Health issues and this damned pandemic have kept me from riding even as the weather starts to warm on the coast.
So, instead, I embarked on a thorough maintenance run-through on the trike. Which has led me down the road to cascading upgrades.
It started with Erin Wade over at Applied Life and his blog post about mirrors, which got me to actually consider how really bad the Mirrcycle mirrors are, and to replace them. Which freed my bar ends.
Then, while trying to resolve some lingering shifting issues, I discovered that my front dérailleur cable housing was completely gummed up inside. Which led to new housing and cables. That gave me the “opportunity” to color match housing to the frame, so I bought red Jagwire Pro brake and dérailleur housing. Not a perfect color match; the red is a little more orangey than the frame, but whatever, close enough for government work as we say.
Then, I followed that up with total reconfiguration of the controls. My right hand is affected by my neurological disability, and so, having the rear dérailleur control (which I use more often) in that hand has always given me trouble. That, plus the backwards mounting of the shifters and brake levers has always bothered me, and made both harder to use.
Those bare bar ends now reenter the picture. Four two-hole drilled #2 rubber stoppers let’s me route the cables through the steering handles. And so, I swap the dérailleur controls, rear to left and front to right, and, in the process, discover that the cables I have in stock are too short to reach the rear dérailleur. Also, I jacked up the front shifter, which is fine because I didn’t really like the SRAM X5 shifters anyway.
So, now I’m stuck probably until Tuesday earliest before I can finish the job.
But, I did finally fix that annoying brake rub on the left front wheel! And, I’m really loving the new repair stand!
Pictures when I get finished.
Tastes Like Tofu 