My little bike project(s)

[onimity]

Thanks, ladies. It feels really great to turn them into happy bikes again. My sis and I took a little ride on them this evening and they are working great, they really fly!

The stand at my LBS is great because it would be a big investment in tools and having the LBS undo all of my 'work' to do this sort of thing otherwise. A little bit of beer goes along way in getting help from the LBS guys.

It feels amazingly good to know that I put so much of the bikes together and yes the mechanic skills are going to help on my trip. That's part of why I wanted to do this now was to get prepared. I am so unbelievably excited.

Sandra, I am going touring (solo & self-supported!) in Patagonia, from San Martin (Argentina) down the Carretera Austral to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world. I leave in 25 days.

Anne

[sandra]

How exciting! I can't wait to hear about the trip when you get back!

[onimity]

To update this... I ended up putting a new chain on the bike for my mom (the purple bike) & gave it a new cassette, then my sis & I brought the bike down to her yesterday. The hardest part of the whole thing was getting her bike and mine onto the train that goes to my parents house...the stairs to board are steep!

My mom was a little skeptical about riding a bike, she hadn't ridden one in decades, but she loved it. She was grinning ear to ear and got really good at shifting properly to get up hills. We rode a couple of miles with her and when we got back my dad said 'I want to try it!' He was racing around like a kid. After lunch, my mom said: "are we going to go ride our bikes again?" so she and I went out and visited some neighbors. She rode a little over 5 miles on her first day!

I love bikes.

Anne