Two days ago, it rained quite a bit. On the ride into work, I had to deal with several sections of deep puddles, which absolutely soaked my drivetrain. Now, the bearings in my rear hub were already on their last legs, and this ride did them in completely. I have a spare set of cartridges for the hub, but the current cartridges are absolutely welded into place (and given the construction of the hub–a Miche Primato–there is little room to manuever inside the hub body), and I have been unsuccessful in removing them. This hasn’t been a problem for the commute, as I have a spare wheel, but it throws a wrench into the populaire, as the backup wheel isn’t necessarily something I want to do 100km on. Jen has kindly offered her new rear wheel, but a different cog size means I would need to replace my chainring, and I wouldn’t get the chance to shakedown the new gearing before the event.

Adding to the confusion, I purchased a used Cannondale mountain bike yesterday. With gears and those shifty things. Yes, gears. This has been the plan for some time, as the office will be moving further north and west, and in the interest of getting the commute done faster, I decided to go with some gears. I’ll be putting slick tires on it, and swapping out the bars for something a bit different (likely the Marys from the Steamroller). But now, faced with a limping Steamroller, and a populaire course that is one half climbing and one half descending, I’m tempted to ride the Cannondale. There are, however, obstacles to this as well. First, I need to get the tires (and full fenders) for it. Second, I won’t have the chance to give it a good shakedown before the ride.

What will I do? If it doesn’t rain before my ride home, I may swap out the pedals and ride the Cannondale home, knobbies and all, to give it a test drive. Likely I’ll dawdle on the decision until the moment I have to put a bike on the top of the car for the drive to Philly…

Posted on 19 October 2006