| They're always oppressing me |
[Nov. 17th, 2008|02:56 pm] |
The bike shop called to tell me they managed to un-pretzel my frame. I actually had help breaking it for a change. I was walking past Lee behind him in the parking lot and he started walking backwards and tripped over my bike. He bent up my wheel badly. Enough so that I had to bang it against the curb to straighten it enough to ride.
I didn't realize till this morning, partway to work that it was the *frame* that was bent.
I turned around and went home at that point, called my boss and told her I would work from home Friday.
The truly sad part is we were all stone sober, just hanging around in the QFC waiting for people to finish up.
My rear triangle looked a bit like this:
That's why Ben (who was trying to help me fix it) kept muttering about my wheel dish being off. The frame is off, not the wheel. But we couldn't see it in the dark.
The thing that gave me a chuckle was what the bike shop said when they called to tell me my bike was done.
Mechanic: "You know the rear wheel is unsafe, the braking surface is totally concave."
Me: "No no no, I've got 1.8mm of rim left, that's at least 0.8mm more than minimum safety margin.[1]"
I did end up assuring her that I had decided to swap the rim regardless. Between Lee falling on it, the fact that it has had a lot of braking surface worn off and other things, it's probably time to change it. It doesn't hurt I have a spare rim to hand to do it with, so I don't even have to go buy anything.
[1] Yes, I actually have a caliper just for this. |
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| The Phillys? Are they a baseball team or something? |
[Oct. 21st, 2008|09:27 am] |
So I flew back East to Philadelphia for a super short trip to visit my older Brother [1]. It was his birthday and we spent the time wandering around on bicycles, shopping, picking up presents for him, provisions for a party Friday and generally hanging around.
Highlights:
- Sam's Morning Glory - I'm pretty sure I had an extended foodgasm from the Monkey French Toast. [2]
- Manayunk - To pick up this print as one of his birthday presents.
- Daffy's - Excellent overstock store, think Nordstrom rack. I picked up a nice new Merino wool sweater for $30.
- Chinatown - To pick up a birthday cake.
- Ikea - Things for Macaire's apartment. Since the new building owners repainted, tiled and carpeted his place is looking pretty swank.
- Picture hanging (FAIL) - I think his walls are made of paper-mâché. Sorry about the hole in your wall. :-(
- Party - Rock Band 2 with the really nice drums [3]. Lots of people, lots of socializing, lots of video game playing.
- Happily Ever After - A super nice toy store. Very friendly owners and some incredibly neat things.
- Touscher Chocolates - Veeeery nice Swiss chocolates.
All in all a very successful visit.
[1] I landed Thursday morning and left Saturday afternoon.
[2] Challah French Toast with mango and banana's and caramel sauce.
[3] And a 108" projection screen, and $300 dollars of downloaded songs. |
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| The cranks... they go round and round |
[May. 14th, 2008|06:30 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | bicycle | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | busy | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Freezepop - Harebrained Scheme | ] |
In other news, when I put my Sunny Day bike together, I was in a bit of a rush. So I didn't overhaul the bottom bracket or headset. Well, yesterday I noticed my cranks were really wobbling and desperately needed adjustment.
So this morning I decided to overhaul it.
( Lots of pics of hard shiny greasy tools and bicycle parts )
I'm not going to go into the full spiel about BB adjustment, other people do it better. Plus any newer bike is going to use a sealed cartridge bearing BB which means you don't have to do any of that stuff. Suffice it to say my BB is running smoothly now without wobbles and was very nice to ride into work.
In other news the bike shop finally heard back from Surly. They want to look at frame, so it's being shipped today or tomorrow out them and then I should get new frame in a week or two (assuming nothing goes wrong). |
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| Another vain attempt not to buy things off Etsy |
[May. 11th, 2008|11:29 am] |
I need to get a clock movement with a longer shaft before I can mount the face backing, but this is the basic idea for the clock I've been thinking about making for a long time. Basically a discarded 48 tooth chainring and a used up 12-32 cassette, cleaned and fastened into an arc.
Also, I suck at taking pictures of shiny metal objects. |
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| A bike for Sunny days |
[May. 9th, 2008|11:46 am] |
Well, my commuter bike frame getting broken inspired me to get my Sunny day bike fixed up last week. I've been stockpiling parts for it for a while, so it was relatively quick to build up.
( Pretty pictures after the cut )
I talked to the shop that has my old frame (Recycled Cycles in the University District). They've left some messages with Surly, but they haven't actually talked to them about it. So my bike is still languishing in their shop. And I've got this bag sitting on my desk at home full of all the parts I took off the frame.
I'm just glad it broke during the summer so I'm not missing my dedicated all weather/bad weather bike in the rainy season. Well, and that I didn't bother overhauling the headset and bottom bracket right before the frame broke. Procrastination saves the day again! |
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| Another day, another broken bicycle frame |
[Apr. 25th, 2008|08:15 am] |
Last month I had wheel problems, this month it looks like frame problems are on the agenda.
I broke my Crosscheck frame again in pretty much the exact same location (on my way home from work). I didn't have time to finish putting my sunny day bike together from pieces, so I dragged my fixed gear out of the shed to ride to work this morning.
I really should just shell out for a sturdier frame. |
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| Yet Another Bicycle Post |
[Mar. 7th, 2006|02:59 pm] |
I'm not sure, but something seems subtly wrong with this picture.
Just a frame I picked up off the street. The poor abandoned thing was on it's way to the rubbish tip, and I couldn't have that. The frame is nothing special, but the Sugino crankset is nice, and the bottom bracket and headset probably just need some grease and TLC. |
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zuvembi's journal
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