nothing lasts forever, take 576

The commuter bike needed some loving so I dropped it off with John of Cohasset Cycles who does a nice job of breathing some life into an old rig. The commuter bike is long in the tooth, north of 40,000 miles on the frame. Not one of them easy.

Some bikes are for showing. Others are for pleasure. The commuter bike is a nasty machine that gets me from home to work. That's its job and it earns its keep.

Some of the parts were beyond sketchy so John had his way with it. Replaced a spoke, trued the wheels, replaced the chain, the cassette, then he turned to the drive train. When I went for a test drive, the chain was getting caught up on the take up side, on the big ring.

We tried everything from shortening the chain to tightening the derailleur. Nothing worked. that's when we reckoned the crank set was shot. It was bending when I was leaning on it. Not good.

A quick trip to my garage and I unearthed a Shimano crank that came on the Trek 5200 back in the day. It had a decent amount of miles on it, but we had to try.

It worked. Now, my eight-year-old commuter with lots of miles feels like a frisky, new bike. I rolled it from home to work and it felt like butter.

I hate to be a materialistic person, but I love it when my stuff works. There's nothing worse than hopping aboard a jukey jivey bike that you just know is going to die at the worst possible moment. 

If you're still reading, well, you're tired of rearranging the sock drawer or maybe just maybe you like bicycles. So I'll inform you I also got the Trek 5200 shined up. New bar tape, brake pads, chain and cassette. It feels good. Not good as new, but better than klickety klackety damn diggity this thing just expired.

Hope all is well with you.