Back in business

[torquill]

I fixed my bicycle stand today. The bottom-bracket cup was ill-designed plastic, and had cracked through, making the stand unsafe; my dad and I used his machine shop to turn a galvanized pipe fitting into a replacement. (I had originally thought to line it with foam, but it turns out that simply riveting the old plastic cup to the metal replacement produced a very solid part.) A couple of hours of work, and I once again have a functional portable bike stand.

That's a good thing, as I have about six to eight bikes to fix up before Burning Man. Three of them are for our own use, but the others are scrap bikes I hope to sell... one came back from the Burn last year, and the rest were abandoned in eastbaygreg's backyard. I can get cheap parts in Berkeley, and most of what they need is TLC anyway. Proceeds from bicycle sales will go toward buying a new battery bank for the RV, which it desperately needs (and marine batteries are not cheap).

We also made a simple tool to get the bottom bracket off of our friend Helena's oddball low-rider bicycle; I need to lube that, and that keeps me from having to break the chain in order to get the fixed-gear back wheel off. I hope to have that ready to go by August at the latest.

I'm set for a schedule of yard work/car work in the morning and bike tinkering during the heat of the day, under the dense shade of the backyard here. Assuming the repaired stand holds up, I can also set up my bike repair shop at the Burn again. And, as always, I'm available to do tune-ups for a reasonable fee.

Comments

[farmount.livejournal.com]

Have two more abandoned bikes at my place -- want them?

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

Hey, both of our adult bicycles got stolen out of my garage sometime in the last couple of weeks, so I'm in the market for a pair of new ones. I'll know better how much I have to spend after I talk to my insurance company.