Cups, cones, and things.

Well, yesterday afternoon I decided to be a responsible bicycle owner. So I gave the Jolly Roger a thorough cleaning, probably one of the most thorough cleanings the bike has gotten in the past two years or so. It suddenly became apparent that my rear cassette is made of metal, for instance (actually, it's in pretty good shape, thanks to a lot of so-so cleanings), and that a lot of the black gunk on the frame was removable. Amazing!

However, this morning on my way to crew practice, I started to hear a most unfortunate grinding and popping noise coming from my rear wheel. A quick disassembly has revealed that I'm probably going to have to repeat the several hours of work required to overhaul my rear hub again, because the cones that I worked so hard to track down and replace a couple of months ago are already pitted. Oh, plus the cups, from the look of things. Hmm.

*grumble*

Mostly, this is inconvenient because it means I have to ride my other bicycle around. It also means tracking down tools and parts, which is, of course, also inconvenient. And it's going to cost money to replace things.

Yargh. This is not a good way to start the week.

On the other hand, it was awesome to row this morning, especially because we now have a pretty new light rail bridge to row underneath. It lights up and changes colors periodically. Shiny!

Cups, cones, and things: Update

Well, I went over to Domenic's, and one of the awesome employees there (aside: they seem to have a mix of extremely awesome employees with a few a**holes) helped me reason through the situation, taking time, money, tool access, and expertise into consideration. The end result is that the Jolly Roger now has a brand-new rear wheel and my pocketbook is $50 lighter. But compared to how expensive car breakdowns can get (and how much time they can take), I'm not complaining. Besides, now I have an old, busted wheel, which could be useful for:

-spare crap emergency wheel
-artwork
-wheel-building practice
-giant frisbee