Recently my front wheel developed some frightening wobbles and investigating the innards of the hub revealed it to be beyond repair. My break in London has given me easy access to some quality bike parts and since the front rim was also pretty worn I decided that the best thing to do was build a new wheel from scratch.
I spent time, while still in Mexico, trying to find out if any open access workshops existed in London similar to the non-profit community organisations in the US such as Off the Chain of Anchorage, The Bike Kitchen of San Fransisco or Bike Works of Silver City.
While I didn’t find any non-profit community organisations, of that particular model, in London I did discover Micycle, an accessible and friendly bike shop in Islington that has an extremely commendable open workshop policy. I rang to arrange a suitable time and then made my way across London to spend a day building my new wheel in their fully equipped workshop with the help and encouragement of Micycle’s bike mechanic, Jules.
Spokes and spoke nipples.
Threading...
...spokes.
It was a pretty quiet day in the shop. Jules supervised my efforts, when needed, in between putting a new bike together.
Truing the wheel. I wasn't very speedy but the final result was deemed pretty satisfactory for a first effort.
Waving goodbye to the excellent crew at Micycle. Note the rainy city streets: my Central American appropriate clothing is in not quite up to London's autumn weather.
{ 2 } Comments
Hey Anna,
(Remember us from La Perroquia in Campeche). Got your comment on our blog, thanks for looking in.
Glad to see you you got to London OK. So your suspicions re the hub were true! Hope your godmother is OK; and glad to hear that you have fixed the bike,…again.
Like the new blog entries, especially the rainy London scene.
Temperature on the Caribbean side of CR is a cool and consistent 32 C so glad to see its raining somewhere.
We are still at the Sloth Sanctuary, but will move on soon to the Osa Peninsula; got to move soon running out of RAM to store all the cute Sloth photos.Rescued a few wild birds too, red capped mannakin spotted fly catcher and a humming bird.
Keep safe on your travels and may your path be forever open
Besos,
S y P x
Impressed with your wheel fixing abilities, how was day of the dead? photos?
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