Notes from the shop

Last night, my resident bike mechanic worked on my single speed.

My single speed was this, but is evolving all the time. The first modification was to chop the handle bars. B had to take it to the shop for that. They are straight bars and they are now no wider than my shoulders (the better to fit through small spaces, my dear.)

Next, I wanted better pedals. Bigger, flatter, pedals mean you can wear more different kinds of shoes without sacrificing efficiency or comfort (Yay, we can wear flip-flops and ride our bikes! 'Safety first!').

And this is when things got tricky.

B found these pancake-sized pedals that will be awesome. (You feel like Alice in Wonderland when you pick them up, they are so large.) Unfortunately, when he went to put them on, it quickly became clear that I also needed new crank arms (the things the pedals attach to) and a bottom bracket (where the crank arms attach) because the style that came with the bike was incompatible with any upgrade. My no-frills bike was too frill-less as it came with one-piece, or "Ashtabula-style," crank arms. And it would seem that the conversion is no simple thing. B has been trying new combinations of parts (including swapping some with his current fixed-gear bike). Some of this requires special ordering from local shops of odd-sized parts. And much calculating, a bit of guessing, and a little bit of luck.

Last night he removed the stock crank arm set-up. Intermittently, as he worked, he'd pop up and go to the white board and write down numbers. He was recording the weight of the various parts. Once all the numbers had been crunched, he gleefully announced that the new bottom bracket/crank arms/pedals weighed half of what the previous set-up weighed. In other words, nearly a pound and a half less than what came on the bike.

Even I might notice that. (Although once I get the fenders and rack, on down the road, I'll be adding more than that back on!)

So the bike is not quite ready to go. Needs further tweaking -- including a smaller chain ring on the front so my knees won't explode when I go uphill -- but we are very close now. Soon, I'll be tooling around the neighborhood on my new pancake pedals.

The bike does not yet have a name. I probably need to go on a vision quest or something to learn its name. You can't force these things.

And where was I while B labored to perfect my ride? I was nearby, keeping him company, working on my own household project: making new throw pillow covers. (The rosa mexicano pair are finished.)