OK, she is done. Sadly I can not ride her yet
I ran into three issues. I have also had a lot of life going on lately, so I did them without posting anything. I just have not had the time.
OK, issue one. I fitted the cranks (they are stunning).
Amazing tbh. I am so happy with those I could have cried when I stepped back to take a look. As I mentioned though I have been life busy. Basically the mattress I bought 11 months ago SUCKED. My arthritis is getting worse and yeah, I could not sleep for more than two hours at my flat (home) without waking up in pain. So, I dropped a borrock and bought this.
A Simba. It was currently loading in that pic. It is incredible. I have never slept this well in the 6 years I have lived here.
OK, so back to the bike. Day one of fitting the cranks I attempted to tune the gears. Note attempted. After three hours I was getting very angry. Firstly the chain kept jumping off the gears for no apparent reason. I figured I would try and ignore that part and at least get the gears tuned. I could not, no matter how much I peed around, get it to go into the lowest gear (the highest biggest one). At this point I was moments away from smashing it up so I contacted a bike shop. I wasted an hour exchanging messages with them about getting them to do it, then they ghosted me. Ahhh, modern life eh. People are weird.
The next day I decided to have at least one more try before giving up. Firstly I realised that it was the chain itself that was causing the jumping. Note, jumping off the jockey wheels, not skipping. This turned out to be the joining link. It moved beautifully but yeah, the derailieur did NOT like it.
Thankfully I had another chain. I put that on (silver) and immediately it stopped jumping at the link. I then spent about an hour trying to get the bugger to go into 7th. No matter how tight I tried to pull the cable by hand it would not make it that far. After about two hours I realised it was not the back end causing the issue. It was the shifter. They come assembled with a cable in, and for some reason some douche bag had wound it all the way out. Meaning you could not put any more tension on it.
As soon as I would it in, then pulled the cable tight at the back, and then adjusted?
We had all the gears, as smooth as butter. Amazing. I now know how to tune gears.
Any way, I celebrated by pumping up the tyres. I had no time to ride, but the bike was done. I thought.
Two days later I had some more time to go back and appreciate my work. Only to find the bike would not roll. See, the tyres (when inflated but not before) were both jamming in the brakes. FFS.
At first I thought it was just the rear tyre, so I bought one of these.
I then went back in and realised the front tyre was doing it too. So I ordered another. I got them both on on Friday. It now rolls beautifully. They are 25c btw, not 28. The good thing is that the other bike accepts 28c tyres. So I will never need to buy a new front tyre again
They are light weight and they were cheap at 17 quid each. So I can live with that. OK, so now with the tyres inflated I could finally get up and sit on the bike. It was at this point I realised the seat could not be lowered, and it was too high. This is a combination of the post (as you will see) and the fact that this frame is larger than my other bikes. It is a medium, not a small. As such the seat tube is taller and my feet won't reach the pedals at the lowest point
But yeah, she is done. BTW you will notice that I managed to source a gold Hope seat clamp from a pal for a fiver. It was QR, but I swapped the lever with a Hope bolt from a black one I had on a BMX that is now in bits. I have ordered a new post.
I should then finally be able to ride it, and I will be honest I can't effing wait
