Back in the Saddle

I promised to upload some photos of my restored Dynamic Crosstown 7. (Shhh, I'm using a lab camera to take and post these while our own camera goes in for warranty repair.) So here they are. Note: I saw a little video blurb called BrightBike about putting reflective tape on your bike and decided to get visible. In addition to adding to the cheese factor and increasing visibility, the white tape on the top tube covers up and inappropriate "Tempo" logo. This bike is not the Tempo model but uses the Tempo frame, apparently.

When I went to go buy the reflective tape, I brought Caroline with me, and she got into her head that she needed a new bike helmet and that I was going to get her one at the hardware store. I did some fast thinking and convinced her to accept her own $2.50 package of reflective tape instead. Of course she chose the read and white candy stripe pattern, some of which ended up as decoration on her helmet and some of which ended up adorning the drive shaft cover on my bike. (And yes, that's a spare pair of socks I keep at my desk that you see. I didn't notice it in the photo before.)

Eliza came out with me while I was working on the bike. She, my Little Helper, wanted to participate, so I set her to cleaning the spokes and hub. Everything's nice and shiny now and it looks more or less brand new.

I had mentioned previously that I was having trouble with the shifting. A new cable and sheath and a good clean-out of the rear hub fixed that problem. I had a little bit of worry when I noticed that the gears were grinding during my first commute on the new frame. That turned out to be a simple error on my part of not sufficiently tightening the right-side axle nut on the rear hub. It was allowing the bevel gears to get out of alignment and grind. It was very easily fixed.
I'm happy to be back in the saddle again.