I'm pretty down with doing all the mechanical crap on my bike. As it is this moment, the only thing on my bike that I didn't build from component level is the front wheel. Lacing wheels isn't intimidating anymore. I hope that my new pimp hubs come in this week so I can build my new race wheels on Saturday. Adjusting hubs has always kind of freaked me out, though. This almost definitely stems from my first experience pulling apart some old cheap Shimano mountain bike hub, where the ball bearings spit out at me and caused a huge mess.
My Powertap hub bearings were pretty loose. Enough so that the hub shell moved back and forth a little on the bearings, which I know ain't right. After having made it right, I can now safely say "boy, that was easy." Tiny adjustments make huge differences. A half turn of the cone locker thing was much too much side force. The wheel would only spin freely while unloaded for like 20 revolutions. It was more like an eighth of a turn that made it all smooth. I hadn't been in any hurry to put the Powertap back on the bike, as I'm in no hurry to quantify just exactly how pathetic are my current capacities.
Quick one on housing prices and mortgages. The people who get mortgages these days are going to be the buyers with steady and verifiable income, credit scores of 700 or more and a 20% down payment. How many people do you know who have $100,000 with which to make a down payment? That's the 20% down payment on a two bedroom condo in DC. How many fewer people are going to have credit scores over 700 after the toilet finishes flushing? My guess is that we aren't through seeing housing prices creep down. You can't sell people what they can't afford. When Monopoly money was the order of the day, being able to afford something meant one thing. Now, it means something else.
So despite the world kind of falling to shit and the fact that as bad as I was before I'm worse now, a trip to the Lost River Barn looms for next weekend. I can't wait.
Register for Ed Sander, and buy a raffle ticket too. Buy a couple.
1 comment:
Check out Hoovis. He's got a winner of a link.
BTW, my credit is going to be golden. How I'm going to deal with it when house prices in my neighborhood drop to $150k, when all of us paid $300 - $375k, I'm not so sure.
Post a Comment