I slept last night. I can’t tell you why. But it was awesome. I sort of blacked out before bed, without an ounce of alcohol in me. Which leads me to believe I’m running waaay short on sleep. That’s never happened to me before sober, and is a little disconcerning.
Monica wants to borrow the tandem and asked me “is it safe?” I had never considered that, and no, it wasn’t really. The rear wheel was rebuilt some time ago, but I don’t think the drum brake got any love, it’s nigh useless. I had to laugh when I figured out that the brake handle has a parking brake pin built into it. Figuring parts for the drum brake wouldn’t be easy to get for it on short notice, I went over to Bike So Good and got a new 26″ wheel from Ashok. I dug some brake parts out of the bin in my shop, and put a front brake on it. The old front wheel was steel and had no machined surface for brakes anyhow. The whole process makes me want to fix up the drum brake, rebuild the hacked up front tensioner, and paint the whole thing.
Tori’s friend Nym dropped off a bike that he had pieced together a while ago that desperately needed some wheel truing. I got it all tuned up, but the chainline is way off. I need to pick up a vernier caliper and figure out of a different length bottom bracket can solve that problem or not. Plus, it really could use a front brake, only having a rear. I hadn’t thought until now of just swapping them, I’ll probably do that.
The “fork” on the tallbike got the welds ground down and some paint thrown on it to trick people into thinking the welds weren’t as monstrous as they actually were. It looks nice now. Can’t wait for Artopia this weekend.
Hanging out in the garage fixing and hacking bikes is nice, and my new hobby for spending some time not pushing myself too hard, while still achieving my goals. It’s definitely less risk on the cost/benefit front than, well, most everything else I’m doing right now.
Big day at work today, still anxious about activites after work tonight. It’s tough finding a balance between wanting life to work out right, and trying so hard not causing so much anxiety.