Don’t assume I fix things… (Comments: 0)

…although I do. It’s a very liberating feeling to do simple repairs on a bike. Combined with the other freedoms the bicycle provides (no gas, no traffic jams — and that delicious feeling of moral superiority), it makes the entire cycling experience into a path of personal growth.

What has me rhapsodizing about my newfound human expansion? I now have 10 gears on my Motobecane! As I mentioned before, the lack of half my gears made my trip to Bristol much more challenging, leading to my eventual defeat on Emasculation Mountain. I decided while home for lunch today that it was time to regain at least a portion of my virility, and thus with wrench and screwdriver in hand, I donned my cap and headed into the street to figure out the !@$%$& derailleur.

Turns out that one benefit of friction shifting, as the brilliant Dave Moulton recently discussed, is that it’s simple. You don’t need to actually, er, know anything to fix the beast. I took a look at the important bit while jiggling the index lever to see what moved what, then increased the tension on the appropriate cable and adjusted what appeared to be the correct screw. Once up the street told me that I now had my granny gears (huzzah!) but no top gears anymore (oy!). So it was back to the screws. Another trip and I was shifting smoothly through all ten gears as nice as you please.

You still shouldn’t assume I fix things. But I’m getting better.

Now it’s time to go back to Emasculation Mountain. And this time…

…I’ll probably still be walking my bike up. You can’t fix quads with a screwdriver.

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