Third Day at the Shop
So, today, I took the bike in for the third day in a row, had the final derailleur put on the rear, and noticed that it still skipped gears when I stood up to shovel. At the last minute, the mechanic decided we should probably change the freewheel, too. The last three days, I paid for the following: rear derailleur ($25), right shifter ($20), freewheel ($16), mirror ($12), light ($22). That’s more than $100 spent on a bike originally bought for $375.
I got it home, went upstairs, changed into my kit, and went for my 25 miler. It didn’t skip at all. Looks like $100 does the trick. Boy, does it ever do the trick. I broke my all-time average speed record again. This time, I added a fifth of a mile per hour and flirted with a 30 kph average speed. It was quite fun to ride with the triathletes and steam past them on a bike completely inadequate for any kind of mileage.
Today: 26.27 mi in 1:24:43 (18.6 mph avg / 30.5 mph max)