All We Are Is Dust In the Wind

I grabbed a few tools and started taking pieces off the frame. The wheels, the stand, the seat, the busted toe clips, and the front and rear deraiullers all came off pretty easily. The front and rear brakes, the shifters, and the cabling took a bit more work. To get the handlebars off I had to check a book out of the library, but eventually everything submitted to my will as my persistence overcame my lack of talent.

I took pictures of just about every piece as I took it off, in hopes of being able to put it all back together someday. I have 147 pictures plus a few short videos so far. The joys of digital photography and a spacious hard drive.

After getting most of the bits off that I could figure out how to remove, I was down to this:


Now I may be the only person in the world that feels this way, but I find myself slightly insecure in places like auto parts stores, weight rooms, and certain sections of Home Depot. I have this irrational yet annoyingly persistent fear that my lack of knowledge will expose me to the world as a fraud. I look at the rugged specimens of masculinity that such places employ, men who undoubtedly came out of the womb wearing a football helmet and clutching a nail gun, and I know what they're thinking: "Looks like a weenie boy. Let's wait until he opens his mouth, then we'll shamelessly mock him right out the door!" When I was a kid, it was slightly traumatic going to the hardware store even with the protective presence of my dad. The first time I went without him required some extensive loin-girding and a therapeutic trip to Goodwill afterwards. Now Goodwill is a place (much like Tiffany's for Holly Golightly) where nothing bad can ever happen to you. But I divagate...

Psychologically arming myself, I ventured out to our local bicycle shop. It turned out they were very helpful and even... nice. One of my former students was working as a mechanic there, and he gave me some insider advice that turned out to be exactly what I needed to know.

I bought two specialized tools there, for a total of $25. Compared to the money people spend on tools for auto repair or, say, scrapbooking, I was pretty happy. These tools allowed me to remove the chain and the cranks. (Cranks are the name for the arms that the pedals attach to.)

One of the cranks, with the chainrings removed. Also known as the spider.

Two places on the bicycle featured these lockrings with three notches in them. Apparently they're not very common any more, as even the bicycle shop didn't have a tool to remove them.


At the suggestion of my student who works at the shop, I tried the low-tech method of removal:

Yep, nothing like putting a screwdriver to it and banging on the end of the screwdriver with a hammer. It's going to be interesting putting them back on the same way. There were a couple similar lockrings on the headset (the tube where the handlebars and front wheel join the bicycle) and I managed to get them off in the same fashion.

The headset before disassembly

The headset with bearings exposed.

Let me say it was no small feat getting this far, and I was pretty proud of myself. This, of course, meant that it was time for a lesson in humility. In my next post: sanding, painting, and more painting, oh my!