I had a new lesson in bike maintenance today. Crom (After telling the wife about this thread, that is now what she calls the steel Diamondback) was feeling a bit sluggish, even for a heavy old steel bike, and I noticed that one side of the front cantilever brake was always rubbing against the front wheel. I ended up watching a few online tutorials, and than completely taking the front brake assembly apart. I expected to just do some lubricating, but it turned out that the shaft on one side of the brake was slightly bent, causing the spring to do nothing. There was no way to bend it back to perfectly straight, so I had to grind down the outside diameter of the shaft until it would turn properly in the brass bushing. What a pain, but not as bad as yesterday. I took the ancient and wickedly dirty chain off yesterday and cleaned it by hand. I gotta get me on of those Park Tool chain washers.

New Gripshift grips and Power Grip straps should arrive tomorrow. This bike gets a little better every day.