Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1851:
The weather the last few days has been glorious. Highs in the upper 60s/lower 70s. Mostly sunny. Yesterday and today there was barely any wind. Made for some easy riding on the road bike.
The nicest day was Monday, but unfortunately I was sick over the weekend that carried into Monday, so I stayed home from work and didn't ride. Late afternoon I did walk a couple of laps on our cul-de-sac just to get out and enjoy the weather, but that was about all my body would let me do.
We're supposed to have some rainy days coming up late this week. I hadn't yet addressed the rear wheel I tacoed a couple weeks ago on my rain bike (hybrid with fenders), so last night I decided I should probably try and fix it. With the same couple of spokes coming loose multiple times, I decided probably the best approach would be to loosen them all and then completely retension the wheel.
I pulled the wheel off the bike, removed the cassette, then removed the tire so I could put it in my truing stand. Before I got to the stand, I happened to grab a spoke and noticed it was very loose. I started feeling around and realized all of the spokes were ridiculously loose. That's weird.
So I gave the wheel a closer inspection. That's when I noticed that the rim sidewall where the brakes rub had a crack all the way through it, about 8"-10" long. In fact, both sides of the rim had large splits like this. Apparently I had worn through the braking surfaces to the point where the rim no longer had any strength left, and finally broke. I have no idea how this tube was still holding air with giant splits on both sides of the rim. However, this definitely solves the mystery as to why the wheel kept going out of true as of late.
Well, I guess I'm not going to fix that wheel. I'm probably going to just buy components and build a replacement 36 spoke wheel from scratch. I've never built a whole wheel before, but it looks like it could be an interesting endeavor. Plus by doing it myself I can verify that the wheel is built, tensioned and stressed correctly. I figure it's a useful skill for me to add to my bicycle service abilities. I'm debating on whether or not to reuse the hub from the old wheel. It has about 10,000 miles on it, but still spins nice. It's a Shimano 105, so I would think it still has plenty of life left. At the same time, a new hub isn't that much money so I'm not sure.
In any event, I'm not going to have this completed before the rain hits. So it looks like I'll be riding the road bike and having to deal with the spray off the wheels.