On Saturday I had
waited at least half an hour longer at the food bank than usual, so when I got
home I was in a rush to put everything away and then to get my cycle building
project out in front of Bike Pirates early enough that I wouldn’t have to wait
for a stand. There were only three people ahead of me, and two of them were a
father and son with a kid’s bike. The father so my bike with no pedals and
commented, I guess you didn’t right that here!” I told him that I live nearby
so I wouldn’t have ridden it here anyway. He also wondered if my velo was too
tall for me. I assured him that it wasn’t, though I hadn’t actually established
the seat height yet.
Bike Pirates opened on time and I
got a stand right away. The first thing that I needed to do was to mound a
freewheel on my back rim. I had one in my bag that I’d been told early on that
might be good for my bicycle, but I think it was Dennis who strongly suggested
that I look for something else. Soon, Dan, the short, older guy who looks like
the shop steward in Santa’s workshop, came along to help me. We found that my
bike required a very thin freewheel and that even though it was a ten-speed,
even the freewheels with only five sets of teeth were too thick to fit between
the rim and the frame. The narrowest seemed to be the one that I’d been already
carrying around with me, so that’s what we went with. Dan discovered though
that even that wouldn’t fit between the rim and the right chainstay.
I asked, “Well then what did this
bicycle use for a freewheel?” Dan shrugged and suggested that it might have
been something that no longer exists. I inquired if he was saying that the
machine that I was putting together maybe wouldn’t be able to have gears. He
answered, “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” But almost immediately he thought
that we could try spreading the rear triangle. So I removed the rim and we took
the frame over to the vice. We locked in left chainstay and then pulled out the
other one, then put the right in and pushed the left. But while Dan was pushing
we heard a snap and Dan commented that we might have damaged the frame until he
observed that what had cracked was the chainstay bridge. Dan assured me though
that the bridge is only there for mounting a fender and that it’s not
structurally crucial to the frame. After that the rear triangle was spread
enough to fit the freewheel between it and the rim.
The next thing to do was to mount
the rear derailleur, and in my bag I had the Simplex derailing mechanism that
came with my frame. This system used a jockey pulley that was much smaller than
the lower idle pulley, but Dan told me the jockey pulley’s teeth were too dull.
I asked if he thought they had a replacement the same size but he didn’t think
so. I inquired as to whether a larger jockey pulley would fit in that
derailleur. He looked at it and thought that it might. He showed me the pulley
tray and told me to have a look. Really they all looked the same to me, so I
picked up the first one and showed it to him. I was relieved to be told that it
might work. The next thing that I had to do was to search for washers that
would fit into the hub of the larger pulley. That was a long process, because
most of the washers in the washer tray did not fit.
Meanwhile, Dan went to help other people and during the next half an
hour or so, both Dennis and another volunteer, whose name I didn’t know, came
at different times to see if they could be of assistance. They both advised me
to ditch the idea of finding a pulley for my old derailleur and to just find a
completed working, newer system.
After going through almost all the washers, I finally found two that fit
the jockey pulley I was trying to install in the Simplex derailleur. I showed
it to Dan and we started putting it together. I told him what the other
volunteers had urged me to do and he explained that they are young and so they
like new things but that we are old and so we like old things, like Simplex
derailleurs. There was certainly logic there but I didn’t really appreciate
being lumped as “old” in a grouping with a guy that looks about ten years older
than me.
Dan was very helpful, but he always seems frustrated and cranky while
he’s working. I had dumped a bunch of derailleurs on my worktable earlier and
the pile was still there, since my mode of working tends to be to clean
everything up in the end. Dan came and told me sternly that it was chaos and
that we couldn’t mount the derailleur on the frame until all of that was put
away.
At one point, Sebastian, the volunteer trainee, put the radio on to some
rap music, but Dan, who seems to prefer classical music shouted for him to
“turn off that shit”, complaining that he could think straight with it on. I
cleaned off my table and then Dan came back to help me. I had to line up the
derailleur with a certain part of the right chainstay and that took quite a
while, but finally I had my frame’s original derailleur installed.
Dan apologized for being testy with me but he justified that this place
made him very tense because he’s old and the added, “You know how it is”. I
told him that I was fine because I do yoga. He declared, “I do Bike Pirates!”
By this time it was 15:30 though as usual I had only planned on staying
there until 14:00, but it’s hard to leave when one is in the middle of the
installation of a major part. Also as usual, there were volunteers that urged
me to stay because, “You can finish your bike today. I’ll help you! You’ll see
it’ll take just a few minutes!” I knew from past experience that one thing
always leads to another at Bike Pirates and that I would not be able finish my
bicycle in the last hour and a half. The next thing I had to do was to install
a front derailleur and I was pretty sure that was going to take another full
session, so I packed up. Since I’d only installed small used parts this time I
only donated $10.00.
I went home and had some lunch, and then I walked over to the liquor
store to buy a couple of cans of Creemore. After that I rode to Freshco to pick
up some groceries. I picked some black seedless grapes, vine ripened tomatoes
and a mango. I wanted some oranges but the navels were too soft. I looked at
some clementines but noticed they were from Israel and decided not to get them.
I chose instead a few tangerines from Cyprus.
In the meat section they had packages of ground beef on sale for $3.00,
but there were three different colours of the hamburger meat. One was kind of a
rotten looking brown, another was reddish brown and the other much smaller pile
was meat of the more attractive bright red hue. It seemed odd that they would
be charging the same price for all three and I asked one of the shelf stockers
but he said he’d find me someone to answer my question. No one came, so I moved
on. I got milk, old cheddar, yogourt and a big pack of sponge towels. When I
was standing in the checkout line I noticed in the bottom of my basket a
dispenser of Degree active deodorant that another customer must have selected and
forgotten. I’d been meaning to buy deodorant and had forgotten, so I just
shrugged and bought the one that I’d found.
That night I watched an episode of Leave it to Beaver that featured the
house that later on in TV Land would become the home of the Munsters.
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