Bike maintenance - it never ends.

[rebeccmeister]

Monday morning, as I prepared to rush out the door for a morning meeting, I discovered that the Jolly Roger had a flat front tire, so I parked it and took Froinlavin instead. I spent some time Monday evening and again yesterday fossicking with the tube and finally found a pinhole. Hopefully the only one. After I located the pinhole, I went back to the tire to see if I could determine the cause, and found that the tire was full of tiny lacerations, all filled with sand and rocks. Time for a new front tire.

I also did some saddle-swapping this morning because a package from Nashbar finally showed up. A new Selle Royal went on Froinlavin. It's wider than I had expected, probably because of how annoyingly frustrating it is to shop for saddles online - every place I checked listed different dimensions for the two models of Respiro saddles ("Athletic" vs. "Moderate") and it took a while for me to determine that while the "Athletic" is unisex, the "Moderate" isn't. Well, saddle-shopping can get frustrating, period, even when you can go to a shop and examine things in person. I just got lucky that this particularly fairly inexpensive model that's full of gel cushion seems to work well with my posterior.

Then I moved the second-newest Selle Royal over to the Jolly Roger, which was a slight project because I bashed the tops of the seat bolts while trying to get the seatpost unstuck. I really need to get that seatpost off the bike. Penetrating oil, hammering, and boiling water haven't done anything. I think it's going to be time for a blow torch and pipe wrench pretty soon.

I'm still contemplating options for the Jolly Roger basket replacement, and the Novara pannier replacement/fix. I could upgrade the Novara thing with a better piece of backing, if I knew where to get one, and an Arkel Cam-Lock hook kit. Or, you know, spend about twice as much for something that might last a lot longer, and avoid having to fiddle with the project.

Along those lines, it might make the most sense to just bite the bullet and get a handlebar bag that's functional for randonneuring AND everyday use on the Jolly Roger.

These two items are things that require a decent amount of research. More than anything, I just want items that will be functional and last forever, like the Overland panniers and the cooler-pannier, so I can spend more time smugly riding and less time shopping.

Comments

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

What's the frame material on the JR? I'm trying to think of other approaches to getting that seatpost out.
Dipping it in liquid nitrogen certainly seems attractive.
Or, less enthusiastically, getting some dry ice from the local King Soopers and making an isopropyl alcohol/dry ice bath and dipping it in there.
I've had luck with dripping some ammonia onto the interface, as well, if it's aluminum seatpost with steel frame.

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

Extracting the aluminum quill from the steel steerer tube on the Gios took penetrating oil and a custom-built press that pushed against the upper headset lockring, which I'd replaced with a steel one because the aluminum one mooshed under the pressure. I also bent a piece of 3/8" thick aluminum plate. Galvanic corrosion is really amazing.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

Man, it's tempting to get some liquid nitrogen, for, uhh, research? ;-)

The JR is steel, with an aluminum/composite seatpost that can go in a garbage can, for all I care (although maybe I should have a replacement on hand).

I should try the ammonia method, too, while I'm at it.

I suspect I won't have time to tackle the project again for a little while yet, argdarnit. Too much to dooooo...

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

If you have a reasonable chunk of time, pull the BB and dump some PB Blaster up the seat tube from the bottom, too.

[rebeccmeister.livejournal.com]

You know, I should probably just bite the bullet and make time. I've also been hearing a lot of scraping, indicative of an unhappy bearing somewhere between the pedals and bottom bracket, so I could pull the bottom bracket and then just go ahead and replace it. What was I saying about bike maintenance being neverending? ;-)

I guess the main issue is figuring out whether I can go back to sneaking Froinlavin in to work every day, for the sake of buying myself a couple of days or weeks to do some thorough work on the Jolly Roger.