Weekend Update

Midweek Update

Best Bike Rack I've Ever Seen.

I was at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Little Toyko this weekend, and spotted this:

Mechanic Monday

Recently, I've been honing my skills on wheel building. With the help of my fellow mechanic, his greasy worn booklet and Sheldon Brown's (RIP) excellent article on building wheels, I've been doing all the recent builds for the shop.

Although I can build a wheel, make it straight and round, I'm far from an expert on it. At this point, I'm essentially following instructions, and learning what to feel while working thru the process. And a master whellbuilder has all that skill, and can feel their way thru building a wheel. Hell, Mr. Brown tuned his wheel's spokes to F#...

I think what draws me to wheel building the most, is the fact that it is probably the most relaxed work that you can do on a bike. You get out everything you need, set it up, prepare the spokes, sit down and start going.



It's always been one of my favorite parts of getting tattooed, watching the guys get all set up. There's such a method to it, and it always relaxes me to watch it all happen. So to have found something like that for myself, makes me happy. If you ever have a spare time and a rim/hub lying around, I highly recommend that you try out building a wheel using Mr. Brown's article.

That's pretty much all I've got this week. I know it's a departure from the past few MMs, but with the shop picking up, and me pretty much being a full-time mechanic now, my brain's been on cruise control.

Sidenote: Saturday's surgery was a success, the inner cage from my 105 rear derailleur bolted right onto the Dura Ace and now Clementine has a shiny new top-of-line appendage that cost me absolutely nothing. Now, does anyone want to buy the good ½ of a 105 rear derailleur?

Also got hooked up with this new toolbag today:


Me = happy to be throwing away my old toolbag.
Chrome = awesome.

Temptations & Surgeries

Probably one of the hardest parts about working at a bike shop is dealing with the temptations. We are subjected to a constant barrage of information about the newest parts, the best parts, what's wrong with what we already own, etc. Every day, new magazines come, new catalogs come, outside sales reps stop in with info... It's our job to know the coolest stuff, the newest stuff.

It's hard not to buy into all of it, and more importantly, buy all of it.

I used to work with a guy, Andy, who held another full time job elsewhere. Why? Because he signed off his bike shop salary right back to the store to pay off all the stuff he bought every week.

His bikes were *really* nice.

I've been fighting this urge off for a decade now. When I was into BMX, I admit, I succumbed. I had so many different frames and parts, I couldn't even remember them all. But these days, I've been doing much better. I love Clementine, and she's built just about exactly how I want. With riding more than I ever have, I appreciate the "if it ain't broke" mantra, and have resisted making changes for the sake of something new. With this, I've gotten my bike shifting nearly perfect, despite my previous rants about the Shimano system, by way of adding an Avid Rollamajig and lots of tinkering. I've been holding onto a really nice set of IRD Interloc shift cable (the ones Nokon sued them over) and didn't want to disrupt what is otherwise an excellent working bike.

But I cannot resist this one...

While searching thru our old parts bins for a bottom bracket for a customer, I unearthed a nearly new Shimano Dura Ace rear derailleur that had been popped into the wheel, causing irreparable damage to the inner cage. The rest of the derailleur is unharmed, therefore today I will attempt a surgery to use the inner cage from my current 105 derailluer on this semi-broken Dura Ace to create one working super derailleur.

Wish me luck.