Or, what to call a blog entry when "Zen and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance" is already taken as a name.

I love my bike.

I hate my bike.

I load it up with too much gear in my panniers. And then toss on a ten-to-fifteen pound laptop on the rear rack. Not to mention I'm a little ... short for my weight. How's that for euphemism?

I've lost three spokes in two months, from my rear wheel. Threading a spoke through the front wheel is hard enough. Trying to thread it through the back one, with all the gears and whatnot, and it becomes an exercise in frustration.

Of course, it would help to take the gears off. Of course, it requires a special tool. Actually, two. So off to the bike store I went.

Too much money later, I'm back with the necessary tools, as well as a chain cleaner and some degunking solution. To put in the spoke and to try to true my rear wheel took two hours, at least. And the wheel is still not true.

Truing a wheel is, at this point in my experience, a matter of luck and zen. My rear wheel has 32 spokes, 16 from one side of the hub and 16 from the other. Tighten one and it will ever-so-slightly bend the wheel in that direction. Not enough that you could see it when it's stationary, but enough so you notice the wobble when it's spinning.

But, that's only half the fun. The spokes also control where the hub sits relative to the rim. Tighten too many of the spokes on both flanges of one half of the hub, and the wheel's axis will be off center. Tighten too much of just a few spokes, and the hub will be more-or-less center. Again, it'd not be anything you could see when the wheel is sitting there, but it's plainly evident when it's on the move.

Lastly, the spokes have to have a uniform tension. Well, they don't necessarily have to, but, according to a bike maintenance book (not Zen and the Art of..., failing to do so may cause spokes to break.

Oh. Yeah, that explains things.

So, it becomes a multi-factor problem that is solved by approximation. And I sucked at Calculus.

At any rate, after a bit, I just said, "Good enough." It's not scraping the brake pads, it is wobbling and jumping a little. I'll have to take it for a test run tomorrow sometime (dunno when) because I'm going to lead a ride Monday noon.

And with that, I'm off to bed. Or at least to find a place online that sells good spokes.