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This past week was bike to work week in Metro Vancouver. I thought this would be a snap for me, having biked to work consistently last summer and started early this spring. Boy was I wrong.

Monday started out great even though it was wet. Including myself, there’s four regular bicycle commuters in my office. All four of us showed up. That was awesome! Then lunchtime comes around and one of them tells me he’s come down with a cold. Some cold, he didn’t make it in the rest of the week! He ended up staying home because he’d lost his voice.

Tuesday rolled around and it was drier. The ride into work was straightforward. Coming home was a different story. As I’m rushing home to meet my wife so she can go to dinner, my chain starts to slip. This is really annoying. It started off in the smallest cog but over the ride, it progressed and had me reduced to only using the large cog and pedalling gently. This was a real problem… I took a quick look and didn’t see any stiff links in the chain, but as I rode it continued. By the time I got home I had it figured out, the freewheel was slipping. Great. Where am I going to get a 5-speed freewheel on a Tuesday evening?!? I quickly looked up MEC and saw they had 2 listed. It was a long drive to get there and they closed at 6pm. I swore I could make it, but it would be tight. As I thought about it, I figured out that Cap’s Bikes in New Westminster was a better choice as it was closer and tended to service older bikes. I quickly turned around and headed to Cap’s.

Cap’s turned out to be a good choice. They had a Sun Race 14-24T 5 speed freewheel. It didn’t have the nice 28T cog in my bad freewheel, but it wouldn’t slip. I asked the guy behind the counter for the removal tool and headed home. After feeding my son, I pulled the wheel and attempted to remove the freewheel. I knew this would be tough as the bike had been neglected for a few years before I got it. Unfortunately, the tool was the wrong size. It wouldn’t fit even with the axle removed! The mechanic had given me a cassette lockring tool, not a Shimano freewheel tool! Great, and the shop was closed so I couldn’t exchange it today. What’s worse, I found out the rear axle was bent.

Now Wednesday was a bust for me but I packed the wheel so I could stop by the shop and exchange the tool, pick up a replacement axle and have the freewheel removed while I was at it. After putting my son to bed, I got the freewheel off and started to change the axle but found that the spacers were seized to the old axle. The bend was in a bad place.

Thursday I’d planned to drive in because I was picking my son up from school so I brought the bent axle in to work and thought I’d stop by Cap’s again on the way home. I managed to get the spacers free in a vice at work, but one of the locknuts cross threaded when coming off the bent axle. Luckily Cap’s had a locknut and pair of washers for me. That night, I greased the hub, installed new bearing and the new axle and mounted the new freewheel. I was set.

Friday, I made it in. Everything worked! In total, I biked to work for three days when I expected to bike four. Not bad but I know I could do better. 79 km this week.