My bike is back on the road

After a lot of debate and a pile of ridiculous quotes my bike is back on the road. I decided to do whatever I could rather than buy a new or top secondhand bike. An amazing collection of websites such as Parktools exist and my book, Zinn's Art of Road Bike Maintenance was helpful.

The older the bike the more fiddly as some cranks had been re-speced during the last 8 years. But parts for these bikes are still available and most only need a new chain and cassette, $80, to get them running again. I had a non standard Tracer crank which meant that standard Sora crank set was not going to work despite having Sora derailleurs etc. The local bike shop found an Ultegra set that fitted perfectly, although I did have to get a new wider bottom bracket.

I got a new set of wheels, crank set, chain and cassette. Wheels were easy and not much work, Velocity's Fuson were good enough and Australian made. Changing cranks requires a bit of muscle and a good crank puller (and right size), the job was complete in about 30 minutes.

Overall the whole project felt difficult and stressful at the time because I had keep stopping to study and research as I moved onto different jobs. But it's really easy and now I can't believe that that I didn't know how to even break a chain! Something as necessary as being able to fix a flat.

I'm going to checkout the Nunnery in Newtown, a sort of drop in centre/bike workshop when I do anything like this again. Just saves money by not having to buy specialised tools, maybe some advice from other riders etc. I got help from my local bikeshop who were quite excited to help a girl fix her bike, which that said was a rare sight.

My first ride was amazing this morning and ICentennial Park was as beautiful as usual.