Nothing will help you to respect the work of people who do shit, like doing that shit. Like changing a tire off a rim of a motorcycle. I’ve seen YouTubes and it looks so damn easy. In real life it’s a lot harder.
So I have a new level of respect for people who can change motorcycle tires without a machine. I did the front tire yesterday. That was hard enough. As expected, the rear tire, today, did not disappoint. It was even harder. It took me almost four hours to accomplish what you can see in the three photos above. And you better believe I checked the rotation direction on the tire five times before proceeding! I wanted to know that I can change a tire and fix a flat, if necessary. I want to be prepared.
In a related bit of news: I’m going to send my knobbies to a bike shop either in Whitehorse, or if there is one in Dawson City, to there, and have them do the tire swap when I get there. I now know I CAN mount a tire but I really don’t WANT to do it any more!! I’d rather ride. I will bring my tire changing tools so that I can self rescue on the Dempster if necessary, along with a replacement tube for the front and rear wheels - hopefully I will never have to use them. And some dish soap and talcum powder.
I’m really a self trained mechanic. That is to say — untrained. My life and work and profession took me in a different direction. Still, I somehow figure that I can do anything; previously my only limit was time, and now that I’m no longer working, I have time to spare. It’s up to me how I choose to spend it.
It is satisfying to take something that isn’t working, and make it work. It is a pleasure to confront a challenge and overcome it. That is part of the motivation and ultimate goal for this trip.
But working with mechanical things with one’s hands can incur damage. One example. When I was tying to get the rear brake caliper to stop sticking, I had it off the bike, on the workbench. The piston was stuck inside the housing and I couldn’t figure out how to extract it. It’s not like it was hooked up to the brake system and I could just press the brake pedal, using brake fluid to push it out. But I’ve got an air compressor, why not use air pressure through the brake fluid hole? Initially it didn’t want to move, do I applied the nozzle more firmly. Still nothing. I turned up the pressure.
Success! The piston shot out like a bullet, straight at my middle finger that was holding the caliper body. It was trapped. Good thing I was wearing gloves. But it hurt like hell and my finger was totally stuck. I needed to get a C-clamp to press the brake piston back into the caliper housing and then I could finally remove the piston and clean up the whole thing of crud and gunge (highly technical terms, for the uninitiated).
It was ultimately successful. Brake is no longer sticky. And in case you are worried, there is no lasting damage to my finger.
I’m willing to do reasonable work, and I like to learn, but I don’t need to further torture myself like I did today. It took me a lot of time and energy to change the damn rear tire. Possibly the air still in the tube provided me with some resistance. Now I expect that some of that effort and time might be lessened if I had a valve extractor for the inner tube.
(Mental note: stop at Canadian Tire)
No comments:
Post a Comment