Following yesterday’s big redo on Kuroko, this morning I mounted the rear tire and took her for a little spin around the block. It’s been nearly a month since I was on this bike, and after a week of commuting with Dionysus, it took me a moment to adjust. “Why is the saddle like this?” I thought as I mounted up. And then a moment later, “Oh, right … “

It was just a spin around the block, but everything is right with the bike. There’s just a bit of brake squeal from the rear, but I hope that is just things settling in after all the work involving the brake yesterday.

Next!

Starting with my ride home from work on Thursday, Dionysus was making some kind of rattling sound when I pedaled, specifically when I pushed down with my right leg. I checked the crankset for play and there was none. The noise continued during Friday’s commute. So this morning after taking Kuroko around the block, I brought Dionysus up to the Workshop in the Sky for a looking over.

The first thing I did was to fill up both tires. I’d noticed the rear getting low on Thursday, and so I’d pumped it up with the hand pump before riding home. Both tires were still a bit low this morning so I topped them up.

That done, I turned my attention to the crankset. Again, no sign of play. I was just thinking of removing the chain to see how freely the crankset was turning when I noticed something.

I’d put the hand pump back in the mount crookedly, and the left crank was knocking against the pump head. When I pedaled down on the right, the left crank was coming up and tapping the pump.

That took all of two seconds to fix. (I took the photo above after I fixed it.)

Following the fix I took Dionysus around the block and all was well — all except the impatient driver who honked at me, I guess expecting me to pull over to let him pass. I was in the center of the lane to clear a parked car, and I pulled over once I got past that obstacle. The driver took his time overtaking me after that, and I caught up with him again at the next two lights.

Both bikes could use a washing up and chain cleaning / oiling, but Nana has laundry hanging on the balcony today, so that’s going to wait.