The story of the missing link..40 years in the making

If it ain't broke don't fix it right. Don't tell that to an engineer (Explains my writing style doesn't it). Our motto is, if it ain't broke, you just haven't tried hard enough to break it yet. Or how the hell does this thing work I think I will take it apart to find out. Or I can make this way better if I modify, adjust, or just fiddle with it. So goes the story of my life with mechanical things. When I was around 5 years old I took my bike apart and couldn't get it back together. I seem to always remember having a bike to ride, my Dad put it back together. I just wish he had showed me how he did it. Of course, being only 5, youv'e got to wonder how much I would have been able to comprehend. For the past 6 years I have been engrossed in a hobby of cycling. Not just riding the darn things but assembling, disassembling, cleaning, modifying, improving learning and thinking about improving the dozen bikes which have gathered in my garage. Now most of them are not mine, I have 5 other people who ride 8 of the bikes in there. Although I have been known to borrow them from time to time. I do however claim 4 of the bikes and I spend a good bit of time tinkering with them.

What I have come to learn is this, in cycling, mechanical stuff is complicated. Bike Parts are designed to work in a certain way, if assembled incorrectly (wrong bolt torque, type of grease, orientation of assembly type of part etc) all hell breaks loose. Its pretty overwhelming for someone doing this as a hobby.

Heres a recent example: My wife was having trouble shifting the gears on her bike, she has small hands and the shift lever required a lot of travel and she would not be able to shift it, (This would be the all hell breaking loose part). Usually this happened on a steep hill where she would be stuck in a high gear and end up having to stand up on the bike to get it to the top. It would be way too easy and not as much fun to go to the local bike shop and have them fix it. So I set to work adjusting fiddling, modifying etc. I get most of the job done when I notice that after the modification the chain is too long. So the chain has a little quick link which allows it to be taken apart. I have some of these on other bikes which I have taken apart successfully. So I go about trying to remove it. No luck. In fact no amount of pliering, hammering, use of excessive force or foul language will free this thing up. Well if theres one thing I have learned in 35 years its once four letter words start coming out of my mouth, its time to seek professional help (or the occasional ambulance ride). So off I go to the local bike shop and say "Hey man this thing is stuck If you can get it apart I......and before I could say "will give you fifty bucks" the bike shop guy hands me back the chain with the quick link disconnected. Perhaps he shoudn't have done it so quickly. I am there thinking this guy is a freaking David Copperfield. "Can you show me how you did it..." I felt like I was asking Tiger Woods how he hits the ball 300 yards. Well actually I felt like I was asking Tiger Woods how he kept all that skank a secret for so long. But I digress. So I was taken into the inner sanctum of solitude and shown the secret trick. Everything with bike repair is like that. Theres always some trick where it takes me and hour and 1000 lbs of force and someone shows me how to do it in 30 seconds with ease. I guess thats whats so intriguing about working on bikes..theres always something new to learn and an incredible sense of satisfaction when you learn how to do it correctly. 40 years later and I can actually put a bike back together...with a little help from my friend at the bike shop that is.