Not the people of Wales. It’s the daffodils! The idiots haven’t realised it’s only the last day of autumn and they are already more than a foot out of the ground!
The rain bucketed down last night (well rained heavily for Perth). Jan heard hail during the night and the morning TV news showed 10cm thick hail in the south of the city. What a novelty! We didn’t experience any damage, however my brother had his outdoor table glass top blown off. He was cleaning up the mess when I phoned to enquire if he was OK.
I’m scheduled to depart on another long outback trip in eight days and am hoping the rain hasn’t turned the route into a quagmire.
Whoever installed the original pantry power socket needs a good kick at the bottom end of their elementary canal. The cut-out in the block wall is too big for the plastic box. I decided to attempt to secure the box with the last of the splashback adhesive. If that doesn’t work I’ll probably have to make some type of mounting plate and fit it into the cavity.
A problem with the bicycle gears may have been identified and solved.
For several weeks the Shimano Alfine 11 speed rear hub has been intermittently missing gears. Everything is fine from gears 1 to 7 but 8 to 11 are frequently missing, The pedals just spin! Sometimes I can engage a gear after a ‘clunk’ or grinding sound.
The wheels was removed and the hub disassembled before being placed in the ultrasonic cleaner. During reassembly the bearings were greased and new oil added. It didn’t solve the problem!
Next I bought a new gear cable in the hope the original one was defective. That didn’t work either!
I tried adjusting the gear cable using the adjuster screw (this is called ‘Indexing’). Tightening the cable gave me gears 8 to 11 but I list gears 2,3,4,&5. My concern was something had broken inside the hub. That would be very expensive.
Looking for the simple thing first (and the cheapest) I decided to replace the sheath through which the gear cable runs. Much of the sheath is inside the frame of the bike.
That was when I discovered a potential cause of my issue. Where the sheath exits the upper part of the bike frame it was kinked and crushed.
Enters the frame though this hole.
Kinked and crushed.
I replaced both the sheath and gear cable before adjusting the gears. During this operation a second issue was identified. where the sheath exits the bottom of the frame it crossed over the hydraulic line to the rear brake. This was also compressing the sheath. Re-routing the sheath solved this.
On reflection the issues were created by two separate activities. The kink and crushing of the sheath was likely caused by me when I raised the height of the handlebars by adding a stem extension. This shortened the length of the sheath creating a pinch point when the handlebars turned fully to the right. The second problem was likely caused by the Taiwanese bike mechanics in Hualien. They replaced the hydraulic brake lines and probably didn’t realised they had crossed the gear cable sheath.
I need some fine weather to do a test ride and confirm all the gears have been restored.
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