Danielle Blog

Bicycle repair

So, I’m at home currently enjoying my glorious 3-day weekend. Betcha didn’t know (or maybe you did?) that today is Patriot’s Day here in the Boston area. Yup, today we honor the first shots of the Revolutionary War fired at Lexington and Concord by having a holiday where 20,000 people run from Hopkington into downtown Boston (a.k.a. the Boston Marathon).

Yeah, kinda strange.

But hey, I’ll take my 3-day weekends wherever I can get them.

Since I go into Boston every workday with a long commute, when I have a chance to Not Commute into the city, I take full advantage of it by Staying Home. So, you won’t see any pictures of the marathon from me, nope, not a chance.

So, how, perchance am I choosing to celebrate the holiday weekend?

Well, I tried to go for a bike ride (by myself, HB is in Mnpls) yesterday with plans to go again today.

TRIED being the key word in that sentence.

ugh. Did you notice the title?

Yesterday, I’m all geared up, ready to go, and I start by taking a warm-up lap around our subdivision. Just as I’m nearing the end of the circle and am about 10 houses away from ours and ready to go out the entry drive to the road, I stop to adjust the height of my bicycle seat. After adjusting it, suddenly my right rear brake pad is locking onto the rear wheel so hard that it is clearly going to stop me from going any further. Squeeze, release, squeeze, release. “What the heck?”

tweak, tweak, press around on the actual brake.

nothing. still stuck.

“grrrrrrrrrrrrreat. Now I have to go home.”

So, I walk all cock-eyed home, because I’m manually holding the brake pad away from the wheel rim. yup. This is NOT the way I planned to do my exercise for the day.

And, of course, the bike shop is closed at that point. And HB, my go-to-guy for bike repair is out on his own 4 hour biking trip (from Mnpls to St. Paul) and not answering his cell phone. *sigh*

Last night, after the sun went down and he was back from his ride, I was talking to him on the phone. He suggested that I look around online for how to fix the brakes. Well, first I tried to see if I could get it into my bike shop to be fixed (part of purchasing a bike there is free tune-ups for a year after purchase). But they are closed for the holiday too. I decided to try to do it myself.

As I read about brake repair, there are all these warnings about maybe needing an assistant for this step, or snapping the cables by over tightening, or having the bolts a bit loose and in an emergency, your brakes no longer work. EEEK!

rrrrrrrrrrrrrright, I start having visions of really screwing up my bike or myself in an emergency braking situation.

Then I get to a sentence about how a brake that may not seem centered could be due to an improperly aligned rear wheel.

AH-HA!

Because you see, just recently trying to get my bike in and out of the trainer, HB accidently released the rear wheel. hmmmmm….. “THIS could be it!” I think to myself.

So, I run downstairs and release the rear wheel, reseat it, and lock it in place.

TAH-DAH! brakes are centered and fixed!

Yay!

This means that I can now properly celebrate my extra day off by taking a bike ride, and doing a couple of other things (which will be photo worthy, if I actually do them, so stay tuned).

happiness reigns.