Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Recovery

It's been eight weeks since I fell and broke my hand. It has healed significantly but I haven't been riding my bike in all that time so I don't know how much doing so might aggravate things. I can still feel that my hand is damaged and will probably wait until the temperature rises into the 30s before I pull out the bike and start riding again. when I do, I'll have to change the gear cassette again. Just before my fall I had changed the chain at 1000 miles or so. Doing this is supposed to limit wear on the gears but it didn't work this time. The new chain slips in the highest, most used gear.

In the past, I've gotten 2000 miles out of the gear but I changed from a freewheel to a cassette on the bike shop's advice to extend the component's life. In fact, it's life has been halved and my efforts seem to have been wasted.

Why is it that my old Schwinn Sierra ran for years when I only changed the chain once a year and almost never changed the freewheel and my newer Giant Cypress needs the chain and now the cassette change twice a year? My only guess is that the metal they make components out of now is crap.

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