Changing a Quill Stem

            On Monday the most important thing I had to do was to go to Bike Pirates in the late afternoon to replace my broken headset. I made sure that I got there more than twenty minutes early so I wouldn’t have to wait. There was one guy ahead of me who lit up a smoke while he was waiting, so I moved down the street. The wind though was moving from him to me so no matter how far east I edged myself it was as if I was still standing right next to him.

            Another guy arrived, then another, then one more who recognized me from when I used to go to Agostino to get my velo fixed. He hadn’t heard that Agostino committed suicide a couple of years ago.

            He told me that he’d been there an hour early because he’d thought they opened at 16:00 and wondered why they didn’t. I explained that the shop is volunteer run and so some of them might work. If the place were a business they would probably have less strange hours.

When Dennis came out to unlock the gate and got his pen and clipboard ready, it turned out that the guy ahead of me was there just to buy a part and so I was number 1. The guy I’d been chatting with said that he’d actually been there first but he’d been an hour early and so he’d gone for something to eat. Dennis looked annoyed and firmly assured him that he wasn’t going to get into an argument. The guy responded, “No, no, I’m just sayin that I was here!”

I took stand #3 and clamped my bike to it. I was pretty sure that I knew what to do at first, and that was to start removing my headset. I unscrewed the locknut, a spacer and the top race. I undid the quill stem bolt and pulled it out. Then I started disconnecting the left-hand brakes with the intention of also doing the same to the right. I always have trouble getting the barrel nipple on the end of the brake cable either out of or into the slot where it fits inside the brake lever. I could get it turned on its end but I couldn’t slide it over to slip through the slot before it turned back on its side again. I struggled with it for several minutes until I finally asked Den to help me. It wasn’t easy for him either but that’s because he’s short and I had my bike clamped high. The secret seemed to be to give the cable a lot of slack so it could be manoeuvred more easily.

Next I started trying to disconnect the right hand brake cable. I began turning the black cone shaped and ridged knob that fits into which the cable housing goes but I couldn’t get any slack to even access the cable. I asked the volunteer with the well kept moustache, whose name is Tom (coincidence, or did his name inspire him to emulate Tom Selleck’s facial hair?) He informed me that I didn’t need to disconnect the brakes, gears or even the handgrip on the right side. Since I’d already undone the brake cable on the left all I had to do was lift up the edge of the left handgrip with a screwdriver, spray some degreaser inside, then slide the grip off the bar. Then I would need to loosen the left hand lever and the left gearshift and slide them both off. Then all I would have to do is slide the handlebar out of the quill stem with the brakes, gears and grip still attached. I have to confess that I hadn’t realized the handlebar was separate from the stem quill or even that my problem was a broken stem quill rather than a severed headset.

The hardest of the above tasks was just getting the left handgrip off. I had to spray the degreaser inside several times and struggle with getting the rubber to budge for the next several minutes. Those grips have been on my bike for about ten years and they were a gift from Agostino after I paid a debt of over a hundred dollars that he’d let me owe him for several months. I’ve had grips that literally dissolved in a matter of months but these have served me well. I finally got it off and everything else slid off fairly well after that.

I removed the broken quill stem and went looking for a match. There were only four in the drawer that I could find with a similar angle as the old one. I showed them to Tom and he said two of them were missing parts but the other two would work. One was aluminium and the other was steel, but the steel seemed more flimsy to me. Tom said that steel against steel was better in terms of rust. I didn’t really understand what he meant. The aluminium quill stem looked and felt better so I went with that. Plus its colour matched that of my frame so that the only parts that were black now were my handlebars and my seat.

I put the quill stem in but Tom told me not to fully tighten it until after I’d slipped the handlebars back in. He showed me the mark on the quill stem that indicated how high I could safely secure it. I think it may be a little lower than the other one. I positioned and tightened it and the handlebars, then slipped the gearshift back on and tightened it and did the same with the brake lever. My front brake cable was too frayed to re-string through the guide but Tom was able to find a longer used one that I could clip and use.

I always have trouble tightening the front brake cable enough so the brakes will work. Tom was busy at that point so I asked another, older volunteer who is hard of hearing and often leaned in to get me to repeat what I’d said to him. He tore two pieces of cardboard to place between the brake pads and the rim and then attached a device that squeezed the pads to the rim, and then he adjusted my brakes by himself. I would have preferred that he’d actually taught me how to do it, as I know that Tom would have, but it was getting late and I knew that I would probably eventually learn it from someone else the next time front brake adjusting became an issue.

Everything that I’d come to do got done with a lot less trouble than I’d expected. I’d envisioned having to replace the handlebars and the entire headset, which would’ve involved removing the front wheel. But when I went to turn my pedals in order to check how the gears were shifting the back wheel wouldn’t move at all. The back brake pads were right up against the rim and I was puzzled because I had done nothing to the back brakes. Tom asked if I had turned the knob adjacent to the right grips and I had turned it counter clockwise when I first started trying to remove the grips before he’d told me I didn’t need to. I have to confess now that I’d had no idea that the knob was an adjustor knob that actually tightened or loosened the brakes. Tom told me to turn it clockwise all the way and then my wheel turned freely.

At a stand near mine I saw a woman that looked familiar and when I heard her speak I saw that it was Sarah Greene, who I know from her hosting of the Tranzac open stage. I said hi to her but she didn’t seem interested in chatting. She just said hi back in a friendly but very brief manner.

I took my bike for a test drive up the alley, onto O’Hara and then down to the other entrance to the alley behind my place. Everything seemed to be working fine, but I would know better on an actual ride. I went back inside the shop and then went to wash up. While I was approaching the sink I ran into Rob McPhail, who I hadn’t seen for a few years, though we are friends on Facebook. He reached out to shake my hand but I showed him that I hadn’t washed it yet. He was carrying a wheel and didn’t seem to be there with a bike. We chatted briefly until a volunteer reminded me that if I was finished with my stand, someone else needed it.

I was at Bike Pirates for three hours this time but it had been a much easier job than I’d expected. Since I’d installed only a used quill stem and brake cable, and because I’m very poor this time of year, I only donated $10 this time.