That is what a cassette looks like if you ever happen to dismantle it. separate gears one by one. And you know the bike my colleage loaned me? It was missing one.
I didn't know that when I first got it. I thought... Hmm... The chain got stuck in between the gears, engaged on a spacer. Thus giving me zero transmission to the rear wheels... I tried shifting the gears up and down... But whenever a powered down hard it would shift off the gears to another spacer nearest the gear I was on. Initially, I thought wear and tear must have lossened up the gears... So all it needs is a good tightening up of the sprocket or whatever. So I brought it to the bike shop and tried my best to explain to him what was wrong. A quote of 1025 Yen later, he said ok. come back in an hour's time. I asked him how much to tighten the headset? he said dun worry included. Than I looked around the bike somemore to see if I can get more bang for my buck. And spotted the bike's stand broken. So I asked him to take that off.
An hour later I'm back told its 525 Yen. Cool I thought. I cycled across the road, the chain engaged the spacer again and the steering was so heavy that I thought he replace the air in my front tires with water. Brought it back and the mechanic was no longer there. He explained my shifters were 8 speed and my cassette was 7. So I asked him to loosen the headset, but apparently despite him having knowledge of the English language he couldn't understand me and simply put oil in the headset. It did help but the steering was still heavy. So he didn't fix the rear cassette and I wanted to know what I paid for. He said you paid to take off the stand.
Ganna chopped carrots! A slang that means I have been cheated!
So what the heck did I do? I figured I could fix the damn gears from moving around as long I as filled the gap where apparently one gear was missing, how the heck did it go missing remains a mystery to me. I got this:
I did not have string, and this was the closest thing to it.
I tied a double knot and it has since lasted me about 50km and counting! hahahaha. My own bike hack! Truly surprised myself.
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amazing work! must be satisfying to do your own fixing.
ReplyDeletei can't even change a tube. i had a flat once. i asked the bike tech to do it for me. i think i need 2 learn to fix a flat soon. i only know how to wipe dirt off my frame :-)
Ah! Fixing a flat! Probably the first thing i learnt to do myself... And you don't need much tools too! Just tire levers and maybe an air pump. Or strong keys that can help pry the tire out!
ReplyDeleteThere are lots of videos on you tube. gogogogo!