It has been a while since I have had a bare frame in front of me. It sat
there on the stand waiting to be complete once more. It is a used frame.
The only remnant of it’s former owners personality is a Rat Fink sticker
on the seat tube. Between the two of us we have about 10 bikes. Most
came assembled. Most have been mechanically sound. My wrenching
abilities have not been tested as of late. The last build I did was on a
stock trials bike. That was an interesting build because of the mixing
of road and mountain bike bits. We started with the agreement that I
would build as Carla disassembled the donor bike. For the first folly of
the night we were to begin with changing the oil in the fork. I was
missing the requisite 21mm socket wrench. At 8:00 at night we decided
that the fork should be completed before the build could go on. Off we
drove in search of the socket. We tried a big box hardware store with no
luck. We tried a slightly smaller box auto parts store with the same
result. By then it was getting near closing time. We returned home.
There was still plenty to do. We decided I would find the correct socket
the next day. We went back to work. I began work on installing the
bottom bracket. When it came time to torque everything down I realized
my half inch drive torque wrench needed a converter for my three eights
bottom bracket tool. This converter was sitting in a tool box at my
father’s house 10 miles away. So it was looking like we had begun the
ritual for no reason. It was 10 pm. Just when I took note of the time my
phone rang. It was my father asking me to instruct him on the basic use
of his new dvd player. I offered to run over and show him. And get the
reducer at the same time. A quick road trip later, now after 11pm we had
all of the tools we would need to at least finish a small part of the
build. I got to the bottom bracket and crank, Carla got to
disassembling. It took us about three hours but we succeeded in getting
most of the parts off the donor bike. The rear derailuer is clean, chain
soaking in degreaser. The new bike has a bottom bracket, crank rear
derailuer and rear caliper installed. I am hoping round two goes a bit
more smoothly. It could have been frustrating. We could have just as
easily quit and turned our attention to something else. We kept smiling
and joking. For three hours we were not thinking about beheadings,
prison beatings, presidential candidates, Michael Jackson and or
priests. I am sure by the weekend we will have it all worked out and
Carla will be smiling widely on her new ride… Sometimes even the small
annoying details can be fun.
Jimbo(san)
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