I got home from my
usual Saturday food bank adventure at about 11:20. I had just enough time to
put the dairy and meat away and then to change into pants that were okay to get
greasy, and then I took my bike over to get in line for Bike Pirates. Dennis
was standing outside the gate when I got there and with a gesture asked if I
was going to Bike Pirates. I nodded. He shook his head and reminded me that the
shop opened at twelve o’clock. I told him I didn’t expect to go in right then
and explained that I always come half an hour early. He assured me that I’d be
number one then if I decided to go for a coffee instead of waiting. I guess I
could have gone home but it seems like a dick move to establish a place in
line, then to go away only to return at the last minute and breeze past everybody
that’s had to wait.
A second, a third, a fourth and a
fifth person came, and then who shows up but Wayne, whom I’d just been in line
with at the food bank. He was there with his pastel green vintage woman’s bike.
As he waited he did the same dance moves that he makes in front of the food
bank.
When Dennis opened up he told me
right away to take a stand. I took number two but he moved me to number one
because it had a more secure clamp. I told him that my back wheel had a wobble
and showed him that there was side-to-side give. He concluded that the cones
needed to be tightened, so I removed the wheel and the gear block and Dennis
tightened the cones for me. I put the wheel back on. It’s always hard to get it
balanced because there’s a tendency, perhaps because of the gear block, for the
rear wheel to shift to the left when the locknuts are tightened. Dennis advised
me to keep it centred and to tighten each side alternately a half turn at a
time. When the wheel was back on though there was still the same side-to-side
give, so Dennis told me to remove the wheel again and we tightened the cones as
much as they could be tightened without feeling gritty while rotating.
Dennis said that we could find out
if there was still a side-to-side give by putting the wheel on the trueing
stand. When we did so Dennis informed me that the wheel was way out of true and
that the spoke that had been loose for the last few weeks was actually broken
now. So I had to remove the spoke and find a replacement. Dennis measured and said
that I needed a 290 but the closest I could find from their selection was a 288
or a 292. We tried the 288 but it was too short. The 292 fit just fine though.
Then it was time to true the rim but I still don’t know how to do that. One guy
that apparently used to volunteer there was in for the first time in a long
time to fix his bike. He offered me some advise about trueing but I didn’t
understand it. Ifi came along and told me that the way to tighten or loosen the
spokes was to turn them either clockwise or counter clockwise until you get it
right. I envisioned myself getting it very wrong before that happened. After
several minutes Dennis came back around and I told him I was very confused. I
would like to learn how to do it but I always seem to end up with someone like
Dennis, who doesn’t seem to have the patience to teach it. He did it himself
until he declared that it was god enough because he was “tired of fucking with
it”. To be fair, he was cranky because he’d been the only volunteer there for the
first two hours.
I put the wheel back together,
struggling several minutes with getting the tube and the tire back on and then
with getting the wheel balanced using Dennis’s half turn technique. Ifi helped
me, but he had a different method, which was to stick his finger between the
wheel and frame while tightening it. That didn’t work right away either but we
finally got it centred.
Wayne was working a couple of stands
away and I found it interesting that he was able to focus and not jump all over
the place when he had a task in front of him. He didn’t even spew very many
abstract comments like he usually does in the line-up. Maybe the secret is just
to be occupied with focusing on a physical undertaking at all times.
I took my bike for a test drive and
the wobble was gone from my back wheel and yet when I grabbed the wheel it
still shifted back and forth. I told Ifi and he asked if he could take it for a
ride. He took it out to the alley and didn’t ride it but he did conclude that
there must be some deeper problem than tightening the cones at the back. He
also noticed that my headset was a little loose. He suggested that I go back to
my stand and he and Dennis would help me get it done. I had already been there
for three hours so I told him and Dennis that I was “pretty exhausted”. Dennis
seemed to agree and advised that I come back next Saturday “when we’re both in
a better mood”.
At the desk I gave Ifi a $20 and
asked for $10 back but he insisted that since I was coming back next week that
I should get $15 back. As I was getting ready to leave, Wayne came up to the
desk and tried to pay with his credit card. Ifi let him know that they only
take cash. Wayne still stood there with his card out and seemed confused. He
insisted that he never uses cash. When I left, Ifi was trying to explain to him
that he would have to go to a bank machine with his credit card and get some
money for a donation. I assume what he was holding was a credit card, in which
case, if he is used to just buying stuff with the card he doesn’t need to know
his PIN and might not have memorized it or bothered to carry it with him. I
would think that he would also have a bank card since he must have a bank
account to receive ODSP, in which case he could get cash back on any purchase
unless his account was empty. I’ll ask him what happened when I see him next
Saturday.
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