(oh, except the $20 bit? this was at one of those thrift stores where everything has a price sticker in a different colour, and on a given day of the week a given colour till be 75% off. So it was a FIVER)

Also we went to the local bike co-op and got spouse a bike, here it is

I don't think I've ever ridden a step-through-frame bike before but I was chosen to take this for a test ride as spouse can't ride yet and wow, this thing is just... So. Chill.

My bike:
🚲 come sit on me
🦝 ok
🦝 wow you're not comfy at all
🚲 face down ass up, that's the way
🦝 is that for like
🦝 aerodynamics or something
🚲 uh yeah aerodynamics aye sure

Spouse's bike:
🚲 take a seat
🦝 wow it's like sitting in a chair
🚲 ??? how else would you sit???
🦝 face down ass up
🚲 you've been riding that aerodynamics guy haven't you

You literally sit normally? Like you're sitting at the computer? And pedal? And your feet when you're pedalling are pretty close to the ground, no worries about tipping over. Dude at the shop said it was a good beginner bike, I think it's just a good bike in general, it's a very easy relaxing ride, I could ride this around all day

Back in the day, back when I were a wee lad, this would've been called a girl's bike.

The difference between a girl's bike and a boy's bike is a boy's bike has the crossbar positioned such that an inexperienced rider can stop too suddenly, slide forward off the seat and slam their full body weight into wrapping their testicles around a steel bar at high speed

this was a radicalizing event for many young boys

1980's
🐁 *holding ice against crotch* Dad, how come girl's bikes don't have the bollock-mashing bar
🐺 no need for it lad, they've got nae bollocks
🐁
🐺 not much point putting a bollock masher if there's nae bollocks to mash is there
🐺 be a bloody waste of money

2020's
🐀 *holding ice against crotch* Dad, why
🐁 You know, I asked my dad this when I was your age, and his answer doesn't really fit in this decade. You probably know a couple of girls with bollocks. Maybe a boy with no bollocks. Either way, girls with bollocks get to ride the bikes without the bollock-mashing bar, and boys with no bollocks can ride the bollock masher, in a lot of ways it's a more enlightened time
🐀 Dad what
🐁 I mean these days girls can ride the bollock mashing bikes too
🐁 So can non-binary folk, bollocks or no
🐀 dad
🐁 Anyway times change is what I'm saying
🐁 The important thing is squashing the bollocks
🐀
🐁 Flat

🐀 Dad I think I've decided that the pointless gendering of inanimate objects is an institution that has to be smashed
🐁 Like your bollocks

At the Bike Factory
🦊 Johnson, the womenfolk are wearing pants now, we must adapt, deal with it
🐛 yes sir mister Putridson sir right away sir
🦊 good god man what are you doing what are you DOING
🐛 i was removing the testiclular flattening device from the gentlemens' cycles sir
🦊 YOU PUT THAT BACK ON RIGHT NOW YOU SON OF A BITCH
🐛 but sir since all the cycles can be more homogenous now i thought -
🦊 Johnson, we are the SUPPLY side of the equation. If the market demands gender equality, we, as the supplier, will respond with "supply-side" equality.
🐛 sir i'm not sure i
🦊 Put the bollock masher on the girl's bikes too Johnson
🐛 sir
🦊🚬
🦊 Do as you're told, Johnson

🦊 We have an increasing number of non-binary customers Johnson, deal with it
🐛 sir yes sir
🐛
🐛 sir
🦊 Out with it man
🐛 sir, the... with regards to the testicular flattening device...
🦊 With regards to the bollock masher, Johnson, our non-binary customers deserve the same bollock-mashing opportunities as everyone else.
🦊 In fact, now's the perfect time to talk to you about our new motto, Sarah can you come over here a moment
🐩 sir
🦊 Tell him what your department's come up with.
🐩 *ahemhm*
🐩 "Whatever you're packing, we'll give it a whacking."
🦊🚬 Genius.

🦊 Johnson, while I have you, how's that prototype coming along?
🐛 the one you requested sir, with the upward-aiming boxing glove mechanically linked to the crankshaft?
🦊 The Bike of the Future, yes
🐛 we're having a few problems finding test riders sir
🦊 Hahahaha I'm sure you are Johnson hahaha

(note, the filter may be on the right or on the left depending on how your machine renders the 🚬 emoji. On my phone the filter is on the right, so canonically 🦊 smokes his cigarettes from the lit end)

Somehow I forgot that in my country bikes with step-through frames were called "Sit up and beg" style bikes when I were a lad, which just makes this whole situation even kinkier

🦊 It's a whole new world of opportunities in the bike business now Johnson
🐛 sir
🦊 These days anyone can ride face-down-ass-up like a good boy, or sit-up-and-beg like a good girl
🐩 What about the bad girls
🦊 For goodness' sake Sarah we don't sell to bad girls

🐩 Sir at our last general meeting you specified that our target markets were
🐩👓 "Good girls, good boys and good-to-medium non-binary individuals"
🦊 Ah yes, what slogan have you come up with for the medium enbies
🐛 Sir we still haven't designed a bike for the medium enbies
🦊 you WHAT

Bike Thread:

Wow truing up a wheel is a bit fiddly innit

I got a spoke wrench 'cause the trashbike had comedy wheels, I twisted and turned and got it more gooder, should have stopped at Good Enough but instead I got out the incredibly sensitive dial indicator I use for setting my table saw blade and oh man was that a bad idea. A wheel that eyeballed straight enough has that little needle swinging around like a fox's tail in a stripey sock factory.

NEVER LOOK CLOSELY AT ANYTHING is the lesson to take away here

Bike thread update: been riding just a couple times a week since last November, not for exercise, not for commuting, just for the simple joy of going fast. Didn't even ride at all in the cold-cold part of winter. Not even 100km on my odometer.

All the above is just for context. I just went to buy some new shorts, 'cause these ones are falling apart.

And man, see next CW'd post...

Dang, yeah, doing the same thing I do when I buy clothes (typically annually, still wishing I could just give my measurements to a bloke in a shed and have him chuck me a couple of bin bags), y'know, stick my hands in the pockets first to make sure they're worth trying on, liftyleggy, give a wiggle to make sure they're not gonna annoy me, turnyspinnyshoulderlooky to see how much I'll distract folk and WHOA HAHA WHAT HAPPENED THERE

You know how sometimes things change slowly over time and you get the occasional visceral reminder that recontextualizes the last few months?

Damn, my ass is fine now lol

This was totally worth it

I understand why some bike guys wear the tight stuff now, they say it's for aerodynamics or whatever but really it's because they're proud of their new arses and they wanna show them off

I paid $0 for this bike and it's given me hours of bonding time with my daughter and a butt my spouse can't keep her hands off

I am one of Those Guys now, I will evangelize bikes just so there can be more people in the world who are happy with their tocks

I cannot overemphasize enough the gratuitous overpayment in positive changes to my body in exchange for just how casually I've been riding this bike.

Someone who actually cared could get up early, set their odometer to zero, pass what I've done since November and get back home for a normal bedtime. I haven't commuted, I've barely done any hills, and I wasn't trying to exercise. I was half-assing it!

But my bike was all 🚲 Half-assing, huh? You've barely got three-eighths of an ass to start with, let's fix that

My presidential platform is a massive expansion to bike infrastructure so that everyone can spend more time in the extremely attractive state of having a slight sheen of sweat, fingers striped with chain oil that you want to sniff, and a magnificent, powerful, biteable ass

BIKE THREAD: Littleun's bike has always been hard to downshift. So far it's had its cables and housings cleaned, chain cleaned and lubed, housings and cable lubed (I was of two minds how the materials interact but decided heck with it let's give it a go), derailleur cleaned/lubed and endlessly adjusted, shifter and cable replaced, derailleur replaced, and now I've just got a package of new cable housings and fedi, dear fedi, as far as my pinball-technician's eyes can see there's just not anything else to change except the (admittedly dodgy-looking) housing geometry.

Any tips for routing the housing? To my eyes it looks like one or two too-sharp transitions

Here's some pics (alt for all three: cables routing in black housing against a pink bike)

Am I right in thinking these could be done smoother? Her thumb's just not strong enough to shift down ㄟ(ツ)ㄏ

So remember last night when I was all "Nah, it's the picture taken at a funny angle," well I just went to take another pic and looked at it with fresh eyes and went "Oh wow yeah that's hecked up huh"

(2 pics showing a gear shifter at an "It's just my art style" angle)

See I copied the mounting angle from my bike, where I sit at a weird angle because my bike is a face-down-ass-up-like-a-good-boy style. I've reevaluated the angle a bit here so it's closer to being parallel with the brake lever, but aye, that top housing routing is Bad

Gotta figure out a new housing that takes the bag into account 'cause she loves her bag y'know

Side view.

Aye gonna have to think about that housing huh

Alright so. I re-routed the upper housing, crossing it over the top of the yoke around the speedo, and that made things a good bit easier.

It was when I was pulling the cable through that I noticed it'd gotten frayed inside the lower housing! That was a brand new cable that came with the shifter!

So I replaced the lower housing entirely (got one of those cheap all-in-one kits online with the cables and housing and ferrules and a cutting tool and all those other bits and bobs), new cable also, and WOW what a difference. The old housings were all rusty and scragged up inside! So I replaced all three sets of housings and now it shifts BUTTERY SMOOOOOOTH

Once I'd figured out where the problem lay, it wasn't hard to fix it. The housing comes in a roll like this and you cut it to length

Popping a new cable on was similarly easy, it also comes very long and you cut it to length.

Learned from last time that it's a good idea to leave it slightly long and melt a little dab of solder just upstream from where you intend to cut, so it doesn't have a chance to unravel before you get the ferrule on

I don't have a dedicated crimping tool for these ferrules but I bet one of my electrical crimpers will do the job

Passes the tug test, and job's a good 'un!

Another job where fixing the problem took a fraction of the time of figuring out which bit was the problem.

Haven't ridden bike in a few weeks 'cause holiday and Other Crap, just took it out for a quick spin round the block and OOF MY BODY FORGOT QUICKLY

Backs of my thighs are burning real good now

Gonna hafta just keep doing it more eh

I got a new bike!

The other one's a road bike and very tall and not especially comfy so I got this one for $15 from a local bike co-op.

This one's got more relaxed geometry and shocks on the front. Also I kinda dig the colours; and by the colours I mean the way it's still red in the back but the previous owner ground off all the paint in the front.

Spent a while with naphtha and brushes clearing massive chunks of gross outta the drivechain, got the chain off and cleaned up well enough to determine that it was beyond salvage

Didn't need a chain wear gauge to figure that, just wiggled it in my hands lol

So, bike: $15
New chain: + $15

Got the new chain on, skippetyskippety on 4, maybe I shoulda looked more closely at those back sprockets before hitting checkout huh, alright yeah 4th is absolutely shagged, it's bollocksed, it's an ex-parrot, the only chain it was ever gonna work with was the one that could extend out a full link past the same number of links on the new chain. 4's the worst but they all look pretty ragged.

So, bike: $15
Plus new chain: + $15
Plus a new cassette: another $15

Gonna want new cables and housings on it too... brake pads...

oh and it's had a new tube already. Plus wants tyres.

Aside from that it's great

Freewheel, not cassette apparently. Anyway new freewheel turned up (they sent the wrong one) and I sent it back and got the correct one and the cassette removal tool turned up (I ordered the wrong one) and then I ordered the correct freewheel removal tool and then that turned up and MAN

this does NOT want to come off

Wrapping my biggest adjustable spanner in a rag so I can bang away at it with a big hammer, still not coming off

Dripped some oil in, gonna give it overnight and then tomorrow I'm gonna get out the pipe wrench and blowtorch and Tell that thing

For those following along at home, PB Blaster was what made the difference between "Impossible" and "Possible, albeit by smacking a massive pipe wrench with a hammer"

Haven't updated y'all in a while, Halfred has new shifters and brakes now but what I came on here to say was CHECK OUT MY BIG BIKE BUTT BAGS

Touching bikes calms me down in these troubling times