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I am now the proud owner of a chain tool. Everything I know about bike maintenance, I've learned over the past five days. Tire-changing, I've discovered, is nowhere near the most challenging thing about it, even lacking tire irons (thank heavens for a good set of Allen keys, is all I have to say about that!). Changing the chain is where the trouble starts. It's somewhat symptomatic of Everything That's Wrong With Me that it was only *after* I'd broken my hands and gotten a cold waiting for my sister to return from the store with a new saw that I discovered there is, in fact, a tool specifically designed for the act of breaking bicycle chains so that they can yet be easily put back together.
I bought my chain tool from an old man in an ancient bike shop whose beard held the menu for the past week at least, and whose hands looked exactly as mine would after working on bikes all day (three days and 30 to 40 hand washes later, my fingernails are still black). It was the fifth or sixth place I went; apparently, bicycles are supposed to go into hibernation in October and only come out after the snow is gone. (This fails to explain the wide availability of winter tires.)
I'm going to save the actual work for tomorrow morning, I think; it started raining while I was out - which, by the way: I wouldn't mind if it started raining just as I stepped out the door, but it keeps happening once I'm *just* far enough from home to not want to turn back to get my umbrella - and I've been running a temperature since Friday, so I'm going to devote the rest of my day off to resting up.
This update brought to you by Why Yes, I Know My Life Is Boring.
I bought my chain tool from an old man in an ancient bike shop whose beard held the menu for the past week at least, and whose hands looked exactly as mine would after working on bikes all day (three days and 30 to 40 hand washes later, my fingernails are still black). It was the fifth or sixth place I went; apparently, bicycles are supposed to go into hibernation in October and only come out after the snow is gone. (This fails to explain the wide availability of winter tires.)
I'm going to save the actual work for tomorrow morning, I think; it started raining while I was out - which, by the way: I wouldn't mind if it started raining just as I stepped out the door, but it keeps happening once I'm *just* far enough from home to not want to turn back to get my umbrella - and I've been running a temperature since Friday, so I'm going to devote the rest of my day off to resting up.
This update brought to you by Why Yes, I Know My Life Is Boring.