I must admit to being lax in the “maintaining machines” part of my life. The worst example of this was when I ignored the brake light’s constant illumination in my 1980 Honda Civic for 2 months (I figured the light itself was broken), an episode that ended when I pulled up to an intersection out in North River, went to apply the brakes, and found nothing to apply (fortunately the car had a manual transmission and I wasn’t traveling too fast, so I was able to gear down to a stop without killing myself or others).
It’s this same natural disinclination that gets me into trouble with Revenue Canada all the time; I can never seem to remember when to send in the brown envelopes with payroll remittances.
And so it was that I left my bicycle unmaintained for three years. Over that period it gradually accumulated various layers of guck, the brakes didn’t work very well. And so on.
While I usually find the “make an appointment, then wait two weeks” way of working problematic, this year I stormed through my lethargy, called up [[Smooth Cycle]] and made a date. I brought the bicycle in yesterday, left it overnight for treatment, and picked it up just now.
They don’t lie with they call themselves smooth, them Smooth Cycle folks: the bike runs like a top now. Even just walking it along the street it seems to roll like butter. It’s like a brand new bike.
The best $29.99 I’ll spend this year.
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I am Peter Rukavina and this is my blog. I am a writer, letterpress printer, and a curious person.
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Comments
This is like the ideal ‘cyn
This is like the ideal ‘cyn concur’ invitation post. Smooth Cycle is smooth. If I can’t fix it myself, I take it to Smooth. I also just like going in there and saying hi to Jared and the gang.
My Wayne has gone in there looking for cyn gifts and they know exactly what I would like or need.
I heart Smooth.
Mine is WAY overdue for a
Mine is WAY overdue for a tuning. Since my front-mounted child seat is coming off for a season — because one has outgrown it, and the other has yet to grow into it — and I’m likely to be driving my bike to work this summer, I think it’s the opportune time to get the full-meal-deal at Smooth Cycle. You really need to make an appointment two weeks in advance?
When I made my appt., they
When I made my appt., they were booking about a week and a half into the future. It’s a busy time of the year!
I don’t bother to get on my
I don’t bother to get on my bike in the spring before taking it to Canary Cycles - learned the hard way that my gears loosen over the winter, but don’t manifest this deficiency for several kilometres. I _could_ spend several weekends twiddling with it, but they’ve got the magic.
Having and maintaining a
Having and maintaining a relationship with your bike mechanic is crucial to having a good bike-life.
Blogging about bike mechanics is good karma.
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