my bike is cured!
since softitler hasn't had work for me in 3 weeks, i started working as a courier on friday. strangely it seems easier, even though my body's way more fucked up and my health is worse than it was the last time i did it legit, five years ago.
i got the job by answering an ad in the grocery store, and the company has some unusual qualties:
1. bikers are covered for CSST (workers comp)!
2. they keep bike tools in the office
3. they keep extra pairs of dry socks in the office
4. they offer help doing taxes (?)
5. they go shopping for their couriers at MEC and sometimes get special discounts
weird.
i guess i'll find out on payday whether or not the work pays ok. there's lots of really far calls.
so last month my little silver track bike fell off shauna's balcony and landed on a wrought iron fence, which put a dime-sized dent in the head tube that messed with the steering.
i tried to pound it out at Right To Move, to no avail: i couldn't get a good angle. i went to every bike store in the city and everybody told me to get a new bike. then darren told me about this guy named hugues who loves bikes and works at a metal shop. i took the bike to hugues yesterday and this is how he fixed it in less than 10 minutes:
he put a steel bar through the head tube. the diameter of the bar was a little smaller that the shrunken diameter of the head-tube (so that it could touch one side or the dent without touching the other), and a couple inches longer that the headtube. he then put the bar in a vise so that the bike was hanging out of the vise by its head tube. then he got me to hold the bike so that only the dent was touching the steel bar, and tapped on the outside of the dented part with a hammer. voila! he tapped out the dent!
now all I have to do is sand and paint the frame and it's as good as new!
in the meantime, i moved most of the parts from that bike onto the rapido cruiser (the junker that kliph rode on the march to ottawa), and this is what i'm working on now:
i got the job by answering an ad in the grocery store, and the company has some unusual qualties:
1. bikers are covered for CSST (workers comp)!
2. they keep bike tools in the office
3. they keep extra pairs of dry socks in the office
4. they offer help doing taxes (?)
5. they go shopping for their couriers at MEC and sometimes get special discounts
weird.
i guess i'll find out on payday whether or not the work pays ok. there's lots of really far calls.
so last month my little silver track bike fell off shauna's balcony and landed on a wrought iron fence, which put a dime-sized dent in the head tube that messed with the steering.
i tried to pound it out at Right To Move, to no avail: i couldn't get a good angle. i went to every bike store in the city and everybody told me to get a new bike. then darren told me about this guy named hugues who loves bikes and works at a metal shop. i took the bike to hugues yesterday and this is how he fixed it in less than 10 minutes:
he put a steel bar through the head tube. the diameter of the bar was a little smaller that the shrunken diameter of the head-tube (so that it could touch one side or the dent without touching the other), and a couple inches longer that the headtube. he then put the bar in a vise so that the bike was hanging out of the vise by its head tube. then he got me to hold the bike so that only the dent was touching the steel bar, and tapped on the outside of the dented part with a hammer. voila! he tapped out the dent!
now all I have to do is sand and paint the frame and it's as good as new!
in the meantime, i moved most of the parts from that bike onto the rapido cruiser (the junker that kliph rode on the march to ottawa), and this is what i'm working on now: