Monday, August 5, 2013

Gear talk: Overhaul


Both Catrikes needed some major work--new chains and cassettes after thousands of miles of hard riding, especially the crazy hard cranking we did in the Rockies last year.  Already?  Yes, one year ago today, Jodi and I arrived in Jasper, Alberta.  Don't worry.  I've got a rough draft done on the book!  More on that later, I'm sure.  But the faithful trikes needed some TLC.  I noticed that when Jodi pedaled there seemed to be a lot of chain slop, movement in the tubes, etc.  I put it down to short chain tubes and, perhaps, her pedaling style.  Wrong: The cassette was loose and so were the chain rings.  In fact, the chain ring bolts had worn to the point where they could not be properly tightened, so I added some washers to get extra bite, but I could not loosen one of them.  I even broke my chain ring wrench.  The little ears on the bugger just bent right over and fell off.  Damn.  So I fully tightened the other four, got everything cleaned and installed, and resolved to get a bigger, badder chain ring wrench and a new set of bolts.  The new cassettes sure is purty, although they won't stay this way for long.  Jodi's new Caprio 9/32 cassette--pricey!


My standard 11/34 installed:


Jodi's trike should feel like a new rig.  She'll be out on it on Wednesday, so we'll see how it goes.

Ride on.

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