It’s been a good few years since I attempted any maintenance on a bike, other than pumping up the tyres. But on Saturday, I bit the bullet, and splashed out on some “proper” kit and did the deed.

From my “LBS” (Local Bike Shop) sold me some degreaser and chain lube, and Halfords (I know, I know) supplied me with a chain cleaner and a Park Tools gear cleaning tool. Pretty much everything worked well - the chain cleaner was a bit fiddly, but once I’d figured it out it did a fairly good job.

Then I set about adjusting my rear mech. Now - with my previous bike I had attempted this a number of times, with no real success. But it turns out I was missing 1 really important piece of information - at the point where the gear cable meets the derailleur there is a barrel adjuster. This is for adjusting the indexing (ie making sure that the gear lever (or in my case twist-shifter) selects the cog correctly). I wish I’d known this before - credit to Cycling Plus

So - now everything is working nicely. Happiness abounds, etc. Well - until the next rainy day, in which case it will probably need doing again….

mrBen

Not sure if I should be happy or sad about this result

43

[edit]Did this one too
87% Geek[/edit]

mrBen

Yup - it’s time for the seasonal sequel. We need to organise some dates for the party, so here are some suggestions. Essentially it’s probably going to need to be a Friday or Saturday night, and if we get too near Christmas itself, we’ll probably clash with work nights out, etc. So - please indicate in the comments which dates you can make from:

30th November
1st December
7th December
8th December
14th December
15th December

Looking forward to it already!

Updates:

• I’ve struck the 1st December due to a prior commitment - sorry
• Struck 30th November for work night out

mrBen

Contrary to what you might think, given recent postings, I haven’t bought a new bike (yet). But I have bought a new car! (Or rather, I will have bought it when they’ve finished putting it through it’s MOT). It’s a 52 plate Mazda 6 TS 2.0 turbodiesel estate - a “big” car in garnet red for those who prefer that kind of description. And it will, by my reckoning, be Thorp family car number 7 in 8 years. So here’s a little retrospective:

• Fiat Uno - nice little car given to us when we got married that unfortunately got hit by a lorry while parking on Kelvin Way about 2/3 weeks later, writing it off
• Nissan Micra - lovely little runabout that did a lot of good service and, despite virtually dying a couple of times, managed to get sold on to a guy at work and got a:
• Toyota Corolla - Heather’s Granddads old car, and the only automatic I’ve ever driven. Died suddenly one morning - wouldn’t start, and the garage declared it DoA.
• Rover 100 Kensington- Little red metro, basically. But it had remote central locking Sold it on to a friend.
• Rover 420Si - Bought by Heather’s Dad at a car auction and sold on to us. Probably my favourite car so far - big, powerful car that was nice to drive, with lots of electric doodads. PITA to park though. Sadly it failed it’s MOT shortly after Rover died, and the parts were not on the horizon for a good long time. Traded it in for:
• Renault Megane 1.4e - Done a reasonable job, but felt like a step down from the Rover for me. Getting a reasonable trade in value for:
• Mazda 6 2.0TD TS

Sadly the pick up has been delayed while they await a part, but hoping to have it by the weekend

mrBen

Well - the first 2 days of this week have been marred by chronic (and potentially expensive) forgetfulness viz

1. When cycling to the station on Monday, I forgot to zip up one of my jacket pockets. This became blinding obvious at the point when my mobile phone fell out and bounced along the road behind me. Luckily, other than some nasty chips in the plastics, it all seems to be working
2. Also on Monday, I got halfway through Finnieston when I realised I had forgotten my cycle lock. Which meant I had to cycle home and take the car to work instead.
3. I managed to leave my (1 month old) cycle helmet on the train when I got off at work yesterday. Sadly, it does not appear to be possible to get telephone numbers for train stations, and the lost property number is an answerphone for the central lost property for Scotland, in Queen Street, rather than the lost property office in Central. So far, it has not been returned, which could set me back £25 for a new one

So - not a good start to the week. Here’s hoping that, after Liverpool’s record-breaking 8-0 win last night, things are looking up.

mrBen

They include:

enjoying this years NaNoWriMo experience,
getting some Church work out of the way in record time,
having a stupidly large bar of chocolate,
listening to Boston in the office at a stupidly loud volume.

Sometimes life just works.

BigAl