...but if it is broke, break it more. Or so the saying goes, except the last bit of course. hello all, Alas, the bicycle that has served my older brother and then me so well has gone to bikey heaven. It was a little bit broken, and very squeaky, and the chain came off about once a week, so I decided to try and fix it. Armed with a tiny little adjustable spanner and a can of squirty grease, and with IYFS on in the background, I stared my bike down. It is supposed to have 10 gears, but only 4 have worked for the last 5 years or so. The brakes needed tightening, the chain needed oiling...this wasn't going to be easy. I started with the brakes and that was easy enough. Then a little oil on the chain and all was looking good. Then on to the gears, or lack thereof. I pulled a little wire thing, undid this and that, pushed a small uppy downy bit...(i apologise if this language is too technical for anyone) I came to the conclusion that the uppy downy bit wasn't going all the way up, so the chain couldn't reach three of the cogs, hence 6 gears weren't being used. So I used all my mechanical know-how and decided the best way to fix the problem would be to push the uppy downy bit into a position where it could reach the upper cogs. So I did this, but halfway up I heard a very soft snap noise. Now I always thought that the loudness of a break/snap noise was an indication of how much damage had been done. A quiet snap noise indicates very minor damage, a loud snap noise indicates major damage. It turns out that my quiet/loud theory isn't quite right. The uppy downy bit is now just a downy bit, 2 springs went flying off and i'm not sure where they came from or where they went to, and the bike is now pretty much unrideable. At first I was a little emotional, and I reminisced about riding on my parents farm whistling Take That songs, then riding to uni in first year whistling Blur songs, then singing Primal Scream songs at the top of my voice while riding stoned to get crisps at 2am during my unemployed year, and finally softly singing Belle and Sebastian songs while riding to uni for the last two years. I'll take it to a bike repair shop tomorrow, but I think it will be quite expensive to fix. I think it is time for me to move on, to let bicycles be bygones. I'll going to buy a shiny new second hand bike, with a bell, and 10 gears (or maybe more!), and a chain that stays on. how very exciting! terry --- here's what i think: http://naivetysucceeds.blogspot.com caitlin and terry's sinister recipe tree archives: http://www.joannou.net/topofthestairs/sinifood/ ____________________________________________________________ Get advanced SPAM filtering on Webmail or POP Mail ... Get Lycos Mail! http://login.mail.lycos.com/r/referral?aid=27005 +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-+ Snipp snapp snut, sa var sagan slut! +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+