Sunday, February 22, 2009

Beater takes a beating

My winter beater/commuter is taking a beating over the past few months of riding to work everyday on the freezing, snowy, slushy, salty, wet roads. Friday, my rear wheel came loose and while trying to get it centered in the dropouts I snapped the quick release axle. D'oh!


Corrosion weakened the axle

Crusty and rusty.

I was getting sick of pushing the big winter knobby studs, so I threw some slicky-slicks on. With more snow this past weekend I may end up switching back.


Well, I'm too cheap to buy a new one, so I fixed it - and fixed it good. A little dremel work took care of it nicely. Only problem is I have to spin to work in the middle ring.

Greasy, messy 7 spd cassette single speed.

I'm hoping that I only need to get by on this piece of crap for another month or so before this arrives and is all built up to take over. The Fisty is going to be my all-around bike: commuter, long distance gravel bike and cx racer. Hopefully it will arrive soon - hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge! ; )

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope this damn snow and crap goes away soon.
My winter ride is living on the edge right now...

People don't realize how damaging the salt is.
Its pretty damn corrosive.
But, then again... why stop a good thing - people have to buy new vehicles every 4-5 years....
good for the economy.

Hey, where is my economic stimulus!
I'd sooner take a sex toy stimulus though... or a new bike!
They should have bail out bucks for us that bust our bannanas out there trying to do some good...
guess we aren't part of the economic equation though...
Unless we ride a bike of gold!
mmmmm.... a bike of gold.

Peter M said...

Dude, you need to come over to the fixed-gear single-speed world of winter commuting. Trust me, it's so much less hassle.

P

the original big ring said...

that would mean purchasing a new rear wheel . . . . hello? Would you put money into this bike!?!?!?
I didn't think so!
cheers