Sixty-Three

Nishiki

I've been thinking about what to do while I'm in Malaysia next week. I need to keep riding. Michelle says four hours a day: two in the morning and two at night. I'm told commuting from Penang to Kulim is not an option. Too far, suicidal traffic, and bikes aren't allowed on the 13.5 km Penang Bridge. I could ride a stationary bike at the hotel, but I'd rather be outside. Renting a bike may be hit or miss. Maybe I could take a bike. Of course, I'd be crazy to take the Lemond. Besides I'm dropping it off at Sacha's place before I leave. I don't want to take Bob apart. That leaves the Nishiki, which until tonight was broken. Fortunately, I had everything I needed to fix it.

The horizontal dropouts were a godsend. However, the right side required a slight modification. For some reason it wasn't cut out all the way, so you couldn't adjust the chain tension very much. My neighber, Denver, does a lot of construction and metal work, so I took the bike over to his garage to see if he could help me cut the dropout. Denver said it would be easy, but he was listening to the news on his headphones and said he would do it in 20 minutes. I asked if he needed me to hold the frame while he cut, but he said that wasn't necessary. Aprehensively, I left the bike with Denver and went back home to wait.

A while later I went out into the garage and found the bike sitting there. At first, everything looked fine. Denver cut the dropout like I wanted him to. It wasn't pretty, but it didn't really need to be. At this point, I was still resigned to using the rear wheel that came with the bike. I figured I'd have to use whatever cog gave me the best chainline and leave the others on as spacers. I'm not sure what the original dropout spacing was exactly, but it was less than 130 mm. I was horrified when I tried to put the old wheel back on and it wouldn't fit no matter how hard I tried to get it to sqeeze between the dropouts. Apparently, Denver had bent the frame for me at no extra charge. Since the bike isn't worth the price I'd have to pay to have a professional realine the frame, I decided to try bending it back myself. I grabed both sides and pulled them apart pretty hard. As soon as I felt the frame start to give I let up on the force.

I bent the frame alright, but this time the spacing was too wide for the old wheel. That's when I decided to try the wheel that originally came with the Country Road Bob. The Surly free/free 135 mm hub fit my new frame spacing almost perfectly! Miraculously, the chainline is almost pefect too. The free/free hub was missing a lock nut that I removed about a week ago to replace the one I broke on my other Surly hub (fixed/free), so I cannibalized the original Nishiki wheel to fix the Surly.

Finally, I had to do something about those silly biopace chainrings. Eliptical chainrings and single speeds don't mix well. I was stumped for a second until I remembered the Ultegras I took off the Lemond. That was the ticket. The sleeves for the double chainring bolts are just a tad too long with only one ring, but they should hold it in place for a while until I can get shorter sleeves (I'm sure they're called something else) or maybe some thicker washers.

Now all I need is a bike box.