The Weeks Keep Rolling By

What a week. It seemed to go by relatively fast, they all do recently. At first this seems to be a relief, but when I think about it at a deeper level it is kind of shocking. Do I really want my life to go by so fast? Its been almost a year since I left Hilo a reality which I find complex; a mixture of surprise and melancholy. I still sometimes wake up to the alarm and think its time to go to work at the bike shop, or on a weekend when I wake up at 11:00 and slowly open my eyes I feel, if only for a brief moment, that its time to quickly eat and go ride to Kulani forest with Nate and Sadie. But when my mind catches up with the reality around me, the realization that I am here and not there is always a little disappointing.

Ok folks, on a different note I would like to talk about by Manitou Sherman fork and my problems with it, so get a cup of coffee, curl up on the couch or toilet and get ready for an exciting read.

The last few weeks my fork has been acting poorly, so I took it apart to try an understand why. Well, 2 hours later I found out why. Lately the fork has been experiencing extreme stiction, and sometimes it wouldn't even compress at all. Needless to say, the off-road performance was suffering. Well what I found was that the rebound damper assemly inside the right leg which usually rolls up and down the inside of the leg regulating oil flow (and thus rebound speed) was wedged at an angle and was causing the binding and stiction I was experiencing. Interesting I thought, but unfortunate. In the Manitou Forks, at the bottom of the right leg you have the rebound dial and if you take that dial off you have a very, very flimsly bolt which screws up into the rebound damper assembly holding it steady inside the stantion leg. That flimsy bolt was broken leaving my rebound knob attached to a loose rebound assembly, thus when the fork is compressed there is nothing to hold the assembly stable and the result is that it wedges itself at an angle and the fork binds up. Ok I thought, I'll just track down a new assembly online and it'll be good as new. No such luck. In order to remove the fork stantions (legs) from their lowers (what the legs push into) I needed that broken bolt. You see, by screwing in that broken bolt it would release the damper from its connection with the stantion, and since its broken, I can't get the legs out of the lowers. So long story short, I drained all the oil, took out the compression rod and part of the rebound assembly and out the spring back in the other leg. I now have no compression or rebound asjustments, just a very pogo-stick like fork. Oh well. I was bummed out at first but then I realized that hey, I can still ride the bike and the fork half works, and I'd love this sport no matter what kind of bike I had, so I didn't stay upset for too long. I'll just get a new fork sometime down the line when I win the lottery.

Snow Overhaul

It snowed last night, which I was surprised to see as I woke up this morning. We didn't get too much though, maybe just 2 inches, and its almost melted already. However, we might get more this weekend.

This terrible weather has given me the chance to overhaul my bike in preperation for my daily commutes to work (which will start tuesday, I got the job!). I repacked the hubs, packed all bearings cartridge and otherwise with new Velo grease, lubed the insides of all the cable housings, and put on new brake pads on the rear. The bike is rocking for now. My Swinger 6-way rear shock has been suffering from some harsh top outs and a little oil leak, so I went ahead and bled the damping system using a real light oil *cough* chain lube *cough*, and it should prove a temporary solution until I can get some new o-rings for my compression adjustments and proper oil to do the job the right way.