Michael R. Head ([info]suppressingfire) wrote,
@ 2008-12-02 11:47:00
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Current location:HAW
Current mood: hungry
Entry tags:cycling, personal

Converting chemical energy into mechanical energy
I finally got around to biking to work again today.

I foolishly thought I would save time by taking my bike to the shop to get a tune up. Sadly, the owner of the shop decided to take an unannounced vacation from the store and left me without the bike for two weeks. Worse, while he did a satisfactory job replacing the brake pads, the derailleurs aren't tuned quite as tight before, leading to gear slippage and even chain drop.

Still, it's working satisfactorily enough to get me back and forth to work. Even better, I've brought my on-road time down to about 30 minutes for the 3 mile ride. The weather was nice today, probably around 40 when I set out. My ski thermals, padded bike shorts, long sleeved shirt I got at SC08, fleece, ear muffs and gloves kept me warm enough once I got my internal temperature up on the initial ~300' climb.


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[info]yehoshua
2008-12-02 08:39 pm UTC (link)
the derailleurs aren't tuned quite as tight before, leading to gear slippage and even chain drop.

If you have a little twisty knob on one or both ends of the derailleur cable, near the shifter or near the derailleur itself, you can use that to fine-tune the shifting yourself without tools. If it's not too far out of whack, this is the preferred method, since grabbing a handful of wire with a 4th-hand is usually a pretty coarse adjustment.

Sheldon Brown a''h has a photo of the brake adjustment version here., and the one for the shifters should look similar (although mine are knobby and made of plastic).

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[info]suppressingfire
2008-12-02 08:48 pm UTC (link)
Cool. There are a couple places where I know I can apply a screwdriver to improve the situation, but I was hoping it would just be done and I'd be able to make perfectly smooth shifts, particularly since I have a few critical transitions to/from bike path to 50mph highway where I need to be able to up and downshift rapidly and precisely. Now it looks like I'll have to ride for a bit, make a minor adjustment, ride a bit more, adjust a bit more...

Oh well, so much for the "service economy."

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