Wrenching at Dan’s

The Boulder Bike Commuter Meetup group got together at Dan’s (now former) house, to play with his tools and hang out.  It was nice to have a during-the-day event that lasted a little longer.

Kathy fixed a slow leak in her rear tire.  First patch ever?  Hopefully it held!

Kerry wasn’t feeling mechanically inspired (she’s been playing with her own tools), and just wandered around snacking and heckling.  And napping.  And cooking kielbasas.   Ann did a practice run of DIY fender (and pannier) making for the workshop she’s teaching at Community Cycles next weekend.

Copious bicycle zealotry was on display.

Jeff swapped out some tires I think, and in any case spent some time pumping.  The pump seemed to have become quite lazy.  It took a lot of strokes to get anything inflated.

Ann’s fender project ended up being more challenging that initially expected, but at least she had lots of company.  Though personally, I always get kind of grumpy when I’m wrenching and I feel like someone is looking over my shoulder.

Minna, who works at UCAR but lives in Broomfield, has decided not to replace her recently wrecked car, after going to Ann and Fred’s “lose 3000 lbs in one day” workshop.  Luckily she made it out of the experience only bruised and shaken.  She said her spandex-clad co-workers give her flack for having so much stuff on her bike.  As if she’s “doing it wrong”, which I found depressing.  Maybe if she had a more unabashedly stylish and un-sporty bike they’d understand she’s doing something different from what they’re doing.

Jeff replaced the pads on his disc brakes.  I’ve been wary of especially hydraulic brakes, as some people have said the lines need bleeding occasionally, which doesn’t sound like something I’d want to have to do in “the field” while touring, or even on a long isolated ride in the mountains here, but he said he’s had them 2 years and this is the first maintenance they’ve required.

Coco on the other hand was trying to replace the pads on her mechanical disc brakes, and it ended up being very frustrating.  I thought one of the big selling points of discs was that they were less prone to finicky adjustment.

I was shocked to discover her S&S Couplers while looking at this ingenious way of keeping the front end from flopping around on the stand.  The frame was made by Dean Bikes right here in Boulder.

Dawn replaced her overstretched chain and rear cassette, opting for a wider range of gears to compensate for her ginormous road triple chainrings.

Dan had a couple of cool hacked together workstands that we used.  I didn’t ask who did the welding:

After waiting for space in a stand, I finally got to install my new fenders right at the end.  A couple of weeks ago I got a stick stuck in my spokes, and it slammed into my rear fender stay, and snapped the fender right off.  Better a dead fender than a dead wheel!  Fenders are always a little uncooperative it seems, and I was feeling a little grumpy by the end.  Kerry and I took the scenic route south out of town and then back around to the Southern Sun for some food and drink.  It was pleasantly mobbed with bicycles:

Just imagine how many more bikes you could park here without all these cars in the way!

The inside was also bustling of course, it being a Saturday night.

The spring weather is luring out people in their shorts and hoodies, but it’s not actually warm when the sun goes down.  Soon though.  Soon!