Simplex Front Derailleur

            I was kind of depressed on Monday morning at the prospect of making an appointment with my dentist and going to Bike Pirates too. I finally decided though to finish building my bicycle before seeing Dr He, since I felt fairly certain that it would be done by Tuesday anyway. That decision took a load off my mind and so I didn’t feel depressed anymore.

            So that evening I went to Bike Pirates about ten minutes early. There were only three people ahead of me, so when Dennis opened up I got to take a stand right away.

            The first thing on my agenda was to get a chain for my new machine. A couple of people had told me earlier that I could use the chain from my old Phoenix on the new bike, but the volunteer that assisted me gave a pretty good argument for starting with a new chain. He told me that the old chain has gotten used to the old crank set and the links have changed to fit it. That made enough sense that I thought I might as well buy new this time. The chain went on fairly easily this time. Maybe my hands are learning this stuff sooner than my brain.

Next I had to find a suitable front derailleur for my French ten-speed. The volunteer with what sounded to me like either an Eastern European or an Israeli accent helped me for a while this time. There were tow bins of derailleurs, and when I started looking I found a front derailleur that was also Simplex, like my rear derailleur. I suddenly thought that it might be cool to have both my derailleurs of the Simplex brand. My helper also thought it was a good idea to have the same brand of derailleur for both back and front.

As we were working there was something on the CBC about Hamas easing back on its call for the destruction of Israel. I declared, “That’s good news!” He then told me that he was from Israel and I mentioned that I’d been thinking that might be his place of naissance. He informed us that it was Israel’s 69^th birthday and I responded that it must be retired and moved to Florida by now. He thought that was funny. I asked him his name and what he said sounded like Amenamon. There was a volunteer trainee watching him help me and he asked, “What if I support Palestine?” I offered, “You can support both!” He defended that he didn’t mean he didn’t support Israel!” Amenamon said, “You can support anybody that you want but let’s get back to work!”

We tried to install the front derailleur I’d found but it didn’t fit properly because the cage didn’t come out far enough and so the chain was rubbing against the side. I looked through all of the front derailleurs they had for Simplex models but they only had four, two of which Amenamon said were the same as the one that didn’t fit. A fourth one had a crack in it.

Amenamon was busy trueing a wheel and Dan came back to help me. I decided to try the one with the crack in it. It actually fit and we got it moving quite well, but of course we had to connect all the cables before we could find out if it really worked.

Dan was generally stressed out about his workload and at one point he declared, “I gotta stop!” and he stopped to breathe. He said, “I don’t need this shit! I got my own business!” I asked what his business was and was surprised when he told me that he builds harpsichords, while pointing at his t-shirt, which advertised his business: “Claviers Baroques”. I inquired as to whether he actually played harpsichords and was even more taken aback when he said that he used to be a concert player and had been a member of a few orchestras, even one sponsored by Shoppers Drug Mart. He just seemed way too tense to be an artist but there you go. I had caught wind of the possibility that Dawn, the nice older lady that also volunteers at Bike Pirates, is Dan’s wife, so in order to clarify I asked if Dawn also makes harpsichords. He confirmed that she makes the keyboards.

Dan told me that Dawn loves Simplex derailleurs because they invented the cable-shifted derailleur.

Later on at the counter, while seeing Dan get stressed over something about bikes, I asked him if he ever has dreams in which he builds harpsichords out of bicycle parts. He said he didn’t but that they did play a harpsichord on a bicycle on the Monkees TV show once. I looked it up later and the harpsichord is just on wheels and being pushed by a bicycle ridden by Peter Tork, but maybe he plays the harpsichord as well. In the episode, all four Monkees fall for a girl named April Conquest, who is played by Julie Newmar.

When Amenamon came back to give me a hand he noticed that my new chain was too loose. He showed me how to use a cool tool for pushing the links out of chains, which is kind of like a little vice with a bolt sticking out. We removed about three of the links and then the chain was fine.

             After we ran the cables and housings for the gears it was already after 20:30. Everything seemed to be working fine, but then Amenamon noticed that I’d put the cracked derailleur on. He said that it would probably be all right for now though. I said I was done for the night but he encouraged me to finish my bike. I predicted that putting on the pedals and wheels and then adjusting the seat and test-driving the bike were going to take a lot longer than the last half hour.

            I left a $20.00 donation this time because of the new cables and housings and the second hand front derailleur. It looked like I would have the bike built by the end of Tuesday night.