December 29, 2009

run bike skillz

RUN bike skillz!!!

December 28, 2009

on drill presses stuck cleats, gags and "cats"

A drill press is a great tool to have in every shop. Not only is it great for making polo mallets and drilling into all sorts of things for fun in a safe and controlled manner...ever wondered what a sealed fluid trainer looks like on the inside? Carbon bottom bracket shell? All in all, wonderful tool for goofing around. It's also useful for more serious stuff like making custom brackets for fenders, racks or baskets and for drilling out stuck screws and bolts on components that you can clamp in the press. Cleat screws tend to get stuck in spd shoes, even if you grease them before you mount the cleat. I had this happen on my beat up mountain bike shoes:
Class all the way! Ahh... the glorious life of a bike shop employee
not only that, the cleats were so worn that I could not even get an Allen key into the socket on the cleat screws. Our shop guru, Steve, told me that I could dig out the edges of the socket with a hard metal tool such as a file. So I dug out the sockets and then got every screw loose, except the last one, of course. To the drill press Batman!Off come the cleats lickety-split! The drill press rocks, it's almost as cool as Stevie's magnets. Speaking of the shop. The bathroom is located at the shop right next to Mitch's bench. This location is a bit perilous as we can see in the following picture of Andrew S.K. -Andrew likes to fix his tires in the bathroom (for whatever reason, we don't hassle him at all!). On a totally unrelated note, I came across this down in North Caroline the other day. It was mounted next to a fancy restaurant menu on one of the main drags in Raleigh. Some people down there have a really good sense of humour...I hope
dis aint no cat Bubba!