Hooray for me!

Well, I just wanted to say that when I got up this morning and heard about the Kanye West debacle at the MTV music awards, that the only two videos I mentioned liking on this blog were – Single Ladies and You Belong With Me!!!! I’m totally the perfect demographic for MTV! They are totally trying to market to 37 year old female patent examiners who don’t own an iPod. Ha! I know a good video when I see one.

The derailleur on my bike has been giving me a little bit of trouble – missing some gears when I’ve been shifting. Jeremy spent a lot of time this weekend trying to adjust them into alignment. There are 2 screws and a tension-er and it was driving him crazy to optimize all three at the same time. Jeremy has a touch of dyslexia and this optimization was hitting all the right confusion buttons: right, left, tight, loose, more, less.

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Such a sweetie, trying to make my commute smoother and more comfortable. When I came home this evening – yup, you guessed it. Someone stole the rear wheel. Is the derailleur the part that moves or does it include the gears on the rear wheel? Can I say they stole the derailleur as well? Sucks to be my beat up, rusty old bike! I’m takin’ the bus tomorrow!

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One thought on “Hooray for me!”

  1. Oh that is sad news. a couple tips.

    For jeremy:

    1) undo the cable from the RD bolt and set the high limit screw so the top RD pulley lines up with the outside (smallest) read cog

    2) set the RD cable adjuster to about 1 turn from the lowest cable tension possible (right hand rule is backwards here. clockwise is less tension, CC is more)

    3) grab the cable and pull on only it enough to make it taunt, and bolt it.

    4) spin the cranks and shift around, if it has trouble going quickly to a lower cog, add tension. if it has trouble upshifting, reduce tension.

    5) finally shift all the way to the lowest cog (the RD pulley and the lowest cog should line up) and set the low limit screw.

    6) Also, if it's old cable/housing, it might affect shifting. new cable/housing makes this much easier too.

    For Doris:

    heh. sucks that someone stole your wheel on your birthday. 🙁 but no your derailleur wasn't stolen, it's still attached to the bike. 🙂 I'll offer this advice

    1) Get bolt on skewers for you wheels OR

    2) lock the bike on the rear wheel, between the seatstays and the chainstays, even tho you are locking only the wheel, it's impossible to remove the frame. this tip is only for U Locks. doesn't help with the front wheel. might not be possible on some racks OR

    3) bring a small cable lock in addition to your regular, and thread that thru each tire and the U-Lock.

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