Thursday, June 12, 2008

New member of a bicycling elite

Tuesday I noticed something new while shifting during my ride. There seemed to be something sharp on the underside of the left shifter, the shifter for the front derailer. Further investigation after I got home revealed that the cable was fraying with several of the strands already broken. The sharp something was one of the cable strand ends poking out of the shifter slot. The cable was about to break and needed to be replaced.

I am pleased to announce that this marks my entry into a fairly exclusive bicycle elite. I join the great flatlands rider as someone who has worn out a bicycle part.Today I decided not to go to work in order to allow me time to fix my bicycle and also time to pick up the business traveler upon her return from abroad.

It rained hard yesterday and overnight but I got out into the garage early and set up to try for the repair. I had obtained the part yesterday from County Cycles and used that opportunity to pump Scott for some tips on how the repair should go. The only hard part was getting that stub with the cable stop and the ragged wire ends out of the shifter. After that the repair was every bit as easy as Scott said it would be. I was done by 10:30 and lo and behold, rain over, sun out, the beginnings of a spectacularly beautiful day.

I rode my bicycle and I must say that Thursday morning at 11am is a wonderful time to be out on the road. I suppose I should try to figure out some way to be able to ride at that time more often. I carried the appropriate hex wrench with me in case the cable repair needed some tweaking but tweaking turned out to be not needed. It was a very nice ride complete with flawless shifting. A good day continued as I got to watch some Euro 2008 football, Croatia 2, Germany 1. And I still got to the airport in plenty of time to greet Miss Wireless. It was, in sum, a successful day.

Today also marks 1,000 miles on this bike this year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice catch. Cables are mysterious to me. It is satisfying to wear out a bicycle, even part by part.

Morning rides are my favorites.

Welcome home to Wireless. I hope she's feeling better.