Another of those five minute jobs.

[xpc316e]

Last weekend I bought a slightly second-hand Claud Butler Cape Wrath D27. I have ridden it a couple of miles to work on three days this week and all seemed well after I'd replaced the gear cable. Yesterday I rode it in Thetford Forest and I set out today for a longer ride there. The bike was on the rack on the back of the car, and I popped into B & Q to get a pair of velcro straps to help secure the bike. When I came out I just had a feel around the spokes in the rear wheel as I attached the straps, and I found one spoke that was very loose indeed. So I came home immediately instead of going for a ride, and set about truing the wheel and making sure all was well with it.

The chain looked rather gungy after yesterday's ride in sandy soil, so I thought I'd clean that before I started on the wheel. That took a while, but I eventually got the wheel out and put it right. While pumping up the tyre the tube went bang, so I then had to fit a new tube.

I then thought that I ought to check the front wheel, so that came out and was tweaked on the truing stand. I checked the wheel bearings, as I did on the back wheel, and found them really stiff and gritty. So I took the hub apart and cleaned it out, put fresh grease in it and put it back together. I then spent a frustrating time getting no play, but free-spinning bearings.

What should have been a five minute job expanded to fill most of the afternoon by the time I had cleaned the wheels. It is now too late to go for a ride - never mind there's always next week.

What five minute jobs have you had recently?

 

[Globalti]

Bloody hell, your post made me laugh! It all sounds so familiar!

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Indeed!

'I'm just going out to do something to the bike'

quickly turns into

'Bloody hell! these bikes obviously need a good checking over/servicing and I'll try and do as much of it myself to potentially save money!!'

Several hours later, and after having spent the last 20 minutes in a fruitless search looking for a very specific type of screw which you KNOW you DID see lying about somewhere, you go back into the house to find that your folks have gone out without even bothering to tell you, and the dog has eaten your dinner.

 

[Globalti]

This is one of the risks you take when you offer to fix something on a friend's bike - one small job reveals another then another and suddenly you're into deciding whether you really want to A) spend that much time on it and B) risk doing the job and messing it up.

 

[jethro10]

30 years ago, i got for christmas a Raleigh "racer" and rode it for years, never once doing anything to it.

Now I seem to spend 1/2 the time riding, 1/2 the time fixing.

No idea what's changed.

Jeff