On Friday, July 8th, I was hoping it would rain, because I am behind on my journal and needed some extra time.
In the evening I
rode to Bayview and Eglinton, then went east. There’s construction for quite a
ways until the side streets start running south again. I went down to
Vanderhoof and across the Laird. I stopped at a windowless fortress of a pub
called “The Local”. I went inside looking for a washroom. The place has a lot
of twenty-somethings and seemed to be really happening in a suburban sort of
way. I discovered that I don’t have to even go into the bar to get to the
washrooms, so that’s good to know for next time.
On my way home
along Queen Street, the cable for my right gear shift snapped, so that meant
that Saturday afternoon would be another day when I wouldn’t get any writing
done because I’d have to spend a few hours at Bike Pirates.
So on Saturday, July 9th, at about 11:45 I took my
bike over to Bike Pirates because my gear line was broken. There were five
people already on the sidewalk waiting for the shop to open, but when it did,
it turned out that a couple of them weren’t there with bikes but just to
inquire about buying them. There were lots of stands available and I was glad
that the person who’d opened up was the one that in my experience has been the
nicest, most helpful and most knowledgeable of all the Bike Pirates volunteers.
I think his name is Alain, or something that sounds like that.
I not only had to
change my gear cable and the housing, but also the right shifter, on Alain’s
advice. That took at least a couple of hours work, but once that was done, I
wanted to address a problem that had been plaguing my bike rides for the last
couple of weeks. There has been a clanking noise when I pedal, and though it
didn’t seem to impede the function of my bike, it was loud and embarrassing. I
was worried though that perhaps it was symptomatic of a bigger problem, perhaps
with the axle. It turned out it was the pedal itself making all the noise. I
set about to change it but I couldn’t get the old one off. Neither could Alain,
so he told me I’d have to change both the pedal and the arm. I had no problem
getting the arm off. In replacing the arm though, some of the second hand choices
were extremely heavy, so Alain said he ideal would be to find one of a lighter
allow. While I was looking through a box of arms, Alain found a very light one
for me, but it had a broken bolt that had to be removed before we could use it.
After I got that out, I had to find another left pedal.
I asked Alain why it was that even though
the right pedal is the one I’m always banging into doorframes and curbs, it’s
always the left pedal that gets broken. He laughed and said he didn’t know. I
think my late bike mechanic, Agostino, told me once that it had to do with
which leg applies the most force while pedalling.
I couldn’t find an exact match for my
right pedal, but I found another metal one, because in my experience the metal
pedals last longer than the plastic. It wasn’t very difficult to get the new
second hand pedal and arm on my bike.
Next, since I was in the shop already, I
wanted to make sure that my front brakes were okay. Alain said that my pads
still had some life in them, but they were catching the rim too softly. We
ended up changing the cable because it was frayed.
Dennis, who was making sandwiches in the
kitchen, came to tell Alain that he had two choices: tomato or Elvis Presley.
After he walked away I asked Alain, “Elvis Presley?” Alain said that he meant
peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I wondered, “Would those have to be deep
fried? Wasn’t that the thing?” The guy in the next stand smiled and nodded,
agreeing that that was indeed the thing. Alain thought that Elvis also had
another weird ingredient that he added to that, like pickles. I looked it up
later and according to Wikipedia, the other ingredient was bacon, but one
variation was an entire loaf of Italian bread stuffed with caramelised bananas,
peanut butter, bacon and grape jelly.
Alain said that my back brakes also
needed adjusting, but after we made an adjustment, as soon as we tried to test
them, the cable snapped, so we had to change the cable. Fortunately I didn’t
need to replace the housing because I have duct tape all around that where it
runs along my crossbar.
It took four hours in total to get all of
the work I needed done at Bike Pirates even though I was fading after three
hours and really wanted to go home to sleep for a while. Since the only new
parts were the cables, I gave them ten dollars for them, but could only afford
to donate three dollars this time for the second hand parts and the help,
because I was out of shaving cream and hair conditioner and really needed to
keep my last five-dollar bill for that.
I took my bike for a test drive in the
alley behind my place and Bike Pirates. The gears and the brakes were working
great, though the gear shifter is on a slightly different angle and so it would
take a few rides to adjust.
I took a siesta and figured I’d decide
whether or not to take a long bike ride once I woke up.
I woke up at 18:00 when Cad called to ask
if the Yellow Door open stage was happening. I told him I didn’t think that it
was. I think that 6 St Joseph has actually closed all its programs for the
summer.
When I got up I saw that it had been raining, so
I wouldn’t have taken a bike ride anyway.
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