New Tires

Since today is the first Saturday of the month, that usually means that today would be the day I thoroughly wash my bike.  Regardless of the frigid air, I would take my bike outside, rinse off any major debris, and scrub the little beggar down with diluted Simple Green until there remained naught but shining metal and smooth plastic.  I would then degrease the chain and, finally, rinse and let dry.  Normally I would have done this, but today I had other bicycular concerns.

Yesterday, whilst I was riding home, a spoke on the rear wheel broke.  Riding with a broken spoke, even if it’s only for a couple of miles, is not good for the wheel.  Doing so throws off the wheel’s alignment.  Fortunately, it is a problem that is easily remedied.  Unfortunately, this is the fourth time in recent memory that I have had a spoke break on that rear wheel.  That is quite bothersome, since having four spokes replaced is nearly as costly as replacing the wheel itself.  And riding with the broken spoke, as I did, no doubt weakened the remaining spokes, making it all the more likely that one of them would break before long.  This, and a problem of which a repair tech informed me concerning the hub, lead me to make the decision to replace the entire wheel.

I used the opportunity to start fresh with the rear wheel.  During my last tune-up, the rear tread had been discarded due to wear and the less-worn front tread was placed on the rear wheel while a new tread was placed on the front wheel.  Since the front wheel had a relatively new tread, and the rear wheel was using a tread that had already been worn, I decided to get a new tread fitted on my new rear wheel.  And since it has already snowed this year, I selected a tread that would function on the snowy roads.  I even had a new intertube installed, for good measure.  Now, all I need to do is wash and tune up my bike tomorrow and it should be ready to last me through the winter.  If only I could figure out what’s wrong with that worthless headlamp…