Reality catches up...

As I said in my last post (I think it was my last post, anyway...), my chain tensioner on the SST bit it last week. I also, way back in February, predicted the demise of the cheapo Nashbar tensioner, but that's not the point. The point is that last night I ordered a snazzy new Surly Singleator to revive my rig. Thanks to the miracle of ebay, I scored one for $31. Not too shabby. Hopefully the thing I ordered is actually what I'm expecting, but we'll have to wait a few days to see. If, in fact, a Singleator actually turns up at my door, and also includes the "pushing up" spring, I'll be able to rig up a much smoother, more stable drivetrain than what I was running before. The shorter chain I've got going wraps at least twice as far around the cog as it used to (before the link removal last week) and so the bike is pedalling significantly more smoothly. Remember the idea of building a singlespeed on the cheap? Yeah, me too. And soon I'm going to need to buy a wheelset for it...

Thanksgiving is coming up, so it'll be a short work week. I'm travelling with my Kona for Turkey Day, so hopefully I'll get some good, fun riding in towards the end of the week. The life of JZ has been somewhat, uh, confused lately, so I'm looking forward to four days of family, food, riding, hopefully some surfing, and most importantly, no work.

And in other news... At last, a comment on my blog that's not from a machine! How exciting! Anyway, I've received a gentle reminder that the "mission statement" (ha!) of this blog includes consideration of stuff other than bikes... Right. I had forgotten. No, that's not true. I've not forgotten, but I definitely have not motivated to write about much else. I'll get on that soon...

Finally, anyone want to donate a digital camera to The Cycle? It sure would spice up the content here...

Cheap crap...

This past weekend I thought it would be a good idea to take a link out of the chain on my singlespeed. I've been having problems with the chain skipping and it looked like the chain wasn't grabbing enough teeth on the rear cog. The other reason for this project is that I can't leave well enough along. Anyway, seems simple enough, right? Just take a link out of the chain and off we go. Not so easy, as it turns out.

Shortening the chain meant I needed to fiddle with the spring on the chain tensioner. Since I've been using a cheap NASHBAR tensioner that came with no information on spring adjustments, I was working somewhat blindly. Well, let's just say that I'm really lucky that my newly shortened chain fits perfectly with my 36-16 chainring-cog setup with no tensioner needed. At least for now. In trying to adjust the chain tensioner I managed to totally break it such that it exerts no pressure on the chain. Great. For now, and at least as long as it takes for the drivetrain to wear further, I'm running no tensioner. It actually feels really nice, somehow crisper to ride. Unfortunately, as the parts wear it'll start to get sloppy and I'll have to throw a new tensioner on there. This time I think I'll lay out for a Surly Singleator, not least because they provide much better tech support for their products than our friends at NASHBAR.

Just made it

I rode in to work today just as the rain was arriving... I could see the gray line slowly approaching as I travelled North Main St. But now I'm here and hopefully it'll stop raining by the time I leave.

There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad gear. I think jeans count as bad gear... that's why I'm lucky today.

As I walked into the office, one of my co-workers saw me with my bike and said "You're brave today!" My response was something along the lines of "Yeah, well, we'll see what happens later... hopefully it won't rain all day..." I'm so clever and erudite early in the morning. Upon further reflection, I think I'm brave every day I ride my bike to work. So there was a little sprinkle of rain today. Whatever. It's water. Otherwise it was a really easy ride. Traffic was light, nobody cut me off or honked at me, I made all the traffic lights. But most days are not like this. I would estimate that people in cars do stupid things near me on about 90% of my trips. Bravery is not riding quickly to dodge an approaching rain storm. Bravery is getting back on the bike every single day, knowing that there's a strong chance that I'll have to use my skills to compensate for the ignorance, obliviousness, stupidity, or even downright negligence of my car-bound fellow commuters. And who knew being brave could be so much fun?!

I do not believe that we, as cyclists, will ever win the battle to convince automobilists that we have a place on the roads. There's just too many of them, they're just too fat, and the car centered world view is just too deeply ingrained in their collective psyches. But we have to keep trying...

But seriously, I hope it stops raining by 3...