It was time to unpack the bike and reassemble, for maintenance.
There were a number of things going on with the bike that needed to be addressed:
1) the compression plug in the steerer wasn't holding. I'd tapped the stem down and tightened it down with cable ties so that it was better for the 3rd & 4th rides but I wanted a better solution. I've now polished the steerer a bit so that the stem isn't quite so tight and installed a different plug (star nut). It wasn't exactly holding either but I think that it's better. We shall see. The problem is that the titanium is too hard for either to hold onto.
2) in the cold, my rear wheel bearings were starting to squeak when I stood up and really cranked hard - likely water incursion and bearing wear. I was wondering if I would have to buy a new rear wheel during the Italian ride, but it held out. I've got an identical, actually newer wheel, and that's now on the bike.
3) there was some cracking starting with cable housings, so I replaced those on the handlebars and rewrapped.
4) the last wrapping job that I did put too much under the left-hand hood and it was riding up. I hope that's fixed with the rewrapping job.
5) both the front and rear wheels need some tweaking from a truing standpoint. The replacement rear is not a problem but I've got work to do on the front.
6) tires need replacing. They still look good but I'm not taking any chances.
7) I threw out the chain when I dismantled the bike in Bormio, so obviously I need a chain.
8) I need to replace the brake pads.
9) I'm probably forgetting something in this list !
I won't do a complete assembly job but I would like to take it out on 522 and see that it's shifting properly and that the brakes aren't squeaking. I won't have a lot of time once I get to Japan. I'll probably do that with the old tires and install the new tires in Japan. You might wonder what I'd be leaving out with only a partial assembly job -- water bottle holders, lights and bags all take time and I won't bother with those.
Earlier in the day I did the July financials preparing for a conference call last evening. I'm getting faster at that; only took a couple of hours. I also did some weeding, manually.
All the girls except Cassie went into Sudbury grocery shopping. We're now stocked up for a couple of days at least :).
Oh yes ... and I updated Quicken for the US accounts. I hope to get to the Canadian accounts, all of which require manual entry, before heading to Japan.
Jason picked up the mail in Loring which included a bundle of mail from the US; that added to my financial transaction input, scheduling tax payments etc.
Onward !
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