Fujiyama!

Today I finally got some time to play with the Fujiyama and…it works! Oddly Monday turned out to be a better day to work on projects than either of the days this weekend. Just too busy I guess.
Here’s how it started.
I wanted to see if I could raise the stem a bit as the bars were just too low for me. Unfortunately the bolt was stuck and I didn’t think any amount pressure would do more than break my wrench. Enter PB Blaster; I picked some up this morning and it worked like a charm in just a couple of minutes. I sprayed the top of the stem and turned the bike over and sprayed up the tube of the fork.
After all that I was able to raise the stem about a quarter of an inch. Sigh.
So…having a bit of time, I rode the bike down to McCully Bike where it seems I’d purchased it about 14 years ago. I checked with the repair guys but they didn’t have any spare used stems around. And they recommended I change the bars instead of trying a longer stem. Other than that they said the bike was in excellent shape (given it had been sitting for 11 years), even the brakes. Cool.
So off to the retail end of the business where I overspent on fixing the bike. Well actually I only overspent because I bought the Park Cable Cutter CN-10. I could have done the job without it…maybe. But I figure I’ll be changing a lot of cables in the years to come, so it’s a pretty good investment. That was about half of the $60 I spent. The other $30 broke down between a new set of riser bars (to replace the straight bar), two sets of cables, and the cable stops and ends for a nice finish. Essentially it cost me $30 to get the bike running.
Home I went and began to work. I had a bit of trouble with removing the brake levers which caused me to bend the head of the stem a bit. Bending it back (thank goodness for steel) worked fine though. I also scratched the new bars a bit, but I’m not a mech and it’s my first. All in all that part went smoothly.
I also had a few cute moments with the cabling, but all in all it was pretty darn easy. I really should have used my bike stand but…well I really should have used the stand.
In any case I got it all together in about 90 minutes and gave it a test spin. It was sweet enough I figured I could ride it off to an event I was attending about 3 miles away. I had no trouble at all. The bike is sweet.

There she is almost, but not quite on stage. Maybe once I get a new crank and change the freewheel I’ll put it on stage.
Tomorrow…ride to work. We’ll see how she does as a commuter.
Aloha!
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