Getting ready for winter….!

I hope I haven’t left it too late, it seems to me that winter might be here already… After 4 years of bad weather and winter abuse I decided my Soma fixed gear hack/training bike is due for a refurb. The paint was dulled and scratched to buggery, and I want an extra set of bottle cage bosses and mudguard fixing points brazed on. I’ve been putting off stripping the bike down mainly because it’ll be a filthy job and I’d been using the bike to commute on as the weather has been so bloody awful but with no riding on the agenda today I had no excuses. It’s all done now and the frame is drip-drying on the washing line(!) after a good scrub to remove the accumulated grime. The beauty of a fixed gear in winter is that it just keeps working no matter how dirty so I only clean the thing a couple of times each winter, the level of grime seems to reach a certain equilibrium between fresh accumulation and the washing it gets in heavy rain. The downside is that simply looking at it seems to make my hands dirty.

It hasn’t all gone to plan… the cranks have been on there for the life of the bike and the bolts have seized… I’ve simply had no reason to remove them in the past, testament to the durability of the Campagnolo bottom bracket bearing in that it still spins smoothly after some 38,000 bad weather kilometres. I’ll have to leave that job to the framebuilder, I hope they can preserve the cranks, they’re a rather lovely pair of Super Records from around 1975. Headset bearings never last well through winter, I’ve fitted a new one each year and as expected this one had degenerated into a mass of rust despite the seals and being packed with grease…. every recent wet ride brought a new streak of rusty water down the fork legs.., I should have replaced it ages ago but then I’d planned to stip the bike down back in April anticipating some nice summer weather….

The hardest part about all this has been colour choice for the respray… originally a nice bubblegum pink to brighten up the dark winter days was my first choice… then I started thinking about something of an ’80’s vibe with sparkly purple… My final choice however is a rather ordinary but tasteful Pastel Blue…. I couldn’t quite convince myself I’d be able to live with pink or purple for another 4 years or so. Yellow never even made it onto the agenda, ghastly colour. Soma have been very good, a quick email to their San Francisco offices and a set of replacement decals was FedEx’d over, no charge. They’re nice folk over there. So that’s it, if all goes to plan I should have the frame back in four weeks or so ready for another few years of abuse.

Clearly I have too much time to write today. I must confess I’m wondering how I can carry on with this bloody eczema. It’s been bad all week and today with a face, head and neck that feels like an acid burn I have my moments of depression when I simply don’t know what to do any more……………. I think if I couldn’t escape on the bike I’d be a career alcoholic, or worse, by now.

Apologies for that little whinge just then, I’ll pull myself together for next time, ’till then take care out there ;o)