THE DIARY GAME : 02 Jan 2022

The Chinese New Year’s decorations are already up, and the mood is setting in. Let’s hope that it’ll be an awesome year of the bunny.

Today is the final day of the long weekend. Anticipation for a boom in delivery orders did not materialise. Unfortunately.

It was quite a disappointment, as orders have been a little scarce for the second half of Dec. Seemed like after the world cup, everyone’s out of the country for vacation. A spirit that has been starved by the pandemic for the past 2 years.

Nonetheless, I’ve decided to do something more productive than whine. I’ve decided to work on my 2 bikes. It’s a major backlog as all of my bikes seemed to malfunction or functioning at sub-par level. There always seemed to be something more important to do. So after sorting out the least problematic one, the other 2 are left to collect dust.

Bike 1: My hybridised road bike.

1. A leaking rear tire
2. Bad brakes
3. Overall dirty and grimy

Bike 2: My 20” foldable bike

1. Jammed headset
2. Overall dirty and grimy
3. Hinge loose

The first thing that is settled is the leaking inner tube. Doing it the primitive “Bubble Test” way and found that the previous patch (from Decathlon) is leaking. Those patches suck! Tried on a few tubes prior. They are only, at best, good enough for a quick patch to reach home for some proper work. Highly not recommended.

Got that fixed and rode off to the washing point. My other bike is parked just downstairs of the public washing bay. Just 20cents for about 18 litres of water.

Proceed to wash down all the dirt and grime. Pretty fast. Less than an hour. Then let the bike dry before changing the brakes.

Dismantled the bike and confirmed my suspicion. Rusty ball bearings. In fact it is so badly rusted that the ring holding them together is broken.

As a word of advice for would be bike owners: NEVER get a cheap iron-based alloy parts for ANY bike! Not all ferrous alloys are made equal.

Fixing this part took me more than two hours as I decided to rinsed off grease on those undamaged parts and regreased with my Ceramic Grease. Just to be safe. Then replaced the ball bearings and stem. And finally do a test and fine tuned the parts.

All in all that's six hours burnt! Hungry, tired, headed home for a sandwich, a Steemit post, and a good sleep.