Are you tired of derailleurs that don’t hold your chain taut? Well have we got the springs to save you!

those swirly things hold your hanger back, extra hard.

Not the worst idea, but the price it came marked with just seems silly. See you in September!

What a beautiful morning! Breakfast was delish, the sun is warm, I’m on my way to work early, I can get some emails out, I can  finish the cadenza. Crap! Ok Ok, I’ve forgotten some stuff at home, I need to turn around. No worries you can still make it back in time. Toodle-doo Toodle-dee! Oh wow! I’m already back on Sprague, this is great. La la, lo lo, only four blocks left, la la, car noise from the rear right, lo lo, AHHHH!!!!

which one

Cool project (hack job). It had solid rings (made of sunshine) for its previous bearings, so mid-war (today), we got to do some headset fondling, some skipping of teeth, and a lot of bendex-bending (a possibly pre-war-index/friction-sis.compatible-tank armored-hub-overhaul method that anthropologists have yet to carbonforkdate). Opps, well… two people steer-tubed me (bovine redbox business proposal) into writing this one!

Here are some highlights from the first few days in August.  Below is a tank of a single speed. The project was for an amazing guy, Rusty Hand, who needed a real simple ride.

this bike gets a nice-n-slow-with-a-big-smile on the spokane toodle index

Part of this gig was to make the bike free. So I took this as a signal to go ahead and hack and burn, or rather, to hack and grind. Chain Line was an early obstacle. So after dishing and BB swapping, and since we don’t have any dedicated single-speed crank arms, or ring bolts, or enough of the spacers I wanted, I was delighted to create some helpful objects.

in the middle

is there an easier way? yes. but what is ease? hot pockets!

It was great to work with Rusty, and we wish him well on his big journey with L’arche Spokane. If you would like to learn more about ‘the ark’ you can visit their webpage: larcheofspokane.org, where you can also learn more about Jim Olson’s Bike-a-Thon to benefit their work.

back from the first ride

Early on this week Corey and I began our newest duty, that of maintaining a small count of bikes for the use of City of  Spokane employees. We nabbed some tools and went to their kick butt warehouse where we rolled around on these lovely sheets.

stable in the stables

But, by far the cutest thing in the shop is our newest volunteer. She can fix reflectors like a pro.

heart melting in progress

then she went to check tire pressure. instant heart soup, on the floor

On the silly side, I spent an hour today trying to figure out how to route an internal cable. Yeah, that could have taken two seconds if I’d flipped the thing, oh well. Also, I got stung by a hornet, on my hand.