My Specialized Aethos seems have some fore and aft play in the headset. The headset seems to be adjusted correctly as far as up and down movement. There is no play when I lift the bike and pull on the stem. But when I set the bike on the ground the fork seems to move forward a bit. What can I do? Thanks
Have you checked for the ring of death…?
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Are u checking for play w/ the front brake applied and rocking the bike fore/aft without the wheel turned 90 degrees? You may be feeling play in the caliper.
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When I rock the bike back and forth with the front brake locked, I still feel the movement. So, I assume it’s not the caliper
Turn the wheel to the side and try the same test, brakes locked and rock forward and backwards. That isolates movement in the brake pads.
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It’s also possible there may be a tiny bit of play in the brake rotor mount. If that’s there’s the case and there’s no movement of the fork relative to the frame with the brake applied I wouldn’t worry about it.
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Any play at all = headset not properly tightened. Would redo the whole thing.
Also—though not as many as with the Crux, there have been some stray mentions of Aethos having the same headset setup and hence the same loosening issue. You may want to go to Specialized to replace the topcap (they introduced a newer stuff one that has solved my Crux problem for me).
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ooo! I just had this happen in my chris king headset. I had been getting an uncomfortable extra knocking sound going over bumps but by all the things I checked nothing seemed off (everything tight, no vertical play). Finally noticed the fore/aft wiggle upon riding up a small grass hill while picking up my car from the shop. Upon bringing the bike home and troubleshooting more and dropping the fork out of the head tube (exposed hoses FTW, made this way easier) I discovered and attribute the noise and motion to a sorta spacer-y metal retaining ring was not snug between the steerer tube and upper bearings creating just a couple mm of play. Upon cleaning everything up, re-greasing and reassembling with attention to making sure that ring was snuggly in place and torquing the headset bolt properly before the stem bolts were torqued everything came back together well and has been solid and noiseless ever sense. Also lucky that there were no worrisome marks left by the issue as “ring of death” had come to mind but thankfully my Enve fork is tougher that that or the problem not old enough to have caused any irregular wear.
In my case, it was thankfully not steerer damage but worn headset bearings on my Specialized Venge. If the brake hoses on your Aethos are not routed through the headset bearings, it would be easier to check for worn bearings. With hoses routed through the headset bearings, I let my LBS take care of it.