Greetings from Ontario
Hello all,
Very pleased to join the forum. I have so many bike mechanic queries to put to the experts here, which I will come to when I can gather my thoughts. For now I'll just give a brief summary of my cycling history.
Born and raised in the suburbs of Toronto. For the first thirteen years of my life cycling was something I did on a hand-me-down BMX, going to and from the nearby shops to get pizza and sweets with friends. Then the long interruption that many people experience when cars and girls and university take over. I had a strong interest in cars and motorsport but a few years ago I realized I am too poor to have motorsport as a hobby, and bikes were better for the environment anyway. So I bought a second-(or possibly third of fourth) hand Peugeot Bretagne (1980's I believe) while I was working in a youth hostel in the Yorkshire Dales. A beautiful old bike in a beautiful part of the world, which slowly revealed to me how much I love riding up hills, but also that aerobic fitness is not a natural strength of mine.
After moving back to Canada I started over again the following summer with a second-hand Cannondale R300 road bike (model year 1997). Making that bike roadworthy revealed to me how much I enjoy spending time in a garage solving mechanical problems. Kith and kin were mightily surprised to see me in that environment with oil on my hands, and I still am surprised that I am that kind of person now, and delighted by it. I moved on to indoor training+racing on Zwift the year after that, and this year I have entered the world of gravel riding with my first purchase of a new bike, the Giant Revolt 1. It is a compromise bike to me. I wanted to ride mountain bike trails, but they are about 30 km from my house and I didn't want to enter a pastime that involved constantly loading one vehicle (bike) into another vehicle (car), so I decided to buy a gravel bike. I find it's quick enough and 'roadish' enough that I can ride to the trails and rugged enough that I can ride the less technical trails without much difficulty.
That's where I am now in my cycling life. Mechanical questions to come when I can post pictures!