LABOR Day Weekend - time to think about winterizing your bike!!
#1
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LABOR Day Weekend - time to think about winterizing your bike!!
Here's how I spent 4 hours today:
I'm posting this in the commuting forum, because commuting last winter was the cause of this. That, and laziness on my part.
About two weeks ago, I thought I'd try a different seat on my commuter, an old ''91 Bianchi Nyala. To make things easier, I figured I just pull the post out and pop in a different one. Flip the quick release, pull . . .nothing. Totally frozen! Quite surprising to me, since for the last 15 years, the biggest problem I had with the seatpost was that it constantly slipped.
Anyway, I put the bike in the stand, loaded up the seat tube with pb blaster and let it sit two weeks. Nothing. A six foot cheater bar only succeeded in twisting the pressed on seat mount.
So I resigned myself to sawing it out. An hour with the hacksaw pretty much completed the first cut. The problem is that the bike is big for me, so there was a lot of seatpost in the seat tube - and the hacksaw blade was just barely long enough to get to the bottom of the post. Took a vise grips, and still nothing. So I made the second cut. It wasn't until I was actually able to pry and twist the piece and break it out of the seatpost that it was loose enough to twist free.
I know I adjusted my seat sometime in late April, AFTER the snow was gone; I should have gotten off my butt and done a full overhaul then. But since it is my "beater' bike, I figured I could let it slide. Paid the price. New seatpost will be getting LOTS of grease!
I'm posting this in the commuting forum, because commuting last winter was the cause of this. That, and laziness on my part.
About two weeks ago, I thought I'd try a different seat on my commuter, an old ''91 Bianchi Nyala. To make things easier, I figured I just pull the post out and pop in a different one. Flip the quick release, pull . . .nothing. Totally frozen! Quite surprising to me, since for the last 15 years, the biggest problem I had with the seatpost was that it constantly slipped.
Anyway, I put the bike in the stand, loaded up the seat tube with pb blaster and let it sit two weeks. Nothing. A six foot cheater bar only succeeded in twisting the pressed on seat mount.
So I resigned myself to sawing it out. An hour with the hacksaw pretty much completed the first cut. The problem is that the bike is big for me, so there was a lot of seatpost in the seat tube - and the hacksaw blade was just barely long enough to get to the bottom of the post. Took a vise grips, and still nothing. So I made the second cut. It wasn't until I was actually able to pry and twist the piece and break it out of the seatpost that it was loose enough to twist free.
I know I adjusted my seat sometime in late April, AFTER the snow was gone; I should have gotten off my butt and done a full overhaul then. But since it is my "beater' bike, I figured I could let it slide. Paid the price. New seatpost will be getting LOTS of grease!
#2
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That's bizarre. I ride the same bike in the winter (and in the same town!) and like you, all I've ever had with my seatpost on the Nyala is slippage. I was just thinking about getting it ready for the winter. Thanks for a motivating story. Now I'm wondering what I'll find... Undoubtedly a somewhat neglected chain and gears.