Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Jul 21 - packing

My major activity for the day was packing my bike in the S&S bag.  What a pain.  The instructions that I had read showed you packing front triangle, then rear wheel, then rear triangle then front wheel.  It looked easy. Well, easy except for the fact that you have to take racks, pedals, handlebars etc. off as well as undoing the couplers.  I'm used to that with the hard case.

Well, with the front triangle in the bag, no matter how I turned it, there was no way that the rear wheel would go in without the cassette going directly into the downtube.  No way.  So I called Hugh, at True North Cycles to see what I had to do and he said that I had to remove the fork.  Ugh. 


So, after an incredible amount of playing around, this is what I ended up with.  At the very bottom is the front triangle, not a triangle anymore because the fork is removed.  Parallel to that, almost up against the cassette, you can see the seatpost.  The saddle is at the lower left.  Then comes the rear wheel, cassette down.  Next the rear triangle and one crank arm actually ends up inserted between some spokes.  Inserted in the rear triangle are the fork -- you can see the stem at the right and the fork angling up from right to left, and the handlebars.  The front wheel goes on top.  I'll also throw water bottle cages, which have been romoved and perhaps even one or both of the racks (doubtful for both), depending on fit.

I did all this without putting the tube protectors on the frame.  It will be tighter with the tube protectors.  I'll also have to, probably, make up some protectors for the fork. 

Yikes.  Hugh says that it takes him about 20 minutes to break down a bike and put it into the bag.  I'll need a lot more practice ! 

Meanwhile, Lauren made cookies, studied for the Boater exam, went kayaking with Sandy, watched a movie ... and I'm about to take her fishing -- yes, I caught some minnows.  She's up early; 6:30 a.m. right now, and we're about to head out.  She's keen !

Onward !

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