So what we have here is my el-cheapo Kent Terra 2.6 bike from Target. It's a chinese made 26" men's mountain bike built with the cheapest components save for some Shimano stuff here and there in a couple critical spots, so not THAT crappy. Unfortunatley, the bloody Freewheel is not Shimano - it's a "Shunfeng" as in "Shunfeng Wrong!" I guess is the P.C. way to put that tired old joke. In May of 2022, I decided to go for one of my mondo rides after work - usually a 9-12 mile round trip within a span of 2 hours, and the bloody Freewheel decided to grenade, revealing of course, that my axle was also bent - probably explaining why I had a bike that rattled like an old lawn mower where the blade contacts the underside of the deck, and shifted like a VW Rabbit with 2 gears left. I can imagine some of the local cyclists were cringing when I rode by.

To be honest, despite it's cheap-ness it's been a pretty good bike considering how heavy, hard, and abusive a rider I am. Have not had an issue with it for over 7 years. Sure, it's heavy, and it's not exactly a Schwinn or a Terra BRAND, but it's decent and gets the job done. Also, the paint has been fading from the original metallic blue to a cool Silver-ish hue anyway, which I'm totally fine with.

The bearings seemed fine, though I lost one ball in the process. There were these indices inside the hub that were completley mangled, and not necessary, and it looked like there was only one on one side.

The Axle itself was pretty well bent. I'm a heavy, big, stocky dude, even at my thinnest. I have bones like a Monster Truck chassis and fat that converts quickly to muscle. So I'll never be under 200LBS. The Bike's maximum limit is 274....I'm less than that by a nice stretch. So if I'm not fat, I'm probably a good candidate for muscle-building if I wanted to. So I'm not at all surprised by this, especially considering I ride like I'm a wildman on a Harley and take jumps and bumps that are equal to what my truck goes through sometimes.

Back to the Freewheel. I looked for quite awhile. Lots of cheap crap on e-bay. Lots of cheap crap on amazon. I got a good look around at how these were constructed and I wanted something that would not self destruct like the last one did. I also started to realize I had not paid ANY attenton to how many gears these had. My original had six, msot bike forums said 7 was a doable upgrade if I put a washer in between the freewheel and the chassis. This was around $24-30 IIRC.

I went with cheap axles/skewers because it's a cheap bike. What I got seemed more than decent enough, the metal for the axles feels more solid than the original. The skewers are pretty sturdy, and they have plastic ends on them which is my only concern. I think those were around $15.

I also ordered up a set of bearings so I could replace any balls I lost in the process, since I'm a clumsy guy.

Why do these little bastards have to show up and make every summer of my life a living heck?

Replacing everything got stretched over a week because some rat-bastard Yellowjackets decided to make a nest in our bird feeder and I did not notice till our neighbor pointed it out. I'd been out there 45 minutes trying to get that @#$% Freewheel off the rear hub. It was on there TIGHT. I got the whole rear done with Yellowjackets present and did not get stung once.

Removing the old Freewheel was a pain. I had to dismantlee it. I had to remove the lockring on the ratchet hub, and that involved a hammer and a punch turning it clockwise. Then I had to hit the ring every revolution until the last. When it was off, the ratchet came off, and that showered a pile of tiny, sesame seed sized ball beearings all over the ground outside - nice.

After that, 2 c clips, and I brought it in with most of my tools, with the main one being a old pair of Craftsman RoboGrips that I rely on almost as much as Derek Bieri does his Vice Grips (hehe, RoboGripGarage, lol). See, I don't have a special tool for this, and I'm cheap, I'm not spending a bunch of money on a tool I hopefully won't need for another 7 years. The trick was the flip the Robogrips upside down, and then whack it with a hammer - carefully - while holding the freewheel with the RoboGrips, and turn what was left of the original freewheel counter-clockwise until removed. It was on there TIGHT.

Then came putting the bearings in, I found a piece of mangled metal inside the hub on the freewheel side....we can just pretend we did not see that and toss it. The bearing race inside the hub looks just fine. So I put thee bearings back in, they are still greased. IIRC its 10 per side, except I have 9 on the non-freewheel side so when the extra bearings come in, I can add one. Then was tightening back together all of the nuts on the new axle, which I got the adjustment just right - it's not too different than doing wheel bearings on my truck to be honest. Just a little less than perfectly tight, no play, and no wobble, and free spinning. Then game the lock nuts, and then the extra one lock-nut on the freewheel side to act as a spacer for my new 7-speed freewheel.

Installing the axle on the bike was a hair tricky only due to that extra 1/128th of an inch needed to get the extra nut to clear the frame enough to get the axle in. Once I did, and got it straight, It went right on, and all that racket from before is gone. Tugging on the gear cable revealed the shifting was smooth, and turning the shift lever found each gear engaged per each notch on the shift lever. 7 notches, 7 gears - this is how I like my gear shifters. And shifting was VERY smooth.

I had to hold off on replacing the front axle so I have quick-release on both ends because I had to call in the Apartment maintenance to kill off the wasps. Took them two visits over 2 days. During that time, I was still waiting for the ball bearings to come in.

Then the bearings came in on 7/28, and I replaced the front axle and put the missing bearing back in. Then what ensued was about 2 hours of dialing the bike back in.

The front axle on this bike is a PAIN. The Jam nut was on the axle so tight I might as well have been holding a flywheel on a mack truck with it. But I got it swapped out. The new axle was not as wide as the original, but that worked out perfect as we will talk about later in the "Dialing it in" part of this whole fiasco. I also lost one ball bearing in the process, so thankfully I had replacements on hand.

Getting the bearings adjusted on either end was a bit of a pain. in front, the Bearing retainer bolts were wide enough to cover the hub, but were deep enough that it gave just the right amount of tension and made the front axle ride smoother than it did stock. Stock I had some "hangup" in there, now it's not.

Replacing the missing rear bearing was more of a bear. Once I got everything off again, and got the bearing back in, I noticed the axle stuck out on one side and was inset on the other. I did get the bearings dialed in just right too. It seems when I put stuff back together, it's moving better than new.

Dialing this thing in was a series of trial and error. First and foremost, this was more of a conversion than I could have anticipated. We went from a stock, solid-axle, budget mountain bike, to a mountain bike with high-level features for the cost of 1/4th of a new one., all to replace some Chinesium components.

Pretty much everything was better now, the bike took less effort to pedal, I had one more gear, I could really grind through some serious stuff with this thing, and my top speed at a leisurely pace was now more like 20-22mph rather than 15mph. BUT, one thing had to be dialed in - the rear Skewer.

See, this is my first time with a bike with Quick-Release Skewers on it. Honestly, I don't understand WHY there are springs on these things. I kept finding out that the axle on the non-freewheel-side keept slipping into the frame more, and then found out it was not tightening enough, so the wheel would start rubbing on the frame bar after a few minutes of going down the road. So I took the springs out, and tightened that monster up till the lock nut and the lock washers bit into each other, and blamo - now I have a bike with quick release hubs that has a rear wheel that's actually stable. It was because the axle was sticking out a small bit - about 1/16th of an inch at most - on the non-freewheel side, and that was preventing the axle from being tightened down to the frame properly, causing it to slip. Taking that off caused the lock to lock the axle and frame together nice and solid, and now the bike races along smoother than it did when new. So now it's perfect. Hopefully I won't need to do anymore tuning/tweaking on the major drivetrain for awhile. That said, the teeth on my Derailer looks pretty used up ATM, hopefully they'll continue to work for awhile.

8/9/2022 - The bike's still done but have not been able to do much test riding between long-COVID symptoms (but testing negative, could just be allergies), rain, and the fact that the city decided just as I got the darned bike done to redo the ENTIRE road leading up to the trail I like to ride on. Oh joy. So now I might have to wait until later in the year before I can really put this thing to the test (rolls eyes). Seriously, I was planning to record some of my rides for YouTube but it just seems the theme of this summer has been "everything and anything getting in the way". Kind of ticks me off.

9/15/2022 - Well, I finally got some time to attempt to ride this thing long distance, and well, it was a total bust. Busted up my ankle when the new axle+ skewer bent/broke, which lead to a long-run research session. I guess that's what I get for trying to build up a Chinesium bicycle with Chinesium Amazon parts in critical areas. So I guess we can safely say the Kent Terra 26" Men's Bike is now kaput. I've put enough money into this thing, and it was my first mountain bike I put a lot of miles on. To be honest, I'm surprised this has lasted this long.

One of the most aggrivating things though, is the Bicycle industry. Man, want to talk about weight shaming - not FAT shaming mind you - but WEIGHT SHAMING. So, basically, the bicycle industry is terrible about listing maximum weights, and they are even worse about catering to people over 225LBS. When you say "over 225 LBS", apparently the mainstream assumes this means you're fat. I was down to 225 once, people thought I was going to die, and looked sickly. See, I'm a six foot four inch tall, nautrally muscly, heavy set bone structure, guy. So seriously, the BMI can kiss my ass. It's like how a Toyota Corolla from 2010 weighs 1800LBS, while a Ford Explorer from 1993 weighs 4800 LBS - the reason for the weight difference between two vehicles of the nearly identical footprint, is the parts that MAKE UP THE VEHICLE. So I'd be an SUV compared to the passenger car the BMI is catering to for a 6'4" tall person. Ric Ocasek was the same height as me, but Ric Ocasek was a naturally lathe fellow, in photos, if nobody's standing around, I look average height and average build, but put me next to other people and I look like a goddamn monster. I'm the kind of guy who falls off a cliff and climbs back up and does not realize his injuries until a day later. I'm not bragging, I'm just stating facts. THe Bike industry needs to realize not everyone is of average size. But I'm not about to fork down the price of a small sedan for a Clydsdale!

My wife's 24" we bought at the same time was also a bit of a piece of crap. On day one, the brake calipers broke, so I had to go to a local Edmonds bike shop and replace the original brake levers right off the bat, somehow the ones on my 26" have survived, but I'm HARD on brakes on my bikes, I use them a LOT. But she's light and normal build and tall but not abnormally so. I'm a bloody Sasquatch, try to imagine Derek Bieri riding a bicycle, that's what it's like for me.

The first problems I had were the original tires and tubes. They would constantly lose air, and I had to pretty much air them back up from almost nothing every time I went to ride somewhere. This was the same in Washington as it is here now. Basiically, those Shenzen Rubber Company tubes and tires are about as reliable as a set of 30 year old Firestones off a 1992 Ford Explorer. But that's n ot the worst, eventually, the rubber strips inside the rims broke, and then the tubes popped, so I threw in a set of Schwinn Goo-Tubes (tubes filled with self-healing goo/aka "Run Flats" of the bike world), with the rubber strips replaced with Gorilla tape, and it worked great for about 3/4 9+ mile round-trip rides down the bike trails where I live now.

Over the course of 2021, I started to upgrade, adding storage, adding a tire pump, adding a water bottle holder, and taking long treks at high speed. Now, this Bike is rated for "270 LBS Max", but being made of Chinesium pot-metal, it can't really handle the weight it insists it can. Especially when the rider is a 245LB speed freak like me, who rides it like a maniac in high gear most of the time when I'm on my own.

One morning on a Saturday I wanted to do a mondo ride, and what happened next was a disaster. I started to tear down to my favorite trails that morning, and once I got there, "Kachink" - see, I know it's not Politically Correct, but I think the brand "ShunFeng" - the brand of the Freewheel - should be "ShunFeng Wong"! Make of that what you will. Basically, the highest gear on the freewheel cracked, which is screwed onto the rest of the freewheel, holding the next 4 of the six total gears on. So now I could pedal all I wanted, and the darned thing would not go anywhere.

When I took it home, I found some pretty dire warnings of things being wrong. The bearings were tarnished, there were some bent-up metal hoops inside the wheels, the freewheel required disassembly to remove, the axle was bent, which was probably the reason teh Derailure was never right, I had to fight with gears the whole time I owned this bike, no matter how many times I adjusted, no matter how many guides I tried, this piece of crap would sound like a janky piece of crap as I tore down the trail, I'm sure those REAL Terra and Schwinn owners were laughing at me as I rode by on what was essentially the bicycle equivalent of a Kia with serious recall-worthy flaws. Most of the time it was on highest gear on the freewheel and the lowest gear on the pedals, and I would get up to about 25mph on a good day - ripping down the trails like a madman. Everything was still properly lubricated. I replaced the bearings, cones, axle, with new Amazon Skewer-based axles (BIG MISTAKE), and planned to go out for a ride for months, but got sick with COVID, and waited. Initial tests were great with the new freewheel, but when I finally had time, the rear assembly self destructed again.