Cancel That Order

Yesterday I placed an order for a case of industrial strength Turmoil (TM), imported fresh-direct from the Middle East. After this morning's ride I'm going to cancel that order. Dropped the seat, made sure it was centered, and everything back to normal. While it might be early yet to proclaim victory there seems to be a 1-to-1 correlation between a higher saddle and various aches and pains.

Speaking of "fresh-direct" why do we seem to need to make up new words, slaughter old words, and hyphenate 2 ordinary words in an effort to make more of an impact? Frankly I find it fresh-annoying. I don't know who used the expression "fresh-direct" but I hope they go under soon. Whatever happened to "Choosy Moms Choose Jiff" or "Hamburger helper helps your hamburger make a great meal."?

Ok maybe that's a bit verbose. What about the directness of the Kool-Aid slogan? Oooooooooooh Yeeeeeeeeah!!! Good stuff, which is probably why our generation's teeth are all rotten now.

I was worried yesterday I might have tendinitis but after reading the pedantic wikipedia entry on it I was pretty sure it was not. Tendinitis sounds awful. After a search for "bike tendon pain" turned up a few pages on bike fit, I gave up worrying about it and decided to play it out this morning and see how it went.

I looked at the races of the hub I'm rebuilding again this morning and it seems I may have been a bit quick to judge it perfectly fine. The non-drive side is good but the drive side is questionable. I'm not sure if it's pitted out or if a thin layer of caked grease is on part of it. This is apparently common so I'll need to try and clean it up better to see if it comes off. I don't want to buy a new hub because if I do I'm going to want to spend the money on a good one, like a Shimano ultegra or, dare I say, Chris King. Then of course I absolutely need (read: not really) new spokes because the ones on there now are pretty heavy duty. Pick 2: light, strong, cheap. Mine are strong and cheap. Light and strong is the replacement direction.

And if I get a new hub and new spokes, well how far behind is the new rim? Let's talk about something less expensive. Walter said:

"I was going to comment on Mondays entry, specifically about your seat and post issues, as this is what I was getting at during our pm's, but then I realized that you were referring to the roadie and not the stumpy, so I didn't respond. Anyway, here is your proof that I read, I feel like I'm at my therapist being forced to talk about my feelings...Keep up the good work, I'll chime in whenever I can."

Does this mean you're The Man Behind the Mask? You could have kept being anonymous I was just wondering if it was a mapmyride employee searching daily for "bike route toaster" and commenting to draw traffic. So much of what you see on the Internet is not what it seems you never really know. For instance, I'm a 12 foot tall Indonesian shoe cobbler.

Speaking of the Stumpy I got my bearings yesterday. Such a small package for such a large number of dollars. When I got home I asked my wife where it was, to which she replied, "I don't know on the floor somewhere she was playing with them." Still in the box of course but just about anything is free game for the Tornado, a nickname more apt every day. When she gets tired at night she doesn't get cranky, she runs around the house making war cries and generally undoing any organization we've managed to bring to the house in the last few hours. When she gets really out of her gourd she begins to whine, at which point one of us will say, "Are you ready for bed?" She will stop, stare blankly, then walk off to the bedroom by herself. Awesome stuff really, especially since she's only 14 months old.

I'm excited yet hesitant to do the bearing job. If it all works out I'll probably go and order another backup set to have on hand. It sucks to be hung like this for so long. The trick is that bearing cartridges like this don't just pop in and out. They fit very snugly so you need a press to get them in. Most of the DIY crowd use a home-rigged tool of a bolt, some washers, and some sockets to press it in. This is why I bought an extra bearing in the event I screw it up.

In any event thanks for commenting Walter. Some bloggers reply to the comments in the comment section of the post but I don't get enough traffic for that to be the case. So all brave commenting souls get personal attention here.