21 April 2011 - 7:50Part III, or, Return of the Jedi

Sorry, I had to throw a Star Wars reference in there. And for any of you wondering if I meant Part VI, the answer is no. I mean part III. Because, while entertaining, I do not officially recognize the pre-quels as part of the saga. Sure the story line might make sense in the grand scheme of things, but it isn’t the same look and feel. Different movies, different story. Just saying.

But I digress.

So what am I trying to say? Oh, yes, I was talking about returning my Jedi-like bicycles back to their original working order. See, SSAP did a number on a couple of key components, such as brakes, and I didn’t have just one bike there, no. I had 3. Which means thrice the cleansing!

For some reason, the bikes seemed to have held up relatively OK. Headsets, hubs and BBs seemed unaffected, no gritty rumbling bearing noises there, but it was the brake pads that were smoked, right down to the butterfly springs on some. I have XX brakes on all of my bikes, and the stock pads use an organic compound that is grabby, but wears pretty fast in inclement conditions, such as the ones encountered on Sunday.

Looking at how stuff wore, makes me think I might need a few caliper rebuilds while I am at it.

Meh.

Anyway, there actually is a moral to all of this.

In case you were so dazzled at how good I looked while riding my bike through hub deep puddles, you might have noticed I was running my bike fully rigid. That’s right. And I actually found that I liked it. I also feel that this may have saved me from crashing into the ground at high rates of speed on more than one occasion.

Back in the day, I used to ride my BMX bike in the woods, which was a defacto rigid singlespeed. I rode it in the rain, in a box, on a car, or on a train. I used to love to ride that bike, I used to ride it where I like.

I had a mini epiphany on Sunday. I can still do this. I can ride a rigid singlespeed in the woods. Me and the bike. Maybe I won’t be as fast in some sections, maybe I’ll be faster in others. We’l have to see…

No suspension.

No gears.

Nothing to go wrong or not work.

I am going to change my gear up to an easier one though….