We had two things to finish up with Hornsby today, after which I figured I’d take a lap around the block as a brief shake-down. First up was to get a proper cable housing on the end of the shifter cable, from the chainstay to the derailleur, fixing my earlier mistake which left me with not enough housing for the requirement.
Yesterday I cycled to the local bike shop and got an additional 1m of cable housing. Then I cleaned up the Workshop in the Sky a bit, so we wouldn’t be standing on the old frame, discarded tires, etc., as we worked.
With me handing tools to José and giving guidance, it didn’t take long to cut the housing to size and then cinch the cable in place. When we tried shifting, though, nothing happened. After a few minutes and more than a bit of swearing, I realized the cable wasn’t routed correctly after emerging from the barrel adjuster — and that was my fault. With a little more gesturing and a lot of words, I guided José to get the cable routing sorted, and once that was done we had the derailleur responding to the shifter.
As far as it went, anyway
It took some back and forth to get the shifter position to match the position of the derailleur on the cogs, and then a little more playing with cable tension to get things really in tune.
But then we hit a roadblock. We could shift all the way from the smallest cog up to the largest, but then it wouldn’t come back down. The problem was clearly in the shifter — the “go slower / easier” lever (as I explained it to Fearless Leader Joe) wouldn’t move.
We disassembled the shifter and made sure it was all working properly. It took a couple of tries and then it was all good. Reassembled the shifter and put it back on the bike, and — nothing (which is to say, the exact same issue). We did this twice more with the same result.
At that point I figured it was time to do some research. We finished off the cable end and then unwrapped Hornsby’s crowning glory: a handmade bell from Tomii Cycles in Austin, Texas. I bought this more than a year ago, before I’d decided to buy a new frame rather than repaint Dionysus yet again.
I cut an old innertube to protect the handlebar from the bell’s clamp, and then José and I had it screwed on in less than a minute. We both gave it some experimental rings, and it’s gorgeous.
Success deferred
I won’t have another chance to look at the shifter before Thursday, and possibly not before next weekend. The bike won’t be finished at that point, but it will be ready for its first ride. I’m putting off wrapping the handlebars, for example, until I’ve had a couple of rides to check out the position of the controls.
Apart from the handlebar tape, I’m thinking of replacing the quick release skewers, adding a taillight, and either finding the omamori from Dionysus or riding up to Aso Jinja to get a new one.
Something old, something new
Now that we’re very nearly ready to roll, here’s a list of all the parts that were reused in this build.
From Ol’ Paint
- Nothing
- Nada
- 何もない
- You get the idea
From Dionysus
- Headlight
- Handlebar stem spacers
- Bottle cages
- Tire pump
- Pedals
- Crankset, including the bottom bracket
- Hubs
- Brake levers
- Shifter and derailleur
- Saddle and seat post
- Minitool
- Garmin mount
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.