Bicycle Maintenance, continued
This recent spell of bicycle maintenance is now concluded. I had Ada Bike repair my derailleur hanger and install a new rear derailleur, gear cassette, and chain. It would have been fun to do those replacements myself, but I wasn't comfortable doing the derailleur hanger on my own, so I had them do the whole lot, as it's all connected. Work scheduled, I dropped the bike off this morning and much to my joy they finished the work with enough time left in the day for me to take a bike ride. (extra points!)
I took pictures before and after this work, and was comparing them to see if I could tell the difference in the derailleur hanger. I truly had no idea what the mechanic was pointing at when he initially noticed the problem. I had never really examined my rear derailleur, or any other, closely enough that I could spot that it was out of true. Unfortunately, my before picture is pretty blurry and was taken from a slightly bad angle because I didn't really know what to look for at that time. The difference is minute but there: the derailleur now hangs vertically where before it had a slight inward tilt.
My bike shifts easily once again, as you would expect, and this brings me to the other reason I took pictures. I want to remember what the parts looked like when they were new and clean, so that later on I may hopefully do a better job of maintaining these new parts than I did the ones that were replaced. Note to self: do some research on the Pro Link Pro Gold lubricant I have been using — maybe it was part of the problem?
So what next? The next round of maintenance will involve, I think, a new saddle. My old yellow one is literally rotting away (it may be the oldest part on the bike) and I think I could do better for comfort if I could just find out how to get a saddle of the proper size.
