Zen and the art bicycle maintenance.

Last week I fell off my bike and broke a rib.  It was embarrassing and painful.  At my wife's insistence I took the week off from exercise.  I say my wife's insistence but I couldn't have run if I wanted to.  I was a hurting puppy.  Still am really.

I tried to get on the treadmill this morning and was smacked down by the hand of pain.

This is a set back at the moment.  Minor but annoying.  I had momentum.  I was charging forward.  Now I'm afraid to take a deep breath.

Not to mention I really need to get my bike tuned up and there is nowhere to bring it.  The bike was not damaged it was just not well assembled.  I really need to have it put together correctly.  The issue was the gears didn't shift properly and my chain came off the gears.  The cables need to be tightened up and the derailleur adjusted and whatever else you do to a 21 speed bike, assembled by a guy making minimum wage in the back of a Walmart so that a 250 pound guy can ride it.

No bike shops closer then 70 miles and none open on Sunday (my day off).  I had a window Monday but I dropped the ball.  I just couldn't pull it together to get up and out of the house, with the bike and drive an hour and a half to a bike shop in Hattiesburg, Jackson, Baton Rouge or Covington (all about the same distance away from McComb).

Maybe this is the time to learn about bike repair.  There has to be online info on setting up a Walmart bike, tightening the cables, adjusting and tuning the shifters.  I mean how hard can it be?  It's not some $5,000 Italian carbon fiber piece of modern art you ride... It's a Schwinn.

There is a poetry about being able to maintain and fix the tools and equipment that are important in your life.  I've had lots of cars and a motorcycle but never worked on them.  The closest I've ever come to being handy is basic computer support.   I can rig a home network and install software but in the physical world I'm a rube.

I remember reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in the late 80's.  I was sharing a house on the water in Annapolis, MD with a buddy, we were both tending bar at an iconic rib joint.  I was reading and he asked me about the book (what cha reading fer?) because he thought it was an actual manual for repair.  I explained it was more philosophical than that.  Maybe time to crack it open again.

The author/protagonist is on a 17 day road trip, riding an old Honda which requires constant attention but is generally reliable and up to the task.  His riding buddies are on shiny new BMW bikes, fine tuned German machines that, to their thinking at least, have no user serviceable parts.  This difference serves as a metaphor for the core question of the book. 

Funny, I find myself on a cheap but solid bike that needs attention to perform.  I could return it and trade up to a "better" bike with the included reliability of the new and expensive, or embrace the problem and learn about my bike.  To see this lack of access to local bicycle repair as a call from the universe to learn something and be more self reliant.  I think the path here is clear.  Of course the guy on the Honda in the book descends into madness and needs electro shock but hey, no plan is perfect.

In searching Amazon for bike repair books and tools I discover I can buy a bike repair stand, a bike tool kit and the bible of bike repair for less than the cost of a tune up at a shop.  Looks like the decision is made.   I think I'll add ZAMM to the cart.   Drop it on the Kindle and re-connect with a good book 20+ years later.

Even without the exercise I keep losing weight.  Going vegan has made the weight fall off.  I got on the scale expecting to be up from the week of sitting on the couch and eating.  To my surprise I was down.  That's 42 pounds in 54 days.   Not too shabby.

The pace is slowing but not stopping.  I have a schedule and a plan.  I feel the clock ticking.....  70.3 miles.....  Got a long way to go and a short time to get there. 

So I'll use the down time to learn to repair the bike.  Pictures of scraped knuckles soon to follow.  I just need to be up and running for May 13-17 National Ride Your Bike to Work Week.  I'm in.