Bicycle Diaries

Teach a man to fish

Thursday May 10, 2012

For the cost of a spoke repair, I bought a cassette lockring tool and a chain whip at Performance Bicycle.

After witnessing 4 spokes being replaced on the back wheel, I had a good idea as to how to go about doing it myself. This afternoon it was time to tackle the spoke repair and it was quite easy with the right tools. The wheel wasn’t that much out of true, so when I tightened the new spoke there was no wobble to be seen.

Next up was to figure out why I was getting flat tires on the rear wheel. After careful inspection I found a piece of steel, the size of a bristle from a BBQ cleaning brush. Who knows how long it had been lodged into the rear tire when it finally made it’s way to the inner tube as the rubber on the tire was worn down. Patched up the inner tube, and put the rear wheel back together.

All ride long I kept looking back at the rear wheel, hoping the patch kept air in the tire and no new spokes would break. Thankfully, Bert the bike mechanic did a decent job ;)

MTB: distance 21.90 miles, average speed 13.3 mph.

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