The weather would have been OK for a ride today — clear and warm in the sun, with just a bit of chilly wind — but it’s a maintenance day.
Hornsby has been in the Workshop in the Sky for several weeks, since the chain incident, simply because there hasn’t been enough sunlight for commuting. That may change this week. Before moving Hornsby to the basement parking, I inflated the tires and got the reflective triangle to hang straight from the saddle.
A note about mansion life
I’m supposed to use the freight elevator for the bicycles, and I’m fine with that. We just have to call the emergency center to unlock the door for us. The only problem is when we get a security worker who is new on the job and either doesn’t understand the request, or wants to argue with us that we can’t use the elevator. Apparently this isn’t in the training manual.
Thorough going over
After my fall last week, I was hearing a bit of rattling for the remainder of the ride, particularly when accelerating from a stop or grinding up a hill. I decided to give Kuroko a through inspection before the next ride.
I focused at first on the crankset and pedals, but there are no issues there. Nothing loose, all spinning freely. After that, I checked every bolt on the bike, starting from the back and working my way forward.
A few of the bolts holding on the rear rack were not quite snug, including the two main attachment points at the rear dropouts. These are the only Torx bolts on the bicycle, apart from the chainrings, so they were tightened as soon as I located the correct tool.
That done, I was curious about the derailleur hanger. This was an issue from the time the bicycle was new, and I didn’t realize the problem until I’d already ridden it for nearly two years and three of the four bolts were missing! At that point I replaced all the bolts with longer ones, and added nuts on the opposite end because the threads in the hanger itself were nearly gone.
When I had a look today, three of the four had loosened. I got them snugged up again and added a drop of Loctite to each one.
Continuing towards the front of the bike, I snugged up a couple of water bottle cage bolts and checked the torque of the seat post binder, headset and handlebar stem. All good. I nearly overlooked the chainring bolts, a couple of which needed a quarter turn to get snug again.
Finally, I straightened up the headlamp, which I noticed on a recent ride had become a bit skewed.
A couple of possibilities remained for rattling: the Di2 battery (which I swapped out during today’s maintenance for a fully charged one) and the tire pump. I taped a piece of old inner tube to the downtube just under the battery to prevent it rattling. If the tire pump turns out to be an issue, I’ll try something similar.
Satisfied I’ve tightened every last thing on the bicycle, and there’s no damage from last week’s fall, I finished off the day’s maintenance by cleaning and oiling the chain and running it through the gears. All very satisfactory.
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