todae

today was the day when the stars aligned- i finally had a rim to match my old skool red paul hub. it was not easy finding a decent rim brake rim for under 50 bucks, but i managed with a mavic 519. i wanted a red one but beggars cant be choosers, especially if ebay, the megastore for cheap-o's like myself, doesnt even offer such a rim. anyway, i calculated the spoke length with an app. called spocalc-it can be found on sheldon brown's site and it is very useful. the stars aligned because i couldnt really afford to buy spokes and i was praying that the bike co-op-freeride- would have what i needed. they have a huge selection of boxes of decent donated spokes, and i needed them to have either 263 or 263 mm spokes. they did. i got 32 dt revolution silver spokes and built my wheel in around an hour without instructions. i guess im almost a decent wheelbuilder...prbably not though. anyway, the wheel came out great except my king headset is having troubles staying adjusted properly and the new rim needs to be broken in; the brakes sequel like a pig-eeeeeeeeeeeeee
i also got some sweet new tires- they are like 2000-2003 model tires but theyre light and folding bead and have more traction than my worn out crossmarks. i got all this for 5 bucks which i donated to the co-op. dont think i exploit them too much cause i donate about 8-12 hours of work a week helping them (for the last 3 years, too), but sometimes i take advantage of the phrase "donate what you see fit". hopefully i get to ride my mtb tomorrow in the nice weather (yeah, 40 degrees and overcast is nice), but if the trails are still slushy like they were today i guess itll be more road biking.