Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Snowmuters

There was a nice, thick layer of snow close to home today. I'm getting ready to tear down The Goat to fix the rear wheel.

I snapped these on the way home. Ah, the hustle and bustle of the highway. I wouldn't likely trade my snowy multi-mode commute for the I-35 parking lot again.





I saw one more cyclist on the road today, on 87th st. I know plenty of my friends local and elsewhere are tearing it up in the snow as well.

5 comments:

Apertome said...

Nice shots. We are getting some good snow -- I just got back from riding in it. I love it!

James Oiler said...

I'm so enjoying your snow adventures.

I wanted to be sure you knew about a handy tip for that broken rear wheel (driveside) spoke.

When next you are at your local bike shop pick up about a half dozen spokes that are three eights of an inch too long for your wheel.

Clip off the little button that keeps the spoke from pulling through the hole in the hub.

Now the tricky part, form an "S" bend on that end. This "S" bend will allow you to insert the spoke in the drive side hole and give some tension to get the wheel to stop rubbing the chain stay. This is a temporary solution (I've ridden one of these for a few days at a stretch) but, can really save your bacon in a pinch.

The cold weather you're riding in may make this all impossible.

Keep up the good work!

Sincerely,
Jim Oiler

Noah said...

That's not a bad idea. I just opened up the V-brakes a bit and that worked fine. I only had 3 miles or so to go. On my road bike, I once tightened the surrounding drive-side spokes and slightly loosened the non-drive-side and got the wheel true enough to ride on, then I bent the broken spoke around an adjacent one to keep it from flopping around and tearing anything else up. I rode like that also for a few days over last summer.

I used my last spare spoke last night, but the wheel's true and tight once again. I probably need to go buy more spokes. I found one length that I can use on both drive and non-drive side while keeping dish and tension sane.

Anonymous said...

I had some awesome snow rides too. My coworkers said, "You are still riding?" I told them it's better on a bike - my commute times hav only gone up five or ten minutes.

Sairen said...

I gave up for the winter, but I admire you guys tremendously and look forward to hopping back on my bike once we start getting a bit warmer!

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