Whirr, not Grrr, for real this time

Still no workouts, unless you count riding .41 Km as a workout. That was after working on Estela. This time I remembered the secret for cleaning gucky chain lube. The secret is not to get it on your hands in the first place. I found the rubber gloves and wore them. Much better.

You may remember this post, where I used a brutal tool on poor Estela to get the chain off. Now I've got the right tool. It looks like this and works perfectly.

I was more thorough this time. I started playing with the little gear wheels in the rear shifter, and found the problem. The middle gear wheel didn't want to turn hardly at all. I found the right allan key and took it all apart. Somewhere along the way I managed to get a rock up in there, and there was a huge gouge in the bearing cover. Plus it was all gucked up, which wouldn't help. Once it was all apart I cleaned it and smoothed out the scrapes and gouges. When I put it back together it spun freely. Nice!

Then I did the other one, since I thought it had been spinning ok, but now I could see it needed work too. It was gucked up as well. I took a toothbrush to the chain and scrubbed hard. Once it was all back together and lightly lubed I went around the block. I couldn't believe the difference! So much nicer.

Even that little ride I could still feel the twinges in my leg, so it's not as if this will make the difference in me being able to charge down and back the Road to Nepal in record time. Only a few days till the appointment.