Tuesday, October 06, 2009

Back on Fixed

Yesterday was my first ride on fixed gear since the disintegration of the rear hub bearing on my Voodoo Dambala in the spring. It went surprisingly smoothly; I don’t seem to have picked up too many pernicious coasting habits since April. The saddle needs to go up a little and I think I may raise the gearing from 42 x 17 to 42 x 16. The Dambala came into service last year after the discovery of a crack in the head tube of my Kuwahara (a touring bike set up as a fixed gear.) In the early spring the rear hub bearing fell to pieces and I started commuting on the Marinoni. I think the ability to change gears made my commute a little faster but I’m not sure it improved my fitness any. I was forced to actually get something done by a horrifying discovery about the front wheel of the Marinoni. Last week I noticed the braking feeling a bit grabby and by Friday it was really, really grabby. I took off the front wheel to have a look and discovered that the rim was beginning to split along the brake track. So one bike is back in service and another is out. I really need to get more than one bike going at one time.

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