Ghostbusters

Somewhere between "Who ya gonna call?" and "He slimed me," I found something to define last night.
First of all let me say that I really don't like Slime in bike tires. Detest it. Now, I do use a tubeless setup on my mountain bike, but that has a way to get air out when I need to make a repair. Slimed tubes are just a mess when the slime fails to patch the hole, which is just about any time the tube gets a puncture. If you've got a puncture problem, use a tire liner. Please. It is so much better to stop a hole than try to fill it with a liquid.
Now, why, you may wonder, do I start a post with this plea? The answer is simple. I had to deal with Slime last night. The LDS missionaries (as parodied in an Axe body spray commercial) who I mentioned recently, returned with another bike problem: a flat rear tire. This was a tire filled with Slime. That meant that while it wouldn't hold the air to keep the tire filled, it also wouldn't let low-pressure air out either through the puncture or the valve stem. I poked an prodded at that valve stem with a bunch of tools, finally settling on a nail punch that I have hanging around. I actually think that I got as much Slime out of the time as I did air. (And neither came out in sufficient quantity to make a real difference.) 

That was the single most difficult tire removal I've done in years. I had to use three tire levers, including my strongest metal tire levers, to pull the tire bead a few centimeters at a time. Once I removed the tube, I found that a lot of Slime had come through the hole, and was settled messily along the tire casing. Oh, did it slime me.

After getting the tube out, I filled it with air again to find the hole, a feat requiring an air compressor. I rotated the tube to hear the air flow. Once I found the leak, I rotated it back to the low point of the tube and waited for the Slime to work. It came through. I wiped off the excess and put on a speed patch. I then released enough air to fit the tube back into the tire -- again requiring the use of the nail punch since I lack a valve stem puller --and inflated it to riding pressure, only to listen to the slow hiss of air through a tiny hole. The tire was flat again in under 10 minutes. He needs a new tube. I guess I'll buy one today so that I can get my loaner bike back and get him on his way.

I guess that now as the missionaries find a bike problem and ask the questions made famous in that great movie of the '80s, Ghostbusters, "Who ya gonna call?", the answer will be me. Maybe this is how God teaches me to give service to my fellow man.

p.s. LDS missionaries don't usually just recruit the help of random strangers to help them with bikes. I was referred because I worship in a congregation that they cover with their services. And, in response to the Axe ad, missionaries always travel in pairs; just a small, missed detail.

On Broken WIngs

I like the song, and it sets up my bicycling involvement as of late. For those not familiar with the song, it's by Europe. Yes, the hair band from the '80s who brought you "Final Countdown".
Anyway, Sunday morning I learned about an LDS missionary whose bike wasn't working well. (Yes, these are the guys who ride bikes in white shirts and ties and knock on your door; no, they aren't the Jehovah's Witnesses. DIfferent sect.) Being the helpful guy that I am, and always looking for a way to increase my knowledge of bike mechanics, I offered to look at his bike and try to get it running better for him.
Monday afternoon the missionaries rode to my house in the falling snow, bringing over the offending steed: a Novarra Aspen, circa 1990, steel frame, with almost generic, but identifiably Shimano components. I think it weighed about 20 kilos. A steed that possibly should have been shot, with bearings that had seen better days. In fact I think that the poor bike was stored in a lake or swimming pool for at least one Winter at some point in its life. At best what I offered was palliative care for it while it waited to die. I guess I'm kind of a hospice for bikes.
I performed a quick and dirty true on the front wheel, pulling out a huge wobble. During that I noticed that the wheel really didn't roll all that easily, but I had limited time, so I didn't crawl into the front hub. In fact, I had to keep pushing the wheel to get a single rotation on the truing stand. Ouch. That poor missionary is really getting a workout when he rides. Once that was completed, I moved onto the real work.
The main problem reported on this bike was that it had become an involuntary single speed. The rusted -- but not stretched -- chain was sitting on a single cog of the rusty cassette. The front derailleur had been locked into the middle chainring. (In case you aren't keeping up on your low end bikes, the Aspen is technically in the all terrain bike family.) After releasing the high and low limit screws on both front and back derailleurs, I found that the shifters were the problem. The derailleurs moved freely, and the cables were not seized inside the housings. I had seen something similar on my wife's Schwinn High Plains of similar vintage. The ratchet system in the shifters gets cold, dirty grease stuck in it and the mechanism just slides rather than engaging to cause a shift.
My solution, and those who know bike mechanics can certainly tell me where I went wrong, was to crack open the shifters as far as they would budge, and spray a liberal amount of WD-40 into the mechanism to cut through the frozen grease and crud. While this worked on my wife's bike last year, I didn't see any real improvement on the missionary's bike. So, I figured that with time it may loosen up some more. In the meantime, I adjusted the limited screw on the front derailleur to rest in the middle chainring, so he could push and hold the shifter to get access to the large chianring. I then left the rear derailleur in its normal-high position. My thought was that if the de-crudding of the shifters started to work, he would have access to most of the gears he would need to ride on the relatively flat roads of West Jordan.
So, getting back to the title, "On broken wings; I guess that's how you'll have to fly…" He's glad for two gears, and I'm hoping to hear of more becoming available over time.
For those hoping for a riding story, sorry. But I think that being able to maintain what you ride is critical to continued enjoyment of riding. I also find it satisfying to help others who have more bike troubles than spare cash, or my friends who are willing to put up with my learning curve as I solve more bike problems than they currently know how to work on.

Three's Company

Is it cheating on my original premise to use song titles as my post titles if the song is the theme to a TV show? I don't know. And if I don't know, then no-one can, since it was my premise originally. So, I'm using it.
I chose this title because as of last night, I have my third, yes third, verified reader for this blog! I guilted my wife into reading it some time ago. My cousin Brad commented that he's a reader. Now, my wife's good friend informed me that she's read it as well.
I don't know that any of these are regular readers, but I guess that doesn't matter. I'm not a regular poster.
What does matter, and this is totally awesome, is that I'm up to three readers in only ten months. At that rate, I'll be able to sell this blog for a million dollars in only — let's see, if I figure in inflation and allow for a geometric growth pattern, and provided that this particular medium doesn't become obsolete before then — about three-million years! I'll start planning now how to use the proceeds.
At that time in the future, that may be just enough to buy two new tubes for the neo-bike that I'll own in my artificially extended old age.
Thanks to anyone who is reading my random thoughts. It's nice to know that I'm not just talking to myself.

Miss You

I find the song somewhat annoying, but it sums up my feelings towards my bikes right now: I miss them. Sure, they're stabled safely in my garage. Sure, I can look at them anytime I want. Sure, I lust after new ones occasionally. Sure, I bought new clothes and shoes to ride them on Black Friday. But, I still miss my bikes. I've not felt my feet lock into ht pedals for weeks. I've not felt the press of the saddle against my saddle for far too long. My hands are forgetting the feel of fresh bar wrap clenched loosely in my grasp. I've not felt the burning in my quads since I climbed Mueller Park. Oh, the things I miss.
I can blame it on heavy commitments at work. I can blame it on family responsibilities. I can blame it on stress of keeping our local Scout Troop running, I can blame it on cold weather. I can blame it on most anything I can dream up; but the fact remains that I've not ridden for far too long, and the dark, cold winter is about to descend upon us, heralding the end of outdoor biking until February.
"Ooh, I miss you."
It's the time of year a fellow dreams of building a new bike up with hand-picked components. It's when I should be thinking about snow skiing as a great cross-training activity, but there's no snow. It's time of year to accept that I'm one of those guys who gets fat in Winter, then tries to shrug it off and go the distance in St. George in February, only to come limping back home.
Maybe I can figure out how to work some home exercises into my schedule. Maybe I can decide if I want to replace my broken indoor trainer. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe I just accept my place in the back of the pack, and take the Winter off. So many choices.
Only the next few months will hold the real answers.
Happy Hibernation to all!