Sunday, March 09, 2008 - Fix the Bike Day

Pat spent the day working on the bike. Aside from being Sunday with nothing open, there are no bike shops within 50 miles. Mel, who sold us the bike, thought there was a daVinci dealer just over the border in North Carolina, but was unable to reach him. He did contact Todd at daVinci. Todd was the principal designer of the bike. He took time out of his Sunday to discuss the problem with Pat. In addition to several phone calls, Pat took pictures of the broken area and emailed them to Todd. This was enough to determine what parts were needed.

Todd also explained how to remove the broken parts. The broken parts were stuck pretty tight. Without knowing for certain that they should come off, it is difficult to know how much force to use. With Todd's explanations, Pat was able to coax all the broken parts off the bike. We are not carrying a hammer. He scrounged around outside and found a short piece of wood that served as a hammer. He had to buy some WD40 to remove one piece.

The bike is ready for the new parts. They won't arrive until Tuesday morning. Tomorrow's pictures with feature the grass growing outside our room.

This is what the bearing should look like

This one is disintegrated

Part of the bearing is stuck on the shaft near the gears