Broken stuff.

Hey, it’s a post about bikes! Amazing. Yes. Good? Not bad, but annoying. What happened? Eric happened. I misread the instructions that I didn’t read and over-torqued the bearing pre-load on my rear Crossmax XL. What does that do, you ask? It makes the bearing go rattle rattle rattle, wobble wobble, tink tink, BOOM, grind, wobble, tink, poop. No more bearing when I was 8 miles from home. RTFM indeed. I decided to keep riding, as it did still spin, just painfully. All fine and good… then another BOOM. The rear tire blew out, probably at the request of my kind of expensive rear hub.

Anywho, I tried to source a replacement bearing from a local used bicycle shop, but they were far less than helpful. So instead, I called Mavic (pronounced “Mavick”, as demonstrated by the guy who worked there. Don’t let bike snobs tell you differently) directly, and they gave me the part numbers. Found the replacements after .334 seconds of searching at cambriabike.com. $19.99. Was that really so hard, local bike shop? I try and support you, but you need to support your customers. Anyway, a couple of days and a hammer later, we have a functioning Crossmax XL. Just in time to cancel my plans to ride at Syllamo due to predicted flash flooding. Kansas will have to do. I’ll post a report that nobody’ll read.

Pictures:

See the squiggly thing below? That and the other mess of crap used to be a bearing.

Yay. Let’s not kill this guy.

Speaking of bearings on their way out, Jeni and I went riding today. Me on the Poprad and her on the Trek. It was very fall-like what with the cold and drizzly goings on, but the trees still haven’t turned. Bummer.