First off I am gonna say that messing with your components is a great way to learn more about biking. My life has been centered around learning. I love it. I try to eek as much into each day as I can. Seriously. This year a focuss for me has been zen as it fits very well with how I have always seen the world and my beliefs.And so I say this...
Fixing your ride brings a more zen quality to your bond with your machine. Don't look at me funny it's true. If you haven't bonded with your bike than you might as well be riding the bus. If on the other hand you know what I am talking about you know that there is a relationship between you and your bike. Messing with the components is going to enhance your relationship. It will also bring life to what folx in the magazines,books,net are saying. Good and bad.
So I was learning about drivetrains to figure out why my infernal gears werent shifting as they aught. It is very distressing to suffer from spontanious shifting. It's also dangerous. I have narrowly avoide a car bumper enima twice. Ofcourse it didnt stop me from riding.. much.
I narrowed my problem down to 8spd shifter/derailleur and a 7spd cassette. Kickass I thought, I'll get me an 8spd cassette and NP. Right? Well yes, and no. Turns out my particular hub will hold only 7spds. So say various specs, techs and netgearheads. Even Shimano (the folx making my hub) are confused. So whatever I say to myself... I will just get another hub. Yay, problem solved
... hold the phone, my damned spokes are laced into that hubthing and therefore the whole fricken wheel...I need TOOLS. I need more than tools I need information/options/details.
.: Jedi Training :.
So yoda says you need to go for it girl. Take that shiney back wheel and really look at it. The pretty round things the chain rests on are your cassette (gears).The chain runs through two cute round pullytypethings (thats your derailleur, it nudges the chain back and forth thus switching your gear) The cassette is rotating around your hub. The graceful and slender spokes stretch between your hub and your rim. The rim is the thing your brakes push against to stop you. Unless you are fortunate enough to have disc brakes. Your tire is snuggled into your rim keeping the tube all safe. K ya with me so far?
Cuz it werks like this...
If you need a different hub but want to keep your rim, then ya gotta unlace your spokes from the old hub and attatch (lace) your devorced rim to a new hub. Whether the rim keeps custody of the casette is up to you, the jedi, and the new hubs specs. Frankly this is not a job for a beginner. Changing the casette sure, but not wheel building. That's a job for your trusted LBS.
So I got ahold of a cheap used 8spd casette and hub. Damn I was proud. Then I looked at my sweet lil ride and its beautiful back wheel. I couldnt do it. Ya see the wheel came by way of community effort. I can't bear to gut it after only two months of life. It's true, its always been there for me... and what would that say about how I felt for those who made it... its just wrong. The wheel stays intact.
So back to the local mtb message forums I went.It took some time but late one night I saw it. I almost overlooked the post as it was just labled as a fork for sale. But at the bottom was one lil line ... rhyno lite rim w/deore hub $60. Back up, read again, Perfect. Deore is an 8spd hub compatable with the sram5.0 casette I had picked up the week before. The hub you will note was already laced to the rim (the very model I had been lusting after too)...That means walking into a shop with the wheel and saying 'plunk this casette on the hub boys' or a 20min techyjob fer me to try. I also was able to talk the guy down in price sweet.
The saga
So I got the wheel home. Time to take the tire off of the rim and clean the wheel. It was MUDDY. This is disgraceful. Never ever sell dirty components. My hands were grey with tire grime and grease. The hub looked like a lil mudtwinky. ew.There is absolute clarity in the center of your frustration
*SNAP* the lever broke, my knuckles are bruised from said slender spokes and I have one lever left. So I take a breath and try again, thinking "oh crap" but unwilling to be defeated. I fiddle and get creative and the minutes tick by. I am not really making progress but I am getting the floor and me covered in the mud that had been attatched to the tire. I am also getting grease, grime and scratches all over my hands. When, *SNAP* *CRAP* the only lever I had left broke.
Now wtf am I to do?! Use them anyways ofcourse!
By now I had been trying to get the tire off for 45 minutes. I am not kidding. I was one frustrated sweaty grimy dyke. Who had been using broken levers for about 30 of those minutes.
And because necessity is the mother of invention and because frustration has a way of taking over critical thought...I chose to ignore the little voice of clarity and instead listened to the large voice of... cut the *&^%$# tire off! ...
Which I thought was a brilliant idea (read, it seemed like a god idea at the time) Cut the tire off! Off with its head!
So I got my exacto knife and sliced away, visions of turkey dancing in my head. I cut the tire just above the rim all the way around. But wait...how to get the rest off... the wire.. we forgot about it didnt we. back out came the levers and annoyingly 20 min later using the additional tool of a can opener and wrecking a ginsu knife, the tire was off completely...I could have done it this way all along...*Crap* Wrong choice *crap* broken tools *crap* bruised hands *crapitycrap* just want bike fixed *bleh*... hmmm
*this is where zen comes in handy* How do you Graciously accept that crap will happen to you? Whether it is by your choices or others is irrellivant. Well firstly it isnt personal, crap just happens, you can lable it, personalize it and demonize it, but its just crap that happened.
So say the teachings of the zen masters and so says my experience and gut instinct. So, life is all about perspective. Any control you think you have over anything other than yourself is an illusion. Each moment you have the chance to learn something as the moment passes you have a new one etc. Zen is about living within the moment. So rather than focussing on the last 120mins worth of moments and doing the dance of anger... I chose to accept that this experience happened to me and reflect on what I learnt...
Even broken shitty-ass tire levers can properly remove a tire from the rim. Especially if you are resourceful with kitchen impliments and several yoga positions that I am glad were not captured on film. When you give in to frustration you get to learn the hard way. (and wreck tires) ... And yes, there was a wee voice in my head whispering, be patient - keep trying - you've done this plenty fo times etc ad nausia.
In the end I cleaned up the rim and thanked myself for not scratching it up more than I did, its still true and now awaits its new tire, tube and cassette. Awwww ya. stay tuned.
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