Cracking Up

It’s “Bike To Work” season once again, and while the idea of riding a bicycle is confusing and frightening to most people, fortunately there’s local news to ease them into the concept:

It’s a good thing they explained that riding a bike to work is more than just cycling around town, because too many potential bicycle commuters just get on a bike, cycle around town, and then give up because they never randomly wound up at work. Hopefully this year more people will get on bikes and make the mental leap that they actually need to ride them towards their workplaces. I look forward to their next helpful article, “Why Making A Tuna Sandwich is More Than Just Staring at a Can and Some Bread.”

Meanwhile, when you last heard from me, I’d opened up my new-to-me wheel like a can of tuna in the office kitchen, much to the chagrin of your coworkers:

Which I had been hesitant to do lest I completely destroy the cracked-and-now-scarce preload adjustment thingy:

Well, the preload adjuster thingy did survive. However, in Greek myth there’s the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. The moral of this tale is that, uh, you should never fly too close to the sun, or something. And sadly I flew too close to the sun when I then moved on to the front wheel and the cracked preload adjuster thingy crumbled like any number of obvious similes, including but not limited to:

A cookie
A yellowed piece of paper with your great-grandmother’s cookie recipe written on it
The now-unrealized hopes and dreams of my youth

Though in retrospect it’s a good thing this happened, because it made me realize how stupid I’d been to be riding around on a pair of wheels with cracked preload adjuster thingies. I mean they were barely holding on, and I now realize that if one or both had fallen apart while I was riding the result could have been very unpleasant indeed. (Without the bearing preloaders the wheel can definitely shift enough on the axle for things to get ugly.) Speaking of which, I’d like to compliment Campagnolo on the shrewd decision to make an important piece of hub hardware like this out of plastic, because I’m sure it saved them a few Euro-cents per wheel that was better spent on stupid decals that say PROTON on them.

In any case, Campagnolo used this part across many hubs and wheels in the past, including on the Record and Chorus hubs, where it is made from metal:

[I’m 73% sure this is interchangeable with the broken ones on my wheels.]

Alas, these are now very difficult to find by themselves, though it seemed a shame to retire a pair of otherwise perfectly good wheels (their paucity of spokes notwithstanding) for want of such a simple part. Until now my efforts to source replacements had been unsuccessful (I’d been looking ever since I first got the bike), so I was very close to buying a pair of used pair of hubs just for parts when it hit me:

Of course! How could I not think of Ben’s Cycle? There’s a banner right here on this blog for chrissakes!

So I emailed Drew at Ben’s, who graciously took the time out of his busy day to locate a small part so a desperate bike dork could keep a pair of 20 year-old wheels rolling (assuming they fit, which again, I’m 73% sure that they will):

[Photo: Drew from Ben’s]

As for the EAI motherlode, a lot of it is listed on eBay, and it’s quite astonishing:

But you won’t find highly specific stuff like what I was looking for that way, and if you’re looking for stuff like that too you should reach out to them directly.

Anyway, I really hope these new metal preload adjuster thingies do fit, because if they don’t I’m going to have to build a bike around them, and that’s going to be expensive.

So yes, keeping an older bike running can sometimes require you to be resourceful–as does keeping your toilet clear:

A reader by the name of Ben (what’s with so many Bens coming to my rescue these days?) shared this video with me, and I now have a favorite YouTuber. I also have a great product idea for Silca, and it’s a plunger that mounts like a frame pump:

This just goes to show that AI will never truly take over, because The Algorithm just serves me crap like this:

Whereas it took an actual human being who reads my blog to alert me to content I find genuinely compelling:

By the way, if you think riding around with plumbing supplies strapped to your bike looks funny, this guy says, “Hold my plunger!”

Remember how BikeRadar said if you buy a gravel bike that doesn’t have clearance for at least 50mm tires you’re an idiot? Well it turns out you don’t need 50mm tires after all:

The Festka Spectre Gravel shows a fast gravel bike doesn’t need 50mm+ tyres. Amazingly low weight and finessed handling make this Czech superbike frighteningly quick everywhere.

Provided of course the bike costs over Eighteen Thousand American Fun Tickets™:

I haven’t experienced many race-ready lightweight gravel bikes that are this versatile and this much fun to ride. However, it comes at a price very few will be able to afford. This fully custom bike would cost £13,900 / $18,553 / €16,900, including the preliminary consultation and full bike-fitting service.

I wonder if that preliminary consultation involves helping you pick out a clown shirt: