Following last weekend’s very wet but ultimately enjoyable Tour de Chiba, Kuroko was overdue for a washing. And I needed to deal with the mildew on the saddle, which I’ve left languishing in the bike parking garage for a week now.


The first order of business was simply to give the entire bike a good washing up with detergent and a brush, including the saddle. I’m happy to say most of the mildew simply washed off.
Following the rinsing down, I put Kuroko in the bike stand at let it sit and dry. It’s a mild day and the sun is shining, but it’s not quite shining into the Workshop in the Sky yet. After a bit I checked the saddle and it was dry, so I went at it with some Proofide (Brooks leather dressing). I could see some remnant of mildew in the grain of the leather, so I put on a coat of Proofide and gave it a good buffing.



I followed this up with a more generous application of Proofide, which I left sit to dry before I buffed it again.
In the meantime I checked for chain wear. It’s at 50%, so the chain still has a lot of life left in it. I cleaned the chain, rinsed out the desgreaser, and left that to dry before I applied the lubricant.
And I took a moment to pair the Di2 to the Garmin, which had somehow failed during last week’s ride. It just took a moment to get the two systems talking to each other again.
I’d thought about taking Kuroko to the office to use the shop there, and so had put off washing my shoes. But at this point I decided I wasn’t going anywhere, and so I hosed off the shoes as well.
I haven’t forgotten
I rode the entire Tour de Chiba with a set of non-functioning dynamo lights, and clip-on battery lights filling in the purpose. I’ve got a week off from work now and I’m going to get those dynamo lights working or I’m … well, I haven’t given up yet.





I suspect I’d botched the soldered connection in the junction box on the first go round, so I snipped that out of the equation and stripped back the resultant ends of the wire. The outer housing of the coax is quite tough compared to the fine copper wires, so it took a couple of tries to expose the wire rather than snip right through it.
The first soldered joint was for the inner wire and I thought it went well overall. Unfortunately I’d let the soldering iron get too near the heat shrink tubing, and it stuck to the insulation as a result. I snipped that carefully away before wrapping the joint in vinyl tape. Then I had a go at the second joint. It didn’t come out quite as neatly, but I felt pretty sure it was a good enough connection.
I wrapped up the whole deal in vinyl tape and stuffed it back in the steering tube. I’d managed in the whole effort of getting the fork settled in to tear the rear light cable away from the headlight, so I redid that bit as well — and got the heat shrink to work for me.
I got the stem cap back on the bike, with everything aligned as expected and no noticeable fork wobble. I put the bike in the stand and gave the front wheel as much spin as I could by hand (not much in the end). And I didn’t see a single flicker of light.
I’ll know on the next ride, which will probably be Monday. But believe me, no one will be more surprised than me if I’ve managed to get it going.
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