Seat post stuck

Oh, the heartache!

It all started with Jim's post over at 400000 Miles And Counting a couple of months ago about his seat post having slipped and caused a knee injury. My seat post used to be marked with electrical tape but yet another plane trip had seen it peel off and I had never gotten around to replace it. More out of curiosity than really expecting my saddle heights to be wrong, I dug out my summary sheet from my bio mechanical assessment and professional bike fit that I had done a couple of years ago.

14 mm! I couldn't believe my eyes and measured three times just to be sure but, indeed, my seat post had slipped down by 14 mm.

After riding the bike a few times and getting used to the new correct saddle heights, it dawned on me that when I got the Peacemaker, I took the measurements off my roadbike and not from the bike fit, which meant the Fixie seat post needed adjusting, too.

To my even greater surprise, the seat post wouldn't move. Now that was unexpected! The bike is only eight months old, surely the seat post couldn't have ceased in such a short time. I googled for solutions and found Sheldon Brown's 14 Ways to Unstick a Seatpost. I went out and bought WD-40 (did you know that WD-40 stands for Water Displacement - 40th attempt?). For a whole week Alberto and I soaked the seat post and whacked and pushed and slammed and pulled. It wouldn't budge.

Is it just me or are you unhappy and sad, too, when one of your bikes is not quite right? I mean, why is it that for months I rode the bike happily with a saddle slightly too low and now, that I know the seat post is ceased, I can't stop thinking about it?

A job for the Pros, I took the Peacemaker to the guys at Fusion today. When they whacked it with a hammer, I had to close my eyes and look away! Then they clamped the whole bike in a vise and tried to use the leverage to break the lock. Nothing!

I had to leave the bike behind. Heavy hearted I drove home.

Now I will wait all week for the phone call that the seat post is freed and my Fixie is healed. Oh, the heartache!

Separation anxiety

The header does not refer to my absence here. This was caused by yet another illness in this illness-ridden winter of mine. Yes, I hear the chatter She is so sickly! I'm not! Well, not usually I'm not. Apart from that permanent feature on my health report card that is the autoimmune issue Hashimoto's, I'm usually robust and - well - healthy!

Anyway, recovery is in progress. I successfully introduced proper food to my stomach yesterday after three days of tea and dry biscuits, and all going well, I should replenish my muscle glycogen stores and rehydrate my body enough to get back on the bike by Tuesday.

But back to this post that I started last weekend and then didn't get to finish.

Only three of my four bikes have been ridden these past two years. There is plenty of use for my Time Edge and the Fixie takes me to work and home once (or sometimes a few times) a week. Even my mountain bike has seen trails in the past 12 months. It's only my trusty old Trek 1400 that's forgotten.

Last weekend I pulled it out of the garage and gave it a good clean. While I was working, touching all parts, getting inbetween to remove the grime, all the wonderful rides came to my mind: my first ride up the ranges in Cairns, this immense feeling of conquest and pride, my very first race, where I got third (beginner's luck), my first ride with clipless pedals.

December 2004 while warming up for a Cairns Cycling Club race at Yarabah

The dent on the top tube reminded me of that crash in a criterium at Murrarie a few years ago. I still have the scar where the road rash was. I wrapped new white bar tape around the handlebars and noticed the damage on the levers. Another crash, this one a training ride, and it had been entirely my fault.

Murrarie criterium in May 2006

But most fondly I remembered the very last time we road this bike during our trip through California in 2009.

It has been sitting in the garage since that holiday, used only a few more times on the windtrainer. This week it leaned against the lounge room wall, all shiny and clean right behind the dinner table. I looked at it every day, thinking how proud I was when I wheeled it out of the bike shop in Cairns all those years ago (I bought it in August 2003), a bike that, back then, was way to expensive for what I could afford and what would have been sensible to spent. I mean, it wasn't even clear whether I would stick with the sport and I certainly had no intention to race.

Alberto said I could still use it as a training bike on bad weather days, or as commuter.

My mind is made up. The bike is ready to be sold. Usually I'm not the one to hold onto things. If I haven't worn it in two year... you know the wardrobe clean-out rule!

But I find myself procrastinating, haven't put it up for sale on the local forum. I don't even know what price to ask! What's it worth?

So little... so much...

Weekend Bicycle Diary

My most curious discovery

Sometimes you observe something and you kinda know it's out-of-place but you don't immediately figure out, what causes the oddness. We had just finished our coffee at the Garage mid-ride and I was talking to John while putting my helmet and gloves back on when I spotted a guy pumping his tyres on the foot path with a proper track pump. At closer view I realised that there was an entire self-service bike workshop on the footpath. Tyre levers, allan keys, spoke tensioners... you name it, it was dangling from the wires. Where had this come from? Another sign of the times?

My best coffee this weekend

My best coffee this weekend, apart from the one Alberto had made me at home on Sunday morning, I had at a very bike friendly coffee shop on Commercial Rd. Go and check it out if you are in that part of town.

My most unexpected encounter

Not once, but many times we had mentioned during the ride, how nice it was to ride without arm warmers for the first time in months and what a lovely spring day it was and that it wouldn't be long until we complain about the heat again. I was riding just behind him up this last little hill before my place when the bird struck his helmet. Turning around, he said: "Was that what I thought it was?" I said: "No John. It wasn't a magpie." It was a Butcher bird. Don't believe what the calendar says. It's official. It's spring!

My most memorable moments

Beating this fast looking guy up the Gateway bridge...

... and having him follow me home! :-)

Signs of the times

It was going to happen sooner or later. It was just a matter of time. Show hands, all you regular bicycle commuters out there, who can seriously claim that you never found yourself in this precarious situation!

But it could have been worse. I mean, seriously, imagine to be forced to go commando!

Thankfully, it had only been the socks that I had forgotten and I just had to keep my feet under the desk for the day.

Brand new bikes appeared in the office this week, parked under the hallway staircase. It's the CEO's Specialized 29er mountainbike and the Operations Manager's Specialized road bike, not just brought in for looks but actually ridden to work. I get emails and phone calls from colleagues all around the country, telling me about the growing number of cyclists on Australian roads and customers with yellow handkerchiefs.

Who knows, one day Tough Girl skull socks may be perfectly acceptable office attire...