Saturday, June 26, 2010

Wannabe mechanic

I'm good with my hands, but have never really worked on bikes until I got a hold of the trike. The closest thing I've come to being a mechanic on my trike so far is adjusting the brakes, which is nothing to brag about at this point. It seems that I've managed to undo all the work I've done. Perhaps I'm not adjusting the right bolts or aren't tightening them well enough. The brakes seem to always need adjusting and readjusting. Maybe it's time to take a class. Mike's Bikes offers free ones every so often.

To avoid further bills and confrontations with the mean boss trying to avoid my business at Nomad Cyclery, I've been reading up on how to remove the crank arms myself. I've searched on the best thing since Napster, Youtube! There's plenty of good info on there. The Park Tool website has also been very helpful. Since it's in the company's best interest to teach people how to use the tools so they can better sell them and convince customers to buy them, you can bet the content is more than sufficient.

I tried the tools for the first time this evening and came to a snag. I'm just too concerned about crossthreading or doing the wrong thing and breaking something. After revisiting youtube a few times more, I finally got it. The crank arms came off and then back on.

Can't wait until next week when the crank arms come in the mail.

0 comments:

Post a Comment