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Last night, in anticipation of my upcoming ride with Kevin, I decided I needed to get my bike working better. As it was, I had use of about 5 of 21 gears. Now technically, there are 6 gear combinations that are not supposed to be used, according to the owner's manual, but that still left me with only 5 of 15 gears.
So, I set myself down with a screwdriver and the owner's manual opened to the page on derailleur adjustment. After attempting to follow the instructions in the book and just not being able to make sense of them, I finally just began to play. By really fidgeting with the screws and knobs, i was able to determine what each one did and how turning them would affect the bike. An hour later, I have full, reliable access to 10 gears, and I'm pretty sure I can get into the upper 5 if I need to. (Of course, I could get into the other 6 if I wanted to, but not supposed to be good for the bike to ride with the chain in extreme positions, so I don't.) I think I'll need to take a screwdriver along with me if we ride this Sunday, just so I can fine tune if I need to, but I think it should be in good enough shape for the next weekend.
Oh, and I also figured out that the diagrams and instructions in the manual were wrong. The bike model they pictured is just different enough from mine that what they pictured as Knob A was actually Bolt B, and the Knob I needed was in a completely different place altogether.
After fighting with the bike, I showered and cleaned most of the grease off of me, then drove down to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
devafall and tiggrrl's for a surprise Birthday drop-in for Misha. The original scheme was to drag him off to Gunther's for ice cream goodness, but due to the poor boy being rather crispy and well done from exposure to unseasonable Sunshine in Arcata, Tiggrrl and I decided to bring the ice cream to him. So we had yummy brownie sundaes and talked for a while and watched Eddie Izzard. It was a nice evening. Happy Birthday, Misha!
I forgot to bring my lunchbox to work with me today. I'm trying to be good and not just raid the vending machines for junk. So far, so good. Breakfast is a little 8 oz cup of cottage cheese. Lunch will probably be a cup o' noodles. Not the healthiest thing I could eat, but better than a bag of Cheetos.
And now, my reports have finished running, so it's back to work for me. Mope.
So, I set myself down with a screwdriver and the owner's manual opened to the page on derailleur adjustment. After attempting to follow the instructions in the book and just not being able to make sense of them, I finally just began to play. By really fidgeting with the screws and knobs, i was able to determine what each one did and how turning them would affect the bike. An hour later, I have full, reliable access to 10 gears, and I'm pretty sure I can get into the upper 5 if I need to. (Of course, I could get into the other 6 if I wanted to, but not supposed to be good for the bike to ride with the chain in extreme positions, so I don't.) I think I'll need to take a screwdriver along with me if we ride this Sunday, just so I can fine tune if I need to, but I think it should be in good enough shape for the next weekend.
Oh, and I also figured out that the diagrams and instructions in the manual were wrong. The bike model they pictured is just different enough from mine that what they pictured as Knob A was actually Bolt B, and the Knob I needed was in a completely different place altogether.
After fighting with the bike, I showered and cleaned most of the grease off of me, then drove down to
devafall and tiggrrl's for a surprise Birthday drop-in for Misha. The original scheme was to drag him off to Gunther's for ice cream goodness, but due to the poor boy being rather crispy and well done from exposure to unseasonable Sunshine in Arcata, Tiggrrl and I decided to bring the ice cream to him. So we had yummy brownie sundaes and talked for a while and watched Eddie Izzard. It was a nice evening. Happy Birthday, Misha!I forgot to bring my lunchbox to work with me today. I'm trying to be good and not just raid the vending machines for junk. So far, so good. Breakfast is a little 8 oz cup of cottage cheese. Lunch will probably be a cup o' noodles. Not the healthiest thing I could eat, but better than a bag of Cheetos.
And now, my reports have finished running, so it's back to work for me. Mope.
