I've got too many subjects struggling to make their way out through the rollerball of my pen. There's a werewolf story brewing; a natural side effect of reading too much Neil Gaiman. The recent Kelo ruling by the Supreme Court has me so incensed that I can barely frame a coherent sentence that isn't thoroughly leavened with the word "fuck"… and this from the liberal end of the Court.
Instead, I'd like to talk about an activity that intimidates me: bicycle maintenance.
You'd think that a guy like me with so many tools wouldn't let a mere bike spook me. After all, I dive into car work and home remodeling with hardly a second thought.
Let me explain.
Bicycle repair often takes special, expensive tools that I have a tough time justifying even to myself. When I need to buy a set of metric end wrenches, I know that I'll be using them on my cars and around the house for as long as I live. In fact, I have a bunch of wrenches and sockets that my grandfather passed on to my dad. I've used our air compressor to chip concrete, inflate beach balls and tires, paint multiple rooms in our house, and drive my nail guns. Hell, even my nail guns have helped me bang up walls, pre-hung doors, and many, many feet of trim. But paying $20 for a wrench to remove my Shimano cassette freewheel, something I might do once, if ever? Multiply this for every spinning and sliding thing on the bike plus having to find room to store all the stuff among the car tools and woodworking tools and home improvement tools and you come to the conclusion that I need to move to somewhere near Ft. Pierre, South Dakota so I can build a 5000 sq.ft. shop.
There's almost nothing standard about bike mechanicals. In the 70s, when my dad was getting into bicycling, building his own bikes from the frames up, we had to worry about whether components had French, Italian, or English threads. Now that the EU and ISO have beat folks over the head, such a basic thing as threads is standard. Still, the major bicycle component manufacturers completely rework their entire lines of parts every two to three years, so you never know what's going to work on your six-year-old bike.
Also, there's almost nothing designed to be foolproof on a bike. As a contrasting example, replacing the brake pads on a car is trivial, as Harlock as learned. Once you get over the anxiety of pulling your car apart and working on systems that will kill you and others if you screw up, it's really easy. With basic tools, everything is designed to lock into position. All you have to do is pay attention, be methodical, put all the mating parts together, and torque down some bolts. The same operation on a bike is a comedy requiring at least three or four hands. There's a reason why Park Tool sells its Third Hand Brake Tool ($25) and Fourth Hand Brake Tool ($35). When you manage to tighten the nuts holding the brake pads in place without having them shift off the rim into the spokes or into the tire, then you have to hope that you've given them enough toe-in to not squeal and groan when you stop. It's enough to make a person upgrade to disc brakes. Mechanical disc brakes, mind you, because I'll be damned if I'm going to ride a bike that needs to have its brake system flushed and bled.
If you don't get the preload right on the headset, you turn your bearings to scrap, either grinding them with too much preload or slapping them around from too little. When you're working on a flat, if you don't use your tire irons just right, you pinch big gouges into your tube, only compounding your woes. If you leave a link in the chain a bit stiff after breaking it, you'll slip gears and maybe trash your cogs. Your new gear-shift cables stretch a little and your index shifting is all messed up, even after adjusting the tension at the shifters, which logically should fix the problem, dammit.
Sometimes I'm riding eight to twelve miles a day. That much riding demands regular maintenance. So what's a fiercely independent, non-wealthy bike rider to do?
I finally sucked it up. After years of struggling with a $5 chain tool, I forked over $30 for a professional model. Now I break my chain, put it back together, and adjust the links without resorting to uncouth language. No more bust thumbs or popped pins. I also tracked down some good, step-by-step instructions for adjusting my rear derailleur. No more voodoo. For the first time, I've set up my bike to shift like it was new.
I'm still a ways from investing in tools to rebuild the axles, bust open the bottom bracket, service the front suspension, or true up my wheels. Before I did all that, I'd probably want to invest in a decent work stand… hmmm…
Pakeha