when they increase the washer fee by 25 cents
I have been witness to dozens or more moving vans rolling around town in the past week, particularly today. Hand-me-down furniture, roped down mattresses & box springs, and some type of hutch-like bookshelf or desk complement all appear to be common features to those just now arriving. My rebel inside proudly declares I can get by without a hutch-like bookshelf or desk complement. Take that.
Having the correct supplement of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance under my belt, x2, my experience taking apart items on my bike is growing rapidly. A guy at East Coasters told me I have remarkably corrosive sweat, so much so that it had eaten up my rear brake cable, albeit the arrangement is of the exposed cable-setup species. Several people have recommended that I should immediately wipe over my bike upon returning from a ride, in order that I shouldn’t have to regularly pay for expensive components like the cassette. But the existing saline saturation over my bike allowed me to take much of it apart this weekend to replace and clean up many pieces that sit below, or slightly to the rear of, my saddle. I’m considering changing the sodium content in my diet to see what happens.
All of my automotive repair experience has been ill-received - looking into an engine compartment makes me peeved, contrary to how looking into a CPU makes me content. Yet, taking things apart on the bike is an indescribably therapeutic exercise. I am envious of Chase’s shop room in his new house, a few blocks from here; seeing completed bikes and spare parts strewn about is like peering into the used section of a local bookshop, a potential goldmine of experience and enlightenment.
I am still relatively new to bike maintenance, but it is truly enjoyable. It has the elements of wonder and thrill like those of Chuck E. Cheese’s, but the longevity of satisfaction and fulfillment like a holy pilgrimage. One day I’ll build my own fixed gear or something, but I will remain content with my toddler’s wonderment over the precision parts I can touch, smell, and see in my hands.
August 11th, 2007 at 11:04 pm
You may want to check out: http://www.utahmountainbiking.com/fix/ while geared toward mountain bikes the articles are good and most of the components are very similar anyway. I bought an older mtn bike and tore it down to bare frame, cleaned/greased/lubed everything, painted the frame and put it all back together (then sold it for a small profit) just to see how everything works. Downtube stuff, however, kinda scares me.
August 12th, 2007 at 12:20 am
i presume you got the brake cable worked out, then; you may want to consider packing your cables with synthetic grease, or re-routing them under the top tube with full housing. I don’t consider a little post-ride maintenance to be terribly necessary, but my rides are much shorter and probably encounter less debris and moisture. You won’t preclude a monthly overhaul entirely, but you might shorten it if things are cleaner from day to day.
August 12th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Greg: What particularly frightening about the downtube? I’m not even sure what you could do to modify a downtube, actually.
Chase: Yeah, all done. The cable is currently under my top tube and exposed. I thought about housing, but I think I prefer to have the currently exposed area remain as it is - it allows me a quite look into the condition of the cable as a whole. To estimate what it is like inside, I can just multiply the chaos by 3 abouts. The brief cleaning post-ride is probably worth it. Several people at East Coasters told me that once my factory lube comes off the new chain, I should start lubing it before each ride. They seemed to agree that I ride harder than most people. By the way, a new cassette is a very shiny thing.
August 12th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
What I meant was the cabling routed through the tubes, Having never riden or worked on road bikes I was under the impression that brake and shifter cables were routed inside the frame at the handlebars only to emerge on the other end (not sure why). I just did some surfing around looking at some pics and noticed my assumption was incorrect.