The Ongoing Bicycle Saga has, I hope to GOD, reached its conclusion, she said in the wary tones of one who has been burned before.
The goddamn thing was, as previously mentioned, clicking with every half-cycle of the pedals, and the chain went right back to falling off basically any time I shifted out of second gear. So in an act of last-ditch desperation I brought it to the other bike shop, who had been rude to me the first time I went in there so I didn’t want to go back but having been to the not-rude one like five times now without any long-term resolution, well, okay, I’ll try it again. And I knew I’d be gone Thursday so not cycling anyway and maybe, please god, they’d fix it and if not I’d, IDK, die in a pit. Whatever.
They were not rude this time, and I explained the problem and they explained it back to me wrongly and I said “yeah I’m familiar with what you’re describing but it’s not what’s happening” and explained it again, so I left without much hope, and Thursday afternoon got a text saying “bike is fixed, come get it at your convenience,” which was today.
“Take it out to the parking lot to check it,” they said, and I did, and it didn’t click, and it shifted in and out of first AND third gears, and I returned to pay and they’d apparently changed out the entire back flywheel, which I believe now means the ENTIRE gear exchange has been replaced and this bike had better last me ten years because Christ on a crutch. I told them I’d take it out over the weekend and bring it in again early next week if there were any other problems and they said “Sure!”
But. I cycled home, changing gears as I went, from the very lowest to the very highest, and the chain didn’t fall off, and the transitions from one gear to another were smooth, and PLEASE GOD LET THIS BE THE END OF IT. Because aside from anything else, I will NEVER defeat Dan at the pool if I CAN’T GET TO THE POOL. But also because I’ve spent a lot of money trying to get the damn bike working and I’m so tired of it and I just want it to work. :}
Oh, but the other day I did cycle to work, and I stopped to check my phone for something, and pigeons came to visit me!
So that was pretty neat. :) I was like, “Sorry, I don’t have any food for you!” but I’ll have to bring some. There must be another cyclist who does, because they were bold as brass!