Late again, mainly due to a busy weekend. I don’t remember much of interest happening during the actual week though.
On Saturday I was cutting it a bit fine leaving home for parkrun, then as I got to the bottom of the hill about a quarter of a mile away my rear wheel suddenly started rubbing (or so I thought), then stopped going round at all. I didn’t really have time to look at it, so quickly locked it to a handy nearby rack and ran the rest of the way, dropping my bag and reaching the start line with about a second to spare (not that it mattered, as I wasn’t planning to go quickly). Then I had to carry the bike about a mile and a half home.
Once I’d recovered enough to have a look at it, I realised that it wasn’t the wheel that was stuck, but the bottom bracket (easily confused with a fixed gear). It turned out that it had somehow unscrewed itself and locked against the crank, which should have been easily fixed, but when I tightened it up the chainring was fouling the chain stay. After a lot of faffing about I realised that the bottom bracket was fitted the wrong way round, with the longer taper on the left – I can only assume the previous owner put it together that way, then unscrewed it a bit to stop it hitting the frame. It all works OK again, but now I have to find some red and white paint to touch up where it scratched the stay.
Sunday racing returned this week, in the shape of the Framlingham 10k. It was its usual hilly self, and I dragged myself round in only five seconds longer than last year, which is an improvement if you squint through the lens of age grading.
Back to the subject of bike maintenance, I bought a bleed kit for the brakes on the Grinduro (see last week), and on Sunday afternoon I successfully bled the front brake. Unfortunately when it came to the rear, the bleed nipple on the caliper was seized solid, and defeated a variety of tools. I managed to get some pad clearance back anyway, by opening the filling screw on the brake lever reservoir and pushing the pistons back in, displacing some excess fluid. So that bike is now rideable again, taking the total up to five (six if you count the terrible but more-or-less working mountain bike).
I was just getting ready to take the bike out for a spin to check that it all worked when I was informed that various people were heading to the Cricketers for food and beer before they all went to the Corn Exchange to see an Iron Maiden tribute band. I didn’t join them for the gig, but it would have been rude to skip the drinking too, so I combined that with the test ride, heading straight there, but adding a few miles (some on unpaved tracks) on the way home. The wheels I built seem to work properly, and even got the Solomon seal of approval for appearance and trueness.