The Indignity Of Sucking At Fixing Stuff

It's been oppressively hot recently--so hot that I've resorted to riding the rails, where the straphangers hang ten:

And hydrate aggressively:

And fall asleep in front of the new Apple iFan:

It's $500 and you control it with your Apple Watch.

As of this morning though the heatwave had passed and the weather was lovely:

(Holy shit, the temperature even feels like what it is!)

So lovely in fact that I resolved to sneak in a ride on a rugged all-terrain bicycle with knobby tires.

Inasmuch as my time was limited, I figured that instead of frantically spinning my way to the trail on a singlespeed like I usually do I'd use a bicycle with multiple gears and stuff.  This, I reasoned, would translate to more trail time.  Plus, it's been awhile since I've ridden my rugged all-terrain bicycle with both knobby tires and multiple gears--so long in fact that the last time I did it looked like this outside:

However, it occurred to me that the last time I rode this bike the rear hub was also making kind of a scary noise, which I figured was a "collabo" between the cold temperatures and the fact that in like eight (8) years of ownership I've serviced the hub exactly never, so the pawls almost certainly needed to be cleaned and re-lubricated.

If I were smart I'd have given the wheel to a bike shop for servicing that very day so the bike would be ready to ride well in advance of the riding season.  However, I'm an idiot who insists on performing his own maintenance.  This is not because I'm a good mechanic--indeed I'm an awful mechanic.  No, I do my own maintenance because I suffer from some misguided notion that by working on my own crap I'll have a better understanding of my bikes, which in turn will make me a better cyclist, which ultimately means I'm a better person.  Or something.

Of course what really happens is that when something goes wrong I just set it aside indefinitely and ride another bike, which is what happened in this case.  So time passed.  A child was born.  Winter turned to spring, and spring into summer.  All the while, I didn't do shit--until this morning, when after like seven months I finally decided I wanted to ride the bike.

"No problem," I figured.  "I'll just pop the hub open, lube those sticky pawls, and be on my way."

As a mechanic, it's important to understand how I work.  Firstly, I have no stand, table, or dedicated workspace, and like Mario Cipollini I just get into it wherever.  (We've both been known to do it on the floor or on top of washing machines.)  Secondly, I have no patience, and instead of setting aside plenty of time for the job I'm always in a tremendous rush.  Thirdly, for some reason (probably to do with the second thing), whenever I work on a bicycle I sweat profusely, regardless of the ambient temperature.  This means that even when I'm doing something as simple as patching an inner tube I look like this:

Anyway, I've worked on plenty of hubs before, but not this particular one, which is a "DT Onyx" for some reason.  So I unbuttoned it and knocked out the axle with a rubber mallet and immediately a bunch of bearings go flying all over the basement.  Basically they look like this, only instead of being neatly contained in the carrier they were absolutely everywhere:

Had I taken any time to read about the hub before opening it I might have realized this was exactly the wrong way to open it, but that's not how I work.

"Hmmm, those are probably important," I figured, and set about collecting the bearing--which, I should point out, look exactly like mouse turds when they're scattered all over a basement floor--and put them back in the carrier, sweating profusely all the while:

Eventually I was able to find 11 of the 12 little mouse turds, and it will probably not surprise you to learn that at that point I figured, "Fuck it, close enough," and decided to put the hub back together even though I was one bearing short.  (A fitting metaphor for my own brain, as it happens.)  So I cleaned and lubed everything, only at that point I realized I couldn't get the hub back together without disassembling it some more because I'd opened it the wrong way, and by now I was completely out of time, which meant I couldn't even do that.  Now everything's just sitting down there in pieces until I can order new bearings and find the time to finish putting it back together, which at this point will be sometime next year.

Ultimately, I started the morning with a perfect riding window, and I ended it with an exploded rear hub and no riding at all.

Nicely done.

Anyway, I'll get back to it once I've ordered some new bearings and a $180 titanium hammer.

Meanwhile, I can't even service a simple hub, yet hackers have figured out how to take control of a moving Jeep:

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV, owner of the Jeep brand, on Tuesday blasted the researchers for disclosing their ability to hack into the sport-utility vehicle’s software and manipulate its air conditioning, stereo controls and control its speed by disabling the transmission from a laptop many miles away.

This is great news, because as auto manufacturers incorporate more electronic safety features into their cars it's vital that American drivers have access to cutting-edge 21st century excuses in order to kill and destroy:

("It's not my fault, hackers took control of my car!")

Hey, if it's good enough for Team Sky...

Of course for the ultimate in excuses you've got to spend big bucks for a Land Rover, which you can now drive with your smartphone:


Remember when the most dangerous thing you could do with a phone was "butt dial" somebody?

Well now you can butt-run-them-the-fuck-over.

Or just butt-run-yourself-over:

Yes, it's hard to imagine any scenario in which this sort of technology could possibly go wrong.

Finally, everybody knows that if you don't wear a helme(n)t you'll die.  However, ask yourself this: Are you worrying about enough?  Sure, your helme(n)t is 100% effective in preventing any and all head injuries, but is it also protecting you against SKIN CANCER?!?  Of course not--which is why you need this:


It seems to me that the sun's rays are just as harmful when you're walking, so why is she only worried about it while she's riding?  If you're going to protect your face to this extent you should at least be consistent and just wear a burka at all times.

Still, it's good to see "cycle chic" and "welder chic" come together at last.