We're cleaning house this week--well, mostly, Audrey is. We already got a bunch of junk out from under our back deck, and next are tackling the worst of the worst, the warehouse of madness, the site to which all useless, but hard to throw away, items migrate.
The garage.
Not all the news is tedious or bad. In clearing out from under the deck, we got rid of several bicycles of more than a decade's vintage and poor working conditions (several years in a damp outdoor location do nothing for fine machinery). Anyway, among the bikes was one with a nearly new seat.
My seat had been pretty worn, and that was one reason for my discomfort when riding home from Kirkwood last week. So, we reserved the seat from the cast off bike, intending to install it on my bike.
Well, problem one--the "stem," the part that the seat attaches to, does not fit the bike frame I'm using. It's too small, and I briefly attempted (because it's not a lot too small) to shim it with duck tape.
Total failure.
Then I got the bright idea to check how the seat sprint itself is attached to the thingie that attaches to the post. The thingie and the post were a total mismatch with my bike, but the seat spring setup looked very similar.
Eureka. And, although I had some anxiety about whether I would be able to reassemble the parts once I disassembled them, the plan worked in under half an hour (a record repair time for a clumsy non-mechanic like me).
So now I have a new seat. I rode for about an hour this morning before going to the gym. Could not ride any later today--it is HOT HOT HOT--but the morning ride, on the trail in Marion that starts at Boyson Road and goes past the Frisbee golf course--was pleasant.
Not used to the new seat, yet, and I'm not sure I have it perfectly adjusted, but it's definitely a step up.
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