periodic maintenance

So the bike had a clunk in the rear when setting it down. Hmm. Yikes that rear hub has a ton of play in it. Damn. Well the drive side lock nuts have loosened up in the 6-10k miles since i've overhauled it last.

So i'm worrying about pitting on the races and all that.

Get it apart tonight. Races are in brilliant shape. Get it nice and smooth and perfect and put it back on. Lube and clean the chain with EVerLub clean up the chain rings.

And then, i noticed. WTF. Clunk clunk clunk. The freaking bottom bracket now? clunk clunk clunk. Flipping heck. Seriously? Pull the non-drive side crank off thinking maybe the cup is loose.

Nope.

it is the bearings. Nice gorgeous smooth wonderful Dura Ace 7410 square taper cartridge, still spinning smoothly, but damn that's some bad play. Crap. Looser than the seat post chunk in Helicopter Matt's frame. At least it isn't as loud.

Oh well it can't screw anything up for a bit. The chain rings aren't close enough yet to brushing the stays.

Start with one thing and discover another.

Solve one problem and realize a bigger one.

I tend to try and delude myself into thinking stuff will last forever. Run stuff till it breaks. Push the limits. Being a big tall dude hasn't helped much. And riding stuff year round in salt and snow and rain, going from 15° outside to 68° inside ensuring a good coating of water on the dried salt crust daily.

I can't expect it to last forever. But I'm too broke to proactively fix it. Not poor. Just broke. Working on getting un-broke. Working on turning it around, working on making it work. But damn it is a big ship, this stuff don't turn on a dime. And i'd rather save the bike budget for racing cross and use beat up old components that weren't even new in 1999. Oh well.

Hey there's one i found using the only (best) search engine: $61.61 Hey not a bad price right? Well no not too bad but that is a non-verge weekend. Well it was, hopefully DDrake hasn't screwed all of bike racing with his 'hike the entry fee because they will come regardless of price'.

It has been pretty frustrating. Sort of like once I woke up from the Brewery party in Bend saturday night and everything started to go pear shaped. First the nicest gal racing in New England rolled a tire and came walking into the pits with tears and then JP pits and never gets back up to Timmie (not that TJ winning was a bad thing, but mind you I'm solidly in the Planet Bike camp and traveling with G-Ride and Skinny, two of the hardest hard core Page fans/friends, well you get the picture). Head to a party down a road on solid ice in a rental w/o winter tires, hit a party then have to physically restrain one of the hardest hard core core strength training pro trainers out there and drive him out to the boonies wake up after 2 hours of sleep and drive Skinny to get a ride to the airport and then clean the cabin and barely get G-ride to the airport, proceeding to drive away with his glasses necessitating a return trip to the terminal where he comes out to collect them eventually after dealing with the biggest ticket counter bitch in the world.

And then it has been one fire to put out after another, both figuratively and literally. Mortgage refi that took and extra 3 weeks longer than expect for unclear reasons. Appraisal that came in 30k lower than it should have, that eventually worked out. And I'm sure all this mess will work out.

It has to. I have to have faith that it will. It is rational to think it will. Just a matter of when.

And then come fall, what will we do for a second vehicle. Or am I going to have to rely on the kindness of team mates and friends to get me to cross races. And why am i worrying about that now? We still haven't gotten the settlement check from the insurance for the car, we've got paperwork nearly completing the claim - all that is left is for them to cut the check.

Once that comes through I can get the tandem and move forward.

Yeah. Taking car $ and buying a tandem bike. Might go with the KHS instead of the Trek, but just checking, it isn't as small in the back and I'm going to need the fit of the Trek to make it work for the oldest.

Oh the Giant isn't the only working bike. Nope, I put the Croll together with some shit tires on the trainer. Worn out full of cuts, they wouldn't make it through the first bombing range of shell fragments. It's for the non-commute days so i can get my 15 minutes of trainer time in this month. Every day.

Okay

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