair cop: a few of you (nitacawo, theweirddood, fus1onR) called out that I was doing mental gymnastics to dodge the cheap changes. You're right. Dropping the defensiveness and testing the cheap stuff before I theorize further. The plan I'm actually running now, in order:

1. Saddle: back + down. Clear consensus that it's too high AND too far forward (candid_canuck, Ok_Passenger_8405, cloud93x, CashlessFaucet, ipercepti, PaleontologistSafe17, others) — and it matches my failed hover test. So: level it (killing the 2–3° nose-down from the fit), move it back, drop ~5mm, and use the hover test under real load as the metric — not KOPS, not "looks good on video." If I run out of rail, I'll get a layback post.

2. Bar width: actually testing it. I was too attached to 43. nitacawo has identical shoulders (40), went 44→40, fixed his hands — and I've got external routing, so it's a ~20€ test. No reason not to. Testing narrower before I claim it isn't the issue.

3. Hoods: rolling them down / levelling the tops. Several of you (TwoSeasCyclery, Coonan1133, fus1onR, eye-0f-the-str0m, Old_Papa) flagged that my wrists are cocked up and there's a "valley" my palms fall into. Cheap, doing it.

4. Cranks: holding 175 for now, but not pretending it's settled. Old_Papa, Significant_Neat6476, igotdatbudly and orpheo_1452 pushed back hard, and the point is fair — for a knee the usual move is higher cadence + easier gears, not crank leverage, and shorter cranks would let me drop the saddle without kneeing myself at the top. I'm sequencing it last only because it's the one change that costs real money. If 1–3 don't fix it, cranks are back on the table — and yeah, the knee logic might actually argue for shorter, not against.

5. Core / posterior chain in parallel — the hover test says the engine can't hold me up wherever the saddle is.

To those saying the wrist angle will hurt regardless of load (pbecotte, fus1onR): agreed, that's what the hood + width changes are for.

Will report back with results once I've worked through 1–3. Cheers — genuinely more useful than the fit.

---

UPDATE 2 — one piece of info I should have shared earlier, and what it changes

Haven't run the physical tests yet — but a few comments here pushed out a key fact I'd been underselling, and it reframes the whole thing. Worth sharing before I start turning screws.

The thing I should have said upfront:

Before the fit, my saddle was already ~2 cm further back than it is now — and I had the same hand pain. That's why the fitter moved it forward in the first place: the old position wasn't working either.

So "just move the saddle back" isn't the complete answer. I know this because I've already been there.

What this actually means: saddle position is necessary but not sufficient. Without a working posterior chain / core anchor, I fall onto my hands wherever the saddle sits. The position and the engine have to be fixed together. That's the piece that was missing in every test so far — I was moving the saddle around on top of a core that can't hold me up regardless.

The short femur point (Ok_Passenger_8405, Kindly-Effort5621):

That's accurate. I do have proportionally shorter femurs and a longer torso. KOPS with short femurs pushes you even further forward than it does for average proportions — which is exactly what happened. The fitter used KOPS as the target, and it put me in a position my body never wanted to be in. I naturally sit further back on every bike I own and have always been comfortable that way.

On the hoods:

Tested extensively already — high, low, rotated in, rotated out, bars up and down. The pain does shift slightly with angle (less ulnar/pinky, more toward the thumb/thenar), which confirms contact angle plays a role. But it never disappears, which confirms load is the dominant factor. Both things are true: the wrist angle isn't ideal AND the total load is too high. Fixing one without the other probably won't be enough.

What I'm actually testing, in order:

1. Saddle back + level + ~5 mm lower — but this time with the hover test as the metric and a real 15-min load phase. Not KOPS. Not "looks good on video." If I run out of rail, layback post.
2. Narrower bar (20€ used, external routing, 30 min job — nitacawo made a fair point and I'm not going to argue myself out of a cheap test).
3. Hoods down / levelled — cheap, doing it alongside everything else.
4. Core / posterior chain in parallel — the actual root. Without this, no saddle position will stick.
5. Cranks: still holding 175 for knee reasons, but keeping an open mind. Several of you made the point that for knee health, high cadence + easier gears beats crank leverage — and shorter cranks would let the saddle come down without kneeing myself at the top. It's sequenced last only because it costs real money.

Will report back with actual results once I've worked through 1–3. Thanks again — this thread has genuinely moved my understanding further than the fit did.

TL;DR: Key missing info: saddle was already 2 cm back before the fit and still hurt — so position alone was never going to fix it. Short femurs mean KOPS actively pushed me too far forward. The fix has to combine position (saddle back + level) AND engine (core / posterior chain) — one without the other won't hold. Testing the cheap stuff first, reporting back with real results.