What have I been up to lately?
Remember that bicycle wheel I built?
Had to re-build it...
Honestly, I could not get that bent-up rim to roll straight. Laurie took Coral to the Okanagan on April 27th for the yearly Square Dance Festival and so Colin and I had the house to ourselves. I decided on a "guys day out" and took myself & son down to Our Community Bikes on Main st. downtown. They had a 27" aluminum rim for a reasonable price, and so I brought it home and re-re-built that back wheel. Turned out pretty well, considering I'm working with "homemade" and jerry-rigged tools.
Here's some pictures of the new bike; which I have named "Bender".
Turned out pretty well, eh?
Bender's story begins last October. I was going on an errand on the weekend, and noticed a bicycle stuck in the hedges in front of St. Cuthbert's church near our place in North Delta. I walked back and assesed the bike: obviously abandoned - missing a couple of cables, shifters and chain were rusted, and the rear wheel was completely trashed.
In the meantime, Freddy Fender suffered a catastrophic front tire failure.
Bender got most of Freddy's parts swapped directly from one frame to the other; although I did have to overhaul the rear derailleur. No carrier or rack on Bender yet...I have to figure out how to mount the new one I bought, and I don't want that grotty wire rack from Freddy.
What am I gonna do with all these spare bike frames?
One final note about Bender: it's fast, - scary fast, to be quite honest about it. Bender is at least 10-15 lbs lighter than my ATB; and although the sidepull calipers work just fine, I have to remember to use them a little earlier on than the center-pull brakes that were on Freddy. This ought to make things interesting when going down Nordel Way or the Alex Fraser bridge.
