Saturday, May 24, 2008
a new bakery run
I met Ainsley at his house a few minutes before 10:00 Saturday, and we talked of many things while he finished getting ready. We made good time through town and worked our way out to Scotch Cross Road. Of course we had both left our cameras at home, so we missed the chance to get a photo of the first really good snake of the year - a juvenile black rat snake, I believe he called it.
We did the traditional route down Scotch Cross, then right onto Lowden and out by Star Fort and thence into town by the high school. The new bakery in Ninety Six is all right, but nothing really called to me. I wound up getting a cup of coffee (which was coffee, but that's about all I could say for it), while Ainsley got himself some sort of sticky bun and a loaf of fresh bread to take home. The latter fit almost perfectly into his Carradice Barley saddlebag.
We lolled for a few minutes drinking our coffee at one of their outdoor tables before riding back home. The only dog we encountered was a female pitbull who ran along with us, wagging her tail the while despite our earnest efforts to shoo her back home. She eventually turned for home, and we worked our way back through sometimes stiff winds.
This afternoon I managed to get into the basement for an hour and a half. One sub project has been to free the 14-23T freewheel from the loose Normandy Sport hub that was thrown into a deal I did a while back. It is the proper, correct freewheel for the PX-10, but some prior owner had clipped all the spokes while leaving it all hooked together. Eek. I wound up lacing up some spokes on the non-drive side to an old rim, and lo and behold, it worked. A little Tri-Flow squirted into the freewheel and it sounded reasonably good and went onto the sewup wheelset.
I have plans for the hub, sort of. What I really want is the axle and its spacers. I've got a set of mismatched clincher wheels that would work nicely on this bike, and swapping out those parts and a little tweaking will set me up for whenever I locate a trailer to tow Eli around in.
I broke out a used but still serviceable chain from the used bin and hooked it up. Shift cables came out of the stash pile, and the Simplex derailleur system worked - flawlessly. I was kind of surprised, but the rear needed only the tiniest of tweaks to shift perfectly. It had been a long, long time since I'd worked on a pushrod front Simplex, but once I remembered how to hook it up it all came together nicely.
Time to rob the bike Dieter gave me for its tubulars. They're not glued on yet, but they're in place and the bike looks like a bike, for the first time in who knows how long. All that's left to do is glue up the tires, fit new brake pads, cables and housings - and go ride it in all its battered Gallic glory. ¶ 9:09 PM
I met Ainsley at his house a few minutes before 10:00 Saturday, and we talked of many things while he finished getting ready. We made good time through town and worked our way out to Scotch Cross Road. Of course we had both left our cameras at home, so we missed the chance to get a photo of the first really good snake of the year - a juvenile black rat snake, I believe he called it.
We did the traditional route down Scotch Cross, then right onto Lowden and out by Star Fort and thence into town by the high school. The new bakery in Ninety Six is all right, but nothing really called to me. I wound up getting a cup of coffee (which was coffee, but that's about all I could say for it), while Ainsley got himself some sort of sticky bun and a loaf of fresh bread to take home. The latter fit almost perfectly into his Carradice Barley saddlebag.
We lolled for a few minutes drinking our coffee at one of their outdoor tables before riding back home. The only dog we encountered was a female pitbull who ran along with us, wagging her tail the while despite our earnest efforts to shoo her back home. She eventually turned for home, and we worked our way back through sometimes stiff winds.
This afternoon I managed to get into the basement for an hour and a half. One sub project has been to free the 14-23T freewheel from the loose Normandy Sport hub that was thrown into a deal I did a while back. It is the proper, correct freewheel for the PX-10, but some prior owner had clipped all the spokes while leaving it all hooked together. Eek. I wound up lacing up some spokes on the non-drive side to an old rim, and lo and behold, it worked. A little Tri-Flow squirted into the freewheel and it sounded reasonably good and went onto the sewup wheelset.
I have plans for the hub, sort of. What I really want is the axle and its spacers. I've got a set of mismatched clincher wheels that would work nicely on this bike, and swapping out those parts and a little tweaking will set me up for whenever I locate a trailer to tow Eli around in.
I broke out a used but still serviceable chain from the used bin and hooked it up. Shift cables came out of the stash pile, and the Simplex derailleur system worked - flawlessly. I was kind of surprised, but the rear needed only the tiniest of tweaks to shift perfectly. It had been a long, long time since I'd worked on a pushrod front Simplex, but once I remembered how to hook it up it all came together nicely.
Time to rob the bike Dieter gave me for its tubulars. They're not glued on yet, but they're in place and the bike looks like a bike, for the first time in who knows how long. All that's left to do is glue up the tires, fit new brake pads, cables and housings - and go ride it in all its battered Gallic glory. ¶ 9:09 PM
