Midnight bike mechanic

On May 12, 9:59*pm, SMS wrote:


Dealers around here use these specials to get you into the dealership to
try to sell you other services, often unnecessary ones. The most famous
one is the Bilstein Wallet Flush.

My last car (and I do mean last) was a 1987 Suzuki Forsa 3 cylinder. I
took it to the dealer for its first tune up, and they charged me for
four plugs. I asked them to take the charge off (they were platinum
plugs, so not cheap) and they told me the software didn't allow that.

So I got them to give me the forth sparkplug.

I still have it, somewhere.

(Flat-rate oil changes were a bother, too. The darned thing only held
about the same amount of oil as an SA-3 hub.)

On May 10, 11:05*am, Lou Holtman wrote:
Op 10-5-2010 4:31, Andre Jute schreef:



Today I gave my bike its annual wash, and between 3pm and midnight,
with a break for dinner, also managed a few other little jobs, with
the rest to be completed tomorrow.

For those 9 hours, if I sent my bike to be detailed at a bike shop, I
woulda been ripped at least EURO 225, plus the hours required to
change the gearbox oil and the front tube (put a standard Schwalbe T19
in because I didn't have a 19A superlight, which has now arrived), and
to take all the bolts out, put anti-seize on the threads, and torque
them up right again.

Old Mr Jeffers, who worked behind the counter of the sports shop now
run by his son, once said to a tourist who demanded pre-stretched
fishing line, "Sir, if you don't have time to stretch your own line,
you don't have time to fish." I reckon everyone should make time to do
some work on his bike; it is a peaceful experience that settles the
mind.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to the end of the season when I can do the
'end of the season' maintenance on my 3 roadbikes....and then at the end
of the winterseason the maintenance on my two ATB's and singlespeed etc.
etc. *;-)

Lou

Just a test to see if I can reply

On May 12, 3:28*pm, SMS wrote:

Another humor impaired individual. Geez, get a life.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

See - you "forgot" to put in the so some people would not know you
were kidding! HA!

Eric Babula
Milwaukee, WI USA

On May 12, 9:37*pm, SMS wrote:

Again, I was being sarcastic about the price, trying to make fun of
Jute's complaint about what a bicycle shop charges for service.

How many times is that now that you've had to explain your joke,
Scharfie? Maybe you should leave the funnies to people with wit.
Still, we'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Call together your family, Scharfie. "Dad made a joke! See all the
people laughing!" Big excitement: kids dragging out "Whatever" as if
it has nineteen syllables.

No need to explain they're laughing at you, not with you...

Andre Jute
Cuts like Solingen steel

On May 13, 3:11*am, Brian Huntley wrote:
On May 12, 9:59*pm, SMS wrote:



Dealers around here use these specials to get you into the dealership to
try to sell you other services, often unnecessary ones. The most famous
one is the Bilstein Wallet Flush.

My last car (and I do mean last) was a 1987 Suzuki Forsa 3 cylinder. I
took it to the dealer for its first tune up, and they charged me for
four plugs. I asked them to take the charge off (they were platinum
plugs, so not cheap) and they told me the software didn't allow that.

So I got them to give me the forth sparkplug.

I still have it, somewhere.

Chicken.

Andre Jute
Reformed petrol head
Car-free since 1992
Greener than thou!

============
As I have grown older, the time I spend looking for things has grown
exponentially. Not that I have become terribly addled, although that
is part of it. It is mostly because I am thinking about five things
at a time and forget where I put a tool or a part or even my cup of
coffee.-- Jay Beattie.
============

Conversely, as my eye doctor has become older, he's finally come around
to understanding that, when I say I need a more-powerful prescription
for the reading part of my glasses, that that's exactly what I need. For
years he would say this should be fine, and I'd tell him no, it's not,
and he'd basically argue with me. Not anymore. When he got to his
early-40s, all of a sudden he saw (or didn't?) the light.

Regarding losing things, I still find that what works well, if you've
dropped something, is to drop another of the same or similar thing and
see how far it goes. Once you establish its likely range, it makes
finding the original much easier. The problem with this exercise? It
strains not just your eyes, but also you memory, as you drop a 3rd or
4th successive item because you didn't see where the "experimental" or
control items went, and you have to remember how many you are now
looking for.

--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycles
www.ChainReactionBicycles.com


"Jay Beattie" wrote in message
...
On May 10, 7:04 pm, Andre Jute wrote:
On May 11, 1:53 am, Jay Beattie wrote:





On May 10, 3:13 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:

"Andre Jute" wrote in message

...

Today I gave my bike its annual wash, and between 3pm and
midnight,
with a break for dinner, also managed a few other little jobs,
with
the rest to be completed tomorrow.

For those 9 hours, if I sent my bike to be detailed at a bike
shop, I
woulda been ripped at least EURO 225, plus the hours required to
change the gearbox oil and the front tube (put a standard
Schwalbe T19
in because I didn't have a 19A superlight, which has now
arrived), and
to take all the bolts out, put anti-seize on the threads, and
torque
them up right again.

Call me confused; let's say you spent 8 hours on the bike and feel
that 225
euros would have been a rip-off for such work? How much do you
make/hour,
including whatever benefits you receive (health insurance or
whatever)? Or
what do you charge for speaking engagements?

How does one spend nine hours cleaning a bike? Using Q-tips?
Enquiring minds want to know. I could clean my bike and repack every
last beaing in less than two hours. It helps that all the bearings
are sealed except the hubs, but still . . . throw in wheel truing,
chain change, new cassette, even tape the bars. Nothing takes that
long on a bike any more. Back in the day, you could spend nine hours
because there were endless things to buff and adjust and fuss over.
Having a bong and some bicycle friends over also prolonged things.--
Jay Beattie.

95 minutes spent looking for a quick-link that fell into a flower-pot,
an hour wasted discovering that SKS made the split rivet too short to
go through the mud flaps we fitted front and rear, and so on. -- Andre
Jute- Hide quoted text -

As I have grown older, the time I spend looking for things has grown
exponentially. Not that I have become terribly addled, although that
is part of it. It is mostly because I am thinking about five things
at a time and forget where I put a tool or a part or even my cup of
coffee.-- Jay Beattie.

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

Conversely, as my eye doctor has become older, he's finally come
around to understanding that, when I say I need a more-powerful
prescription for the reading part of my glasses, that that's exactly
what I need. For years he would say this should be fine, and I'd tell
him no, it's not, and he'd basically argue with me. Not anymore. When
he got to his early-40s, all of a sudden he saw (or didn't?) the
light.

I bought some reading glasses at Costco many years ago. Damned things seem
to be losing their magnifying strength little by little.

Bill "note to self: buy some new ones and see how long they work" S.

Mike Jacoubowsky wrote:

Conversely, as my eye doctor has become older, he's finally come around
to understanding that, when I say I need a more-powerful prescription
for the reading part of my glasses, that that's exactly what I need. For
years he would say this should be fine, and I'd tell him no, it's not,
and he'd basically argue with me. Not anymore. When he got to his
early-40s, all of a sudden he saw (or didn't?) the light.

I don't see the problem. Eyeglass prescriptions aren't like drug
prescriptions -- you can tweak them any way you want too. I take mine as
a rough guide and make several variations for various tasks, including
higher correction for a pair for very close work.

On May 14, 11:21 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:
============
As I have grown older, the time I spend looking for things has grown
exponentially. Not that I have become terribly addled, although that
is part of it. It is mostly because I am thinking about five things
at a time and forget where I put a tool or a part or even my cup of
coffee.-- Jay Beattie.
============

Conversely, as my eye doctor has become older, he's finally come around
to understanding that, when I say I need a more-powerful prescription
for the reading part of my glasses, that that's exactly what I need. For
years he would say this should be fine, and I'd tell him no, it's not,
and he'd basically argue with me. Not anymore. When he got to his
early-40s, all of a sudden he saw (or didn't?) the light.

I don't mess with mine. I manage to function in just about every
capacity without my glasses at all, even though one eye doctor - upon
examining me several years ago in *my* early 40s - seemed astonished
by this. I figure if I can function without glasses, then whatever
the eye doctor gives me is only going to help a lot.

I've had three pair in my lifetime. The first lasted what seems like
decades. (I added a flip-up shade to those.) The second pair was
quite expensive with the high-tech metal frames and state-of-the art
plastic lenses and spring-loaded removable shade (gotta look
cool :-). Specifically for bike riding, I recently added a pair of
Bolle Anaconda with Bolle's proprietary Spazio process for wraparound
compensation of the Rx, and (what do they call it) photochromic (?)
lenses that darken as needed. It took six months and rejection of two
pair for shoddy manufacturing, but finally I got an extremely
satisfactory pair (Quality Inspected by Larry :-). These are
absolutely fantastic. They work great, are so comfortable that one
morning I suddenly thought I'd forgotten to bring them when they were
in fact already on my face, and, of course, they look cool :-)


Regarding losing things, I still find that what works well, if you've
dropped something, is to drop another of the same or similar thing and
see how far it goes. Once you establish its likely range, it makes
finding the original much easier. The problem with this exercise? It
strains not just your eyes, but also you memory, as you drop a 3rd or
4th successive item because you didn't see where the "experimental" or
control items went, and you have to remember how many you are now
looking for.

What always works best for me is to process the sound of whatever it
was landing, bouncing, skidding, skittering, etc. - wherever it did.
Even when extremely faint, that can provide the best clues as to
forces and especially direction - unless you actually saw the thing
jump to wherever it went. Then stop everything and apply brain power
to analyzing the event and retrace. If the missing thing made no
sound, you really have to rely on what was seen, and or an analysis
and prediction of what could have happened to it based on its
properties and all relevant factors. I once went straight to a tiny
little spring that had jumped out into the relatively tall grass by
just stopping everything, focusing all mental power on which direction
and with what force it had jumped, and went straight to it (was
lucky).

The saving grace is that nothing* ever vanishes into another
dimension. (Including the Tracy Chapman CD which seemed to have gone
there, but turned up fallen into a gap at the base of a wall, but
maybe excepting that microwave can of chicken and broccoli toddler
dinner that never turned up anywhere - although the chicken and
broccoli may have been dropped into the trash by a toddler who didn't
care for that particular recipe.)


--Mike-- Chain Reaction Bicycleswww.ChainReactionBicycles.com

"Jay Beattie" wrote in message

...
On May 10, 7:04 pm, Andre Jute wrote:



On May 11, 1:53 am, Jay Beattie wrote:

On May 10, 3:13 pm, "Mike Jacoubowsky"
wrote:

"Andre Jute" wrote in message

...

Today I gave my bike its annual wash, and between 3pm and
midnight,
with a break for dinner, also managed a few other little jobs,
with
the rest to be completed tomorrow.

For those 9 hours, if I sent my bike to be detailed at a bike
shop, I
woulda been ripped at least EURO 225, plus the hours required to
change the gearbox oil and the front tube (put a standard
Schwalbe T19
in because I didn't have a 19A superlight, which has now
arrived), and
to take all the bolts out, put anti-seize on the threads, and
torque
them up right again.

Call me confused; let's say you spent 8 hours on the bike and feel
that 225
euros would have been a rip-off for such work? How much do you
make/hour,
including whatever benefits you receive (health insurance or
whatever)? Or
what do you charge for speaking engagements?

How does one spend nine hours cleaning a bike? Using Q-tips?
Enquiring minds want to know. I could clean my bike and repack every
last beaing in less than two hours. It helps that all the bearings
are sealed except the hubs, but still . . . throw in wheel truing,
chain change, new cassette, even tape the bars. Nothing takes that
long on a bike any more. Back in the day, you could spend nine hours
because there were endless things to buff and adjust and fuss over.
Having a bong and some bicycle friends over also prolonged things.--
Jay Beattie.

95 minutes spent looking for a quick-link that fell into a flower-pot,
an hour wasted discovering that SKS made the split rivet too short to
go through the mud flaps we fitted front and rear, and so on. -- Andre
Jute- Hide quoted text -

As I have grown older, the time I spend looking for things has grown
exponentially. Not that I have become terribly addled, although that
is part of it. It is mostly because I am thinking about five things
at a time and forget where I put a tool or a part or even my cup of
coffee.-- Jay Beattie.

In article ,
"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote:

============
As I have grown older, the time I spend looking for things has grown
exponentially. Not that I have become terribly addled, although that
is part of it. It is mostly because I am thinking about five things
at a time and forget where I put a tool or a part or even my cup of
coffee.-- Jay Beattie.
============

Conversely, as my eye doctor has become older, he's finally come around
to understanding that, when I say I need a more-powerful prescription
for the reading part of my glasses, that that's exactly what I need. For
years he would say this should be fine, and I'd tell him no, it's not,
and he'd basically argue with me. Not anymore. When he got to his
early-40s, all of a sudden he saw (or didn't?) the light.

Regarding losing things, I still find that what works well, if you've
dropped something, is to drop another of the same or similar thing and
see how far it goes. Once you establish its likely range, it makes
finding the original much easier. The problem with this exercise? It
strains not just your eyes, but also you memory, as you drop a 3rd or
4th successive item because you didn't see where the "experimental" or
control items went, and you have to remember how many you are now
looking for.

LOL! That is too funny (because it's true!). There are still some
Campy 8 speed cassette pawls somewhere on my shop floor...

My father in law was a Bell telephone installer and troubleshooter. As
he got older and had more trouble seeing up close, he switched to
bifocals like most of us do. The problem was the head gymnastics he had
to do to be able to look through the near-focus part of the lens, so he
had two pairs made- one normal and the other with the near focus part on
top so that he could look up when he needed to without having to arch
his neck so far. He told me a coworker of his went one step farther and
had bifocals made with near-focus section on the top and bottom. Looked
very weird, I guess.