Site 3

            On Monday morning I went onto the U of T student information service website because this was the day for finding out what time I can start enrolling in courses next Monday. The answer was that my time would be 11:10 on July 17^th. That means that over the next week I would have to decide which courses I wanted to take in the fall.

I suspected that the solution that I’d found to my brake problem the day before was temporary but I wanted to get a second opinion. Almost twenty minutes before it was scheduled to open, I took my velo down from the hook in order to take it over to Bike Pirates. As soon as I set Frenchie down I saw that one of the brake pads had drifted back against the rim. Normally arriving that early would only put me behind one or two people, but this time there were six in front of me.

At 17:00 Den came out with the clipboard and took everyone’s names down in order, then he let the first three people go to the stands. Most everyone else locked their bikes outside and sat in the lounge area. I stood outside with my bicycle. After a while it started to rain a bit and it was very gradually increasing when Dennis came out for a smoke. He groaned, “Oh no! It’s raining?” He complained that it’s been raining way too much lately, just when he was starting to get a good tan. I told him that the good news was that it was only raining on the 40% chance rather than the 80% that they predicted the day before. I informed him that it was supposed to rain on Tuesday. He frowned and said, “You’re just full of good news aren’t you?” He explained that he had planned on taking some paint cans out to Commissioners Street with some paint cans on Tuesday and he didn’t want to do it in the rain.

I thought Dennis meant that he was taking the cans to a place where they pay for old paint cans, though I didn’t know if there was such a thing. Looking it up later I saw that 400 Commissioners is one of Toronto’s recycling depots for things like paint cans, oil cans and batteries. Apparently it’s a good place to get free paint and motor oil because they always set aside half full cans for those that want them.

It was really starting to come down so I asked Dennis about the wait time because I was considering taking my bike home. He went to check and came back to tell me that I was fourth on the wait list. I dragged my limping vehicle to my place and left it in the hall, then I grabbed some paper to write on and went back to Bike Pirates. I sat at the wooden dining table and started writing a rough journal entry about the events of the previous Saturday afternoon.

Dennis came, sat behind the counter and began a conversation.  He declared, “I should be at Site 3 right now, making love to a beautiful lady!” At first I thought he was talking about an actual woman but he went on to explain that Site 3 is a cooperative machine shop where one pays $40 a month to use the facilities. I assumed then that Dennis’s “lovely lady” was a project he was working on. I later checked out Site 3’s website. The full name is Site 3 CoLaboratory and they are on Ossington. They also have courses on how to use the equipment and a 3-D printer. Dennis said that most of the people that go to Site 3 do woodworking.

I concluded then, and Dennis confirmed that Site 3 is not volunteer run. He then shook his head and informed me that Bike Pirates is considering charging for the use of the stands, something like $10 an hour. I told him that if that happens I’d be screwed. He suggested that I might be willing though to sort bolts or wash dishes to earn my keep. I nodded.

Then Dennis went to the back and came back saying that I was up. I packed my papers away and headed for the door to get my bike. Den came up to me before I left though to inform me that I wasn’t up. “But Dennis just said I was.” “He was wrong!” I went to get my velo anyway, and since the rain had stopped I stood outside. It took less than five minutes before Dennis called me in and directed me to stand #6.

Once I had my machine clamped to the stand I waited for help. Den came after not too long and I told him my problem. He had a look and told me first of all that my front wheel was not centred. I loosened the left locknut and kept trying to balance the wheel but every time I tightened the locknut the wheel would move off centre again. The fact that the guy on the other side of the stand was so vigorously cleaning his bike with a toothbrush that it was causing the whole stand to shake, didn’t help. Den finally came back and was able to do it. He informed me that wheels do tend to drift and that had been the main problem. It wasn’t that the brake pad had been moving against the rim, but rather that the wheel had been shifting over to the brake pad. He also took a special pair of pliers and bent my brakes into a better position. I remembered that on Saturday Dennis had said that my front wheel needed truing and so I asked Den about it. He assured me that my wheel wasn’t too bad and that besides, steel rims are almost impossible to true.

I took the bike out the back for a test drive and everything seemed fine. I think I’d only been at Bike Pirates this time for about half an hour on a stand and I didn’t even get my hands dirty. I donated $5 and left. Since I hadn’t had time for a bike ride that day I took a quick spin around the block before going home.