Repairs complete, Bike of Doom road-worthy again
by Steve ~ March 11th, 2008. Filed under: Maintenance & Repairs.
It’s funny how my understanding of “complete” and “road worthy” have changed since buying the SuperCycle SC1800 Bike of Doom. I won’t touch the subject of whether the Bike of Doom could ever be called road worthy; that’s another argument waiting to happen. I will say that I have slowly moved away from a need for perfection in my bikes to a state of “good enough”. I think this is a healthy mental adjustment. I used to ride with my eyes on the road and my ears on the bike. Now, though my ears are still on the bike, they don’t hear anything quieter than a breaking spoke or serious grinding.
So, when I say “repairs complete”, I mean complete enough to make the bike rideable. I replaced the broken spoke in the rear wheel on the Saturday, trued the wheel. I was a bit out of practice and it took 30 minutes. The spoke was on the freewheel side, so that had to come off, too. I was delighted to find that the small stash of spokes I’d purchased for the original rear wheel were the perfect size of the job, so no trip to the bike shop was necessary. Thanks to the wheel truing video at bicycletutor.com, I did a much more efficient job of this than ever before. Reading about bike repairs is one thing, and of course doing them reinforces what you read, but actually seeing somebody make a repair, explaining slowly and clearly what and why he’s doing what he’s doing, makes a world of difference.
With the wheel again in true, the bike is still in service. I have not yet repaired the rear gear shifter. The derailleur seems to be solidly stuck in fifth gear on the back ring. which makes deep snow and hills a bit tough but nothing to complain about. I also still need to repair the odometer mount; its wound up and tied to the brake cable for now. Next week, maybe.
For now, I’m looking forward to some mild weather this week. The weather office is promising temperatures close to zero in the early part of the week.
That sounds heavenly.
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March 11th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Thanks for the inspiration, Steve. I’m in Winnipeg too and rode my CCM hybrid to the U of M this morning. I’ve got a Rocky Mountain commuter bike that I don’t want to wreck, so I was going to wait until nearer the end of the month to start riding. After finding your blog, I figured I could haul out the CCM beast and try it out. It was a blast - sunshine and fresh air really wakes me up. Good luck out there!
March 11th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Nice to be out on a bike, isn’t it? Let’s hope this messy, wet, slushy part of the year doesn’t last too long.