Please mail your check or money order to:

Zinn Cycles Inc.
7437 S. Boulder Rd.
Boulder CO 80303

Click here to pay your deposit online via credit card. If don’t want to pay online, please call us at 303-499-4349

We will email the wire transfer information to you if you chose that as your payment method.

The first step in packing up your travel bike is to take apart the bike, separate each part and wrap them in their respective pads. The photo instructions below show packing a travel bike with two couplers. The video to the right gives step by step instructions on packing a 4 coupler travel bike. The video is useful for two coupler bikes also. Two coupler bikes require positioning the pieces in exactly the right place every time.

This is how to get your Zinn coupled travel bike together and ready to ride after it’s been in its case. After you have done it a few times, this process will take less than half an hour. The http://www.facebook.com/video/?id=61846853456 (paste it in, rather than using the link, if it says your browser is incompatible) packing video shows you how to get it into the case, and you can use it to also visualize most of the below assembly steps, except in reverse.

1. Remove any padded covers from the frame members, fork, and components.

2. Assemble the frame by screwing the tube couplers together. Tighten them with your coupler wrench.

3. Install the seatpost to the proper height (it was marked with tape or with a clamp-on flashing taillight when we sent it out), line up the saddle, tighten the binder bolt and, ideally, clamp the seatpost into a bike stand.

4. Screw the stem coupler together and tighten it with your coupler wrench.

5. Install the wheel quick-release skewers into the appropriate wheel axles.

6. Bolt on the front brake and tighten the nut with 5mm hex key. Center the brake pads relative to the fork legs by eye; you’ll finalize this once the front wheel is on.

7. Install the front wheel and center the front brake by grabbing the entire caliper and twisting it until the pads are spaced equally from the rim. Check that the mounting nut on the back of the fork is tight.

8. Install the rear derailleur by tightening its mounting bolt into the derailleur hanger on the rear dropout, making sure the stop tab on the derailleur is behind the tang on the bottom of the dropout derailleur hanger (see Fig. 5.5 in your Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance book).

9. Slide your housing ends and housings into the slotted cable stops for the front derailleur, rear derailleur and rear brake. Make sure the rear derailleur cable comes from the right lever down the right side of frame.

10. Screw together the cable splitters for the front derailleur, rear derailleur and rear brake (don’t connect the male end of the front derailleur cable splitter to the female end of the rear derailleur cable splitter and vice versa; I’ve done that and it’s very confusing when you start riding!).

11. Check that all housings are fully seated into housing end caps, which in turn are fully seated into all slotted cable stops, levers and front derailleur barrel adjuster.

12. Check that the rear derailleur cable is in its plastic guide slot under the bottom bracket shell.

13. Install the rear wheel.

14. Install the entire crank if it’s a Zinn-tegrated crank (see below) or another integrated-spindle crank. Install the right arm onto the spindle if it’s a Zinn (or other) square-taper, ISIS, or Octalink crank, and tighten the crank bolt fully.

Installing a Zinn-tegrated crank (or a SRAM or TruVativ GXP crank):

a. From the right side, push the spindle through the cups as far as you can (the spindle splines will protrude from the left bearing).

b. Slip the left crank on the splines, ensuring that it is at 180 degrees from the right arm.

c. Tighten the left arm with an 8mm hex key – torque is high; use 400-450 inch-pounds (33-37 foot-pounds, or 45-50 N·m — this is about as tightly as you can tighten it with a long 8mm hex key).

d. Recheck the torque after one ride, as the crank may settle in so that the bolt would need retightening. Periodically check the torque from then on.

15. Install the chain, if it has a master link and has been removed. (If you don’t have a master link, you already had to untangle it to accomplish step 7).

Opening and closing your master link (in most cases, we would have supplied you with a Wippermann ConneX master link; see item “c” below):

a. The SRAM (Sachs) Power Link, Super Link, and KMC Missing Link

These links are the same; SRAM (who purchased Sachs) licensed the Lickton’s Super Link design (see Fig. 4.24 in your Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance book), and the Missing Link works the same way (note that the SRAM 10-speed Power Link and the discontinued KMC Missing Link II are not supposed to be openable). The master link is made up of two symmetrical link halves, each of which has a single pin sticking out of it. There is a round hole in the center of each plate that tapers into a slot on the end opposite the pin.

Connecting

1. Put the pin of each half of the link through the hole in each end of the chain; one pin will go down and one up (Fig. 4.24).

2. Pull the links close together so that the each pin goes through the keyhole in the opposite plate.

3. Pull the chain ends apart so that the groove at the top of each pin slides to the end of the slot in each plate.

Disconnecting

1. While squeezing the master-link plates together to free the plate from the groove in the pins, push the chain ends toward each other so that the pins come to the center hole in each plate. If you have a pair of master link pliers, grab the two rollers with them through which each pin of the master link are inserted (Fig. 4.25). Squeeze the pliers at the same time you squeeze the link plates toward each other with your fingers. The link will come right apart. Master link pliers are one of the slickest tools in existence; with them you can easily open SRAM 10-speed master links, which are supposed to not be openable.

NOTE: Without master link pliers, this is often hard to open an old, dirty master link. The problem may seem to be that you don’t have enough hands. Try squeezing the link plates toward each other with a clothespin or a pair of Vise Grip pliers set on very low pressure to disengage the link plates from the pin grooves while you push the ends toward each other. In desperation, you may have to just open the chain somewhere else, reassembling it with a chain tool or using a second master link.

2. Pull the two halves of the master link apart.

c. Wippermann ConneX link

The Wippermann link works much the same way as the SRAM Power Link just discussed, but unlike other master links, the edges of the link plates are not symmetrical. This asymmetry means that there is a definite orientation for the link, and you want to make sure you don’t install it upside down.

Orient the ConneX master link so that its convex edge is away from the chainring or cog (Fig. 4.26). The link plate is bowl-shaped, and if you have the convex bottom of the bowl toward the cog or chainring, then when it is on an eleven-, or twelve-, maybe even a thirteen-tooth cog, the convex edge will ride up on the spacer between cogs, lifting the rollers out of the tooth valleys and causing the chain to skip under load. Another way to think about this orientation is to notice the pair of attached holes where you pop the link together forms a heart shape. When the chain is on the top of the cog or chainring, make sure that the heart is right-side up.

So, remove and install the ConneX link the same way as the SRAM Power Link in section 15a above, but make sure the convex link edge is facing outward from the chain loop (Fig. 4.26), so that the concave edge can run over the cog spacers on the smallest cogs without lifting the chain.

16. Double check that all couplers and cable splitters are tight (couplers with a coupler wrench; cable splitters by hand). Check that all brake quick-releases and wheel quick releases are securely closed.

17. Take a test ride to ensure that the brakes and derailleurs are functioning properly. Fine tune cable tension adjustment with the inline barrel adjusters on the derailleur cables, and/or with the barrel adjusters on the rear derailleur and brake calipers. If everything checks out, you’re done.

Finally, here are some key points on packing not explicit in the video:

There is a bit of pushing to close the case, because we intentionally supply three case supports that are longer than the case is wide to prevent flex in the side of the case during transport from hitting the end of the axle. When closing, you should be able to determine that it is only at those three points – the caps of the case supports – that the lid is contacting when you’re pushing it closed. Make sure you don’t have a tire, a cable, or, worse, a cable splitter caught in between the case edges when you close it.