16 September 2005

Simple jobs become complex

I don't get it. I got a new wheel for my bike yesterday. I've waited patiently (as patient, as I am at least) 9 days to get it and have suffered from bike-withdrawal syndromes. I come home with the new shiny wheel, all excited and bam! There it is - something seemingly obvious becomes a stressful back-breaking multiday operation. The axle is about one centimetre too wide and while I can manage to put the wheel on, the gears are now so out of whack that I have lost two gears (the two extreme ones). The angle is all wrong, etc and I have no idea how to fix it (hints are appreciated!). So now I have to go back to the bike store, but their mechanic is not there right now (middle of the workday on Friday). So, 10 days after breaking the axle on my wheel, I still have no functioning bike. And no end in sight.

Yes, there are worse things in life. People are starving in the world. But why is a simple job so complicated to get right the first time round? Don't even get me started on my dishwasher.

2 comments:

David said...

As I recall, those gear thingys have a setting, a bolt, that lets you determine the outermost distance the gear can travel (that would be your highest gear), and then the wire allows you to draw the thingy in towards the tire for your lower gears. There may be a second bolt allowing you to determine the innermost distance it can go, or you may need to pull the wire from the gearshift more taut in order to allow that motion. Of course, my knowledge of these things is about... 10 years out of date, so if you have a new swanky shifter, that all might not work....

Frenchie Tex said...

I have an old bike so your trick did the job. Except that, before reading your comment, I took it to my fifth bike mechanic in Paris. I think this one is the one. I think he will be special. I have a parallelogram between the two bolts. Easier to fix with a bike stand than without one. But I learned how to do it. Exactly as you said. Thanks!