On Wednesday afternoon, I received my new bike. I cycled back to SQ, rammed down some food and cycled to spinning.

However on the way back – mostly uphill – not all was well: the front gears weren’t changing happily, the rear brake disc was rubbing constantly against its pad and the rear wheel appeared to knock against something once per revolution.

So I took the bike back to the co-op as soon as I could on Thursday morning. The co-op person I spoke to apologised, said he’d get it sorted and would speak to a manager. He asked when I’d return to pick up the bike. I said 4pm and left them to deal with new bike. I got back to the coop just on 4 but my bike wasn’t ready – apparently too many other folk had turned up needing repairs. (Not best pleased with this reasoning!)

About 4:10 I received my bike back for a test run. The rear brake was obviously sorted and the front gears were much better. They didn’t change completely smoothly when going uphill but I was told (and have since read elsewhere) that deraillieur gears don’t change smoothly when going uphill. (Chains require some slack to lift up and over the gear teeth but won’t be slack if when cycling uphill.)

So I cycled back to SQ with fixed bike, almost happy. However nearing SQ, the bike ceased being able to freewheel – there were nasty crouching sounds as the chain lifted off the rear gears in mechanical pain and severe chain slap. I phoned the bike co-op who told me to get the bike back – the phone-answerer readily agreed there shouldn’t be problems with a new bike.

It turned out a bit of wire from the road had caught between the rear gear cassette and the spoke protector: the co-op had to remove the cassette to get it out. (I have the tools to do this for Vilior but not for new bike – yet!) While I was waiting, I picked up a couple of chain-stay protectors so I could ask which was better. The mechanic recommended that using an old inner-tube and zip ties was far better, offered me a tube and ties, and then to do it himself (which has reversed my grump against the co-op). 15 minutes later, the new bike chain-stay had been protected rather like this.

And this has helped me settle on new bike’s name! Because been a bit of a PITA to all and sundry, yet is dark, fast and sleek, wears a home-made prophylactic and leans to the left (due to the frozen left shoulder – I need to adjust the handlebars a bit to allow for this), I give you Lev Davidovitch!

Lev sporting Vaudes

Lev naked!

By the way, this was the second entry when searching for ‘lev davidovitch’. That’s scary…