(no subject)

The bike is fixed! Wheee!

And once again, i got very lucky.

For the last few years, i've been using only Peugeot 10-speed bikes. I started using them when i got my first one years ago. Before that, i kept using generic 10-speeds, and they only lasted a few months at most. Which really sucked, considering how fun to drive these bikes are.

Since then, i've been only using peugeots of various quality. The yellow one had always been my favorite one, since it was a special ultra-light and ultra-strong world tour edition. But sadly, last year, this one got smashed by a car while i was at work. Considering that i had used it every day for five years, and got into a good numbers of accidents with it, there wasn't anything left on it that could be fixed.

So i switched to a different one. It was a much newer model, but it wasn't built as well as the old one. It was made in canada, while the others were made in belgium, it wasn't the same material and many parts were attached differently. But it was good enough, and after using it for a year, i decided that it was worth upgrading and using as my main bike.

I got the new wheels for it yesterday, and went to pick up the other parts today. And once again, i got a nice surprise. On the way to the store, i stopped at the usual pawn shop where i get most of my stuff. The first thing i noticed when i got there, is that they have a peugeot 10-speed, exactly the same model as my yellow one, with the other bikes for sale. I checked it quickly, and it was in perfect condition except for a few scratches. I went in to ask the price, and it turns out that they didn't even know they had that, so they sold it to me for 40$.

This made me very happy.

By the way, it's this one.

After that, i went to pick up the last few parts (cables, tubes and few other things) and went back home, to install everything. I had some trouble deciding if i was going to continue with the original plan and rebuild my grey one, or install the new stuf on the black one. I decided to keep to the original plan, since i have no idea if the black one doesn't have some hidden problem. So far i've found that the front gears and pedals and the stuff between them had been replaced by much cheaper stuff...

So i rebuilt the grey one during most of the afternoon. There was a ton of dried grease and oil in some parts... But things went mostly well and i finished right in time for supper.

Now, it looks like this. I've replaced both wheels, the chain, all the cables, the rear gear changing thingie and cleaned everything. All i need to replace now are the brakes and handle bars.

And it's really awesome. I don't feel as if i had to fight to keep it going foward. It just goes. I can roll at over 40km/h without too much effort. I want to wait to try with the GPS before giving any official number, but it seems that i can stay stable at 45km/h without too much effort. But i have no idea if the speedometer we were using is in any way reliable...

But it's really fun to finally be able to just go and not be held back by bad parts... I want to race now!

I think saturday morning i'm just going to get on my bike and roll until i can't move my legs.

Hehehe...