More Bike Maintenance

You'd think I was riding more or something.

The other day, while swapping the clown tire back to the normal one, I noticed my bottom bracket (bearings between the cranks and axle) was bad.

My cranks had a little swagger in them. The left side bearing felt like a loose bag of marbles opposed to the tight/smooth piece of machinery it's supposed to be.

Luckily I had a spare set of semi-used bearings just lying around, which is great considering my aversion to spending money on this thing right now.

I honestly wasn't sure what the condition of the spare bearings were, but was willing to try.

Hell. It's not like the bike wouldn't appreciate the handling anyway.

It's really a quick job. I think I spent more time cleaning off all the crud then actually removing and installing the new set of bearings.

The verdict?

The new ones are good. My cranks peddle straight again.

- b

Bike Maintenance Cont.

Clown tire isn't going to work in the rear. It rubbed.

The brake was rubbing too. I thought I'd try a different caliper position, but the pads had been worn to fit the rotor a certain way. With the caliper in a different position, the pads were rubbing differently and creating resistance. Climbing sucks more then usual when your rotors are dragging.

So I changed the tire and put the caliper back to its original position.

All in time for a snow ride.

- b

Some Bike Maintenance

Since my riding average had gone from three times a quarter to three times in a week, I decided it was time for a little maintenance.

My chain had dropped on two different rides. Considering my ride average, that's not a very good statistic for equipment failure.

So first thing to do was check the condition of my chain. Eyeballing it I knew there was some slack, but had no idea it was this bad.

For those that don't know, this is a chain checker and it says the chain is bad - really bad.

Great! So it's bad, time to replace it. Not quite.

It's so bad, technically I should replace the cog and the chain ring. Simply throwing a new chain on the old gears could make things worse or just wear out a new chain faster.

So I checked the cog. Unfortunately there's no cool technical gizmo for checking cogs. It's all eyeball.

And my eyeballs have an astigmatism, but what's supposed to be little half circles between the teeth now look like little half ovals.

At this point it's not even worth looking at the chain ring.

So what's a guy do with some messed up bike parts, a kid due the end of the month and a house closing next week?

Flip the cog around (so the ovals stretch the other way) and tighten the chain via the sliding axle adjustments.

Voila! Single speed bike is fixed. Riding three times in one week isn't worth new stuff. If I start to average that per week, maybe I'll reconsider.

Since I was playing bike mechanic, I decided some different (notice I didn't say new?) tires could make things interesting.

I should just call them clown tires. They're huge. The bike is more rubber then it is steel.

There so big, I had to be careful how true the rear wheel was when fitting in the frame.

Considering my aversion to bike maintenance cost, I had better got the wheel true or I'm buying a new frame.

- b

Miscellaneous Crap

Haven't been very project oriented over the holiday break.

I got the important thing done - getting the tractor ready to plow - in case of mid snow storm labor pains.

but after that it's all been random crap like taking the bad cleats out of my "old riding shoes", so I can replace them and stop using my "good shoes".

Like I ride enough to warrant "old" and/or "good" shoes. Don't have new cleats yet. Wouldn't really need them till it warms up anyway.

I did some website work (refresh your cache), but nothing as far as necessary improvements, just maintenance.

I also reorganized my detached garage so the truck is NOT parked on the side with access to the attic. We've been moving a lot of the crap that's been unused in the house to the detached garage attic. Having that space more easily accessible (not having to move the truck every time) will make it more viable. In the process I actually emptied three or so boxes that had been packed in the garage since we moved here. Now my workbench is almost usable.

I also started a top-secret project with my commuter bike and the trainer.

Yes I plan to start riding the trainer, but there's an added piece waiting on parts to complete the project. More to follow soon.

We've also been running a lot of baby stuff errands. We spent one morning measuring the walls and current furniture in our nursery, then looking online at various nursery pieces to see what we liked and what might fit. We settled on some things, ran down to the store and placed an order.

Jen has also been procuring and organizing lots of "cute outfits." We might actually be ready for this thing when it comes.

What to do today?

- b

Damp Sunday Chores

Today started out drizzling and breezy, so it was another day of inside chores.

I began with trimming a switch cover to install on one of two coverless switches we have in our kitchen.

Since adding the dimmable fluorescent switch, I've had to replace the cover, but any new cover in our house requires fitting and trimming to fit with our woodwork. Ideally I should move all the switch boxes away from the woodwork for better balance, but that's not happening anytime soon.

I thought this would be a quick job, but no. Turns out one of the switch screws that attaches the switch to the box was stripped (it's the box that's stripped, not the screw), so I had to fight and fight with it to get the switch positioned just right for the cover to fit. Finally used a toothpick jammed under the slipping screw to hold the switch in place at least until I got the cover on and screwed tight to the switches.

Bitch of it is that I should have used a larger cover. This one is too small. Doesn't cover enough of the wall around the switches and doesn't match the other cover plates we have, so at some point I'll have to do all this again for these switches.

Next job was finishing the dimmer switches we bought for the basement last spring.

I had only managed to get one dimmer in and not even really. The box had too many wires, seemed to small and I couldn't easily figure out the breaker for the other switch (the lights and switches are on different breakers?).

With the breaker situation figured out, I decided to replace the box with a deeper one I had. When I measured the new box against the old box just to be sure, I found out they were the same size.

Damn!

I got some coffee, a chair, and sat down to try and make the wires take up less space.

See the wire sticking out of the top of the box? If you look (real close) in the first picture you'll see the box screw hole is busted. While I was messing with making the wires tighter, I glued the screw hole and used that trash wire to hold it in place while it dried.

In the end, it all worked out pretty well.

Of course there are things I could do to make it a little better, but it's way better then having a dimmer switch hanging out of the box against the wall. Try fumbling for that in the dark.

Next on the docket was cleaning Yarnall's Demo 9.

I borrowed it back in August when I went downhilling with Buddy and Rick. Yeah, yeah, I'm lame for not returning it sooner, but he didn't need it and I was contemplating borrowing it again. Anyway, the big deal about borrowing Yarnall's bike is cleaning it before you return it. Makes sense huh? Maybe? Partly I hadn't returned it because I was afraid to clean it. I was afraid I wouldn't clean it well enough, so I pick a cold dreary day to do it. Genius right? I had a bucket of super hot soapy water, a rain jacket, wool hat and cold hose water to make the effort. Rinse, wash, numb fingers repeat.

I got to the point where I knew I made a good effort. I did all kinds of OCD things I don't even do with my own bike. It was during this time of obsession I found this.

(clicky makes biggy)

Looks like something out of Aliens, but that's not the point.

So the swing arm is cracked. Sent Yarnall an email with some pictures. Maybe now he won't notice the dirt I might have missed, though I'm hoping that's still more important then a possible cracked swing arm. I can't imagine my skinny little butt was the root cause of this.

Moving on.

I cleaned the pellet stove for the first time this season (that's the fire pot). I was kind of neglectful last spring and didn't clean it before the summer, so it was a little over-do. It was also a little rusty (not the red you see above, but where the red arrows are pointing below).



Not sure what that's all about. There were other places too. Maybe leaving the ash in all summer was a bad idea? Maybe it soaked up moisture or something? We'll see what it looks like next cleaning. Something tells me a week of solid clean burning will "fix" things. I'll just have to be sure I clean out the ash before the summers.

I also cleaned the stove glass today. What a difference that made, and it's simple! Just a wet paper towel and the glass is clear. I can see every lick of flame in the fire chamber. It's almost better then TV; then again, it is my TV.

After the stove I moved onto our "blue room" where we have boxes and boxes of crap in storage. Jen and I both have been randomly cleaning stuff out of there. So far our efforts have resulted in one trip to Goodwill and one trip to donate six boxes of books to the public library. We also have a large pile of stuff ready to be freecycled. Today's effort resulted in a pile of paper stuff I don't need anymore (to be recycled), finding my old Star Wars cards and other interesting goodies I'll have to post about later.

What a day. I'm exhausted, though staying out till midnight with a buddy from work last night probably had more to do with that.

- b