non-First World problems

[sistawendy]

The friendly bike folks at the REI bike repair shop say I'll have to replace many of my drive train components. Chain & cassette for sure, maybe the crankset & rear derailleur too. It'll cost me about as much as the bike did two years ago, but at least I won't have the hassle of getting a new (to me) bike and getting rid of the old one. I like Goldiebike. The commute from the Abbey to near I-90 racked up about 3000 commuting miles, which the bike dudes say is easily enough to wreck some components.

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I've apparently forgotten how to sleep at night lately. It won't help tonight that I didn't remember to take my spiro until after 7:00. Getting up to pee doesn't bother me; not falling asleep afterward does.

Comments

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

If you can get the same number of speeds as you currently have, you shouldn't need to change the crankset (and that's the most expensive component on the bike save the frame itself, so don't.)
Chain and cassette should be changed as a pair. Look at nashbar and jensen and cambria to get some idea of prices.
I can walk you through swapping them (easy) and tuning the shifting (not as easy) if you wish to DIY. They sell a limited but reasonable supply of older cassette groups.
You can get the cassette off by either buying a cassette tool (needs a vise or large crescent wrench) or by using a pair of fine-nose pliers in a Definitely Unapproved Manner that has worked dozens of times for me, to wit: pull the wheel, pull the quick release skewer out of the axle, and put the fine-nose pliers on the flats of the hex nut, pushing them far enough inwards that the outsides of the pliers are jammed into two of the slots in the lockring. Then rotate to loosen. The lockring doesn't actually take any torque, so it's not usually on particularly tight.
A new cassette goes on easy, as long as it's the same number of gears as the old one.

[sistawendy.livejournal.com]

Oh, Random, this is excellent, but I'm more than ready to trade my money for time, tool use, and elbow grease.