why the blog?

Well, I started this up to give myself a place to write about bicycles, politics, good food, crazy machines I'v seen, what my crazy dog is up to,ect without bugging folks w/ crazy long, often rambling emails, and so that I could put in some pictures, which I can't do on the bicycle email list, nor do I have a photo site like flicker to reference to when I do want to put up a shot, and also my non-bicycling friends can look it up and see what I been doing whenever they want, again w/out the bother of email.

For example, here's a shot of my neighbors bike. oops, it's not exactly where I wanted it, but I'm learning still...

Anyway, I fixed it for her. No not fixed-gear, I guess I should say repaired it.

She had a blown-out freehub, and the shop she took it told her it wasn't worth fixing , just buy a new bike.

WTF! If it wasn't worth fixing why did they sell it to her in the first place?

She saw my repair stand, and all the bike junk in my garage and asked did I know anything about bikes and would I take a look at it?

You bet! That's what neighbors are for, helpin' each other out!

It was pretty clean and hardly any miles on it, how can that be "not worth fixing"?

I popped it into the stand and started working the gears(thats what she said was wrong). OOO, bad freewheel, then I found it was a cheapo freehub.

A trip down to the LBS and  and a cheap freewheel and wheel, a strip of good rim tape, and a tune-up(if you call turning the barrel adjusters once and r-setting the rr der set screws a tune-up?). A wipe down to get the dust off, snug up the BB a quarter turn, and tighten 2 spokes on the ft wheel by a turn or two. BAM!

She's ready to roll again. Way less than a hundred bucks on a $300 bike that's probably 10 years old? Not bad if you ask me. It's not some high zoot, ultra-light work of modern technology or anything, but it has two wheels and pedals and I like doing little stuff like that for folks. Besides I'll probably get a sixer of Shiner Bock out of it, if not a few bucks for my effort(probably way less than hour, I just spread it out over a few days).

Anyway, that's the kinda stuff I figure this blog thing is great for.