How to make things difficult

So yesterday morning it dawned on me that I had 11 days until I had to get on my bike and ride to Paris. Things have crept up on me quickly. Knowing from experience that pedalling takes a lot of energy and given the massive gaps in my training, I decided to 'mod' my bike. I had been in a bike shop earlier on in the month and had been talking about what I could realistically do to my bike to make it better. There were really only three choices; get a new, larger, chain set (the front cogs on the bike), make my wheels bigger or buy a new bike. The last option would cost a small fortune (I'm so broke that even the thought of buying a bike wilts my bank card) the second option isn't even possible but the first option, by some miracle, became a reality because I happened to be in the only shop in the UK that had a discontinued product that was exactly what I was looking for at a bargain basement price (don't ask me how I know this, lots of phone calls, web searches and a really lumpy malt shake were involved).

I had become the proud owner of a new Shimano chain set. I know the theory is that by increasing the size of the cogs I can pedal less and gain more speed (great!) and as a someone who has dedicated many years of his life to looking for an easier way to do something I could see great potential in this product. Only one thing stood in my way. I didn't know what I was doing. Not seeing this as a problem I enlisted the skills of the Internet to find me the answer. The Internet didn't let me down, it produced the bike station, a charity organisation where you can rent space and tools to help you maintain your bike as well as give you expert advice and a cup of tea, all for £3.00 an hour. Weyhey!

After finishing work yesterday I was itching to get to the bike station and start the job of upgrading it. I wasn't really sure where the place was so I figured that I'd use the GPS navigator I've attached to my bike (yes, I have TomTom on my bike, what can I say?) to help me find the way. I fired it up and started typing in the city to locate the building I was looking for.

"E...D...I...O, damn, fat finger syndrome, I'll start again, E...D...I... err what's that predictive answer coming up with? Looks like El something or other."

I couldn't quite see from the glare on the screen, it was a beautiful sunny day.

"E...D...I...N... now I'm sure this isn't right. It says El Rosario. Start again, concentrate, type the whole city in, the thing must have heard of Edinburgh. E...D...I...N...B...U...R...G...H. What does it spell? EL ROSARIO!"

I was stunned and confused. All I could find were weird Spanish sounding places that I'd never heard of. After going through all the settings I discovered that the PDA had conveniently deleted all the Western European maps and left me with the Canary Islands. Clearly I was going to have to do this the old fashioned way. Ride to where I thought the place might approximately be then cycle up and down the street, avoiding asking anyone local where it was, particularly any cyclists, (I am a man after all) until I happened upon the place by accident, which was exactly how it happened. I love it when a plan comes together.

Once there things had to look better. I was in a building with loads of other cyclists busily working on their bikes. It felt homely. I had a plan, sort of, I would strip my bike until I got stuck, then call for help. I took the bolts out of the cranks, then called for help. It had been a good 5 minutes of unassisted work. I was proud of myself. Unfortunately it was really busy and the guy's who worked there were unable to get to me very quickly, fortunately there was someone on hand who I thought would be highly qualified to help. There was a Dutch guy replacing his chain set was next to me. What more qualified person did I need? He was probably born on a bike. I asked his advice and he kindly gave me the tool I was looking for. It was a special extracting tool for removing the cranks. It looked simple enough to me, screw one bit on, screw another bit till the crank pops off, have a cup of tea.

Try as I might I could not get the dam thing to screw in, even after one of the assistants showed me how, then actually did it himself on one of the cranks. I turned to the Dutch guy again, he had been so helpful the first time.

"Could you help me do this? I seem to be genetically unable to screw this thing in or I seem to lack the special screwing skills needed for this type of job."

In that really cool and comedic accent that the Dutch have he said "sure, I'll put it in for you" and he did.

So the screw bit was in the hole, all I had to do was tighten it up, do the other bit and hey presto, crank removed and time for tea. I tightened it up, I started extraction and kerrrunch. I had stripped all the threads off the crank. The Dutch guy had cross threaded the tool, I hadn't checked it and now I was sweating bullets. I grabbed an assistant and he confirmed my worst fears. The crank was ruined and there was no easy way of removing it without causing extra damage to the bike. My only option was to use a pipe splitter and a mallet and thump off the crank. I was told this method was going to damage the frame and break the bottom bracket shoulder then asked did I want to do this. What could I say?

"Have you got another shoulder?" I queried. He told me he did and so I elected to whack the hell out of my bike.

Final damage:
one ruined chain set.
one damaged frame.
one smashed bottom bracket shoulder.
Me very sad indeed.

Time was running out, and so were my wits. There were thirty minutes left before the place closed and I had a very poorly bike. After a tense moment where we thought there was no replacement shoulder, one was found then I very quickly rebuilt it, with the help of a wild haired one eyed man and a lot of nervous energy. The bike still needs a new chain, possibly a new rear dérailleur, a new bottom bracket and some more work in the garage to correct loose brakes and cables and currently has excessive drag on the cranks when pedalling but apart from that it is fine.

Here's hoping that all goes well on Saturday when I take the bike back to the workshop. I guess as long as I'm really, really far away from it then what could go wrong?

A little bit of history

I've told you all before that I'm cycling to Paris because my friend is going to buy me a Monaco but I haven't ever told you why the bike was the natural choice for mode of transport. As I've not cycled in a couple of days I'll take this opportunity to give you a little background information.

It all began one evening during a quiz night in the 5th Bar. The Fifth; a tiny, dark bar found in the Latin Quarter on Rue Mouftard, was the perfect hang out for penniless idealists such as I was. This bar was to become the place where most of our Parisienne adventures would begin or end, but on this particular occasion it was mearly a plan to get free beer. I had been invited to join a new friend, Jorge, at the bar to help answer questions. The first prize of a free drink for the winning team was a goal we really wanted to achieve, however the last prize of a really disgusting free drink was also worth it, given that we had no money and we wanted alcohol.

I arrived late, a trait I'd picked up from Karim "I'll be there soon" Fekar, and the team weren't doing well. They were positioned 3rd or 4th which was definitely not in the free beer zone. I was quickly introduced to everyone on the table as "the guy whose gonna answer the questions" and then thrown into the last round, music. Fifteen minutes later we had managed to come first. Being hailed the man with all the answers was a little embarrassing as it had been more like luck for my part. The quiz master, a Glaswegian barman called Roddy, had managed to pick all the songs I like and the rest of the bar was filled with non-English speaking drunkards. That fact aside, I was now celebrating with a new group of friends over a free beer. A nice tasting free beer. Returning home that night on the Metro I was smiling quietly to myself because I'd made new friends and gotten a little tipsy on free beer on an empty stomach.

The meet at the fifth became a regular occurrence for us. I'd usually stay until the last train was due then rush off home but inevitably, one evening, I missed the last Metro. After the bar had finally closed Karim, Jorge and I walked to Hotel de Ville where Karim and I could catch the night bus home. Jorge had a bike. I remember thinking that it would be nice to be cycling the streets of Paris that night. It was quiet, warm and I was drunk. I asked Jorge where he'd gotten the bike from.
He said "I was doing some work for a guy clearing an apartment, We were chucking everything out to make room for renovations. This was thrown in the skip along with all the other rubbish but it was an almost complete bike. I wanted it because I can't afford to ride the Metro so I grabbed it and took it home."
"So, what was missing," I said.
"Oh, it had bad wheels, no brakes and no seat, but everything else was there."
"Right," I said. "So how did you afford to get all the bits for it?"
"Ha, I didn't buy anything, have you seen all the abandoned bikes this city has?" To illustrate a good point he waved his arm vaguely towards the Hotel de Ville to reveal a pile of abandoned bikes. They were chained to railings that had been removed to make way, ironically, for the Velib, the cities new public bike hire initiative."
"So, you cycle around Paris reclaiming old bits of bike?" I said, a little surprised that it could be that easy.
"Yeah, I'll show you. I need a new wheel, and tires too if there are any good ones."
I called Karim over to let him know we were going to hunt for a new bike wheel and off we went to the pile of bikes to get an upgrade.

That was my introduction to Jorge's bike Petronilla, an old 80's Italian road bike. When Jorge left Paris for Montreal he handed me petronilla on the condition that I look after her in the same way. Only from reclaimed parts. When I left Paris for Edinburgh I did the same, giving the bike to Karim on the same terms. The only thing that changed was her name, from Petronilla to Petronina, because Karim and I couldn't agree on what Jorge had called her. His Mexican/Irish accent had blurred things a bit.

When the subject of me visiting Karim for a drink came up around the same time that I had absolutely no money I knew I had to improvise a way to get there. It was a natural choice to honour Petronilla and cycle to Paris for a Monaco.

So that is a brief history of how I've come to be cycling to France. Why is a Monaco involved. Well, beer is usually involved in these sorts of ventures but a Monaco has particular significance as it is Karim's choice of drink. Mainly because it is almost entirely made out of sugar and has almost no alcohol in it.