20130702

My Tires Are Melting

Generally any temperature above eighty degrees renders me completely useless.

DO NOT WANT
Nonetheless, I can never go more than a few days without riding or tinkering with something, and since the heat was keeping me off the bike I tackled a headset problem that timeshare bike was having.

I do wonder what color that saddle was originally.
I do wonder what color that saddle was originally.
For those of you not familiar with Zakat, my timeshare bike, understand that the frame is of unknown origin and uses standards that no other place in the world seems to use, specifically the headset.  Its fork was borked beyond repair when I got it, which required me to replace it, and when I tried to replace the headset I discovered that nope, nothing else fits it.  Literally nothing.  Believe me, I tried.  So I ended up fudging together a headset out of a few other headsets (I've been informed that I am going to hell for this, I know) which is not something I recommend.  Seeing as this was a beater put together with spare parts to ride around my ultra hot hometown and I'm not racing anything with it, I opted to take my chances.  So far I haven't died.

Anyway, the headset was rattling, and the cure was another spacer.  Once the night cooled off to a refreshing 100 degrees at 10 PM (kill me) I hunkered down in the garage to add the spacer.

Boom.  Easy.
About a minute later I was done and also drenched in eight gallons of sweat.  A bit of tweaking and the rattle had stopped, everything was fixed, and I was good to go.  

I love these handlebars.
Since I had everything out I did a few more tweaks here and there and checked everything with the intention of going on a night ride, but it was still too hot to even breathe.  I've ridden through storms, wind, pit bulls and Los Angeles, so it takes a lot for me to not ride...this is just too much.  

Here's to hoping the weather stops being stupid relatively soon.

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