It’s 5:30 AM.  We’re in the Nice airport waiting to depart, after arriving here at 4:30.  We’ll pick up on the flight later, but we’ve still got a half hour before boarding commences so I’ll see if I can pack in a summary of how our two exciting last days in Nice went.

The short story is that no biking occurred; that activity ended when we arrived yesterday, so the table is set for that ever-exciting post-tour statistical wrap-up when the time comes.  And my return to health is coming along nicely - today is really the first day that I feel normal enough so that I’m comfortable in crowds again and like the flight will be no more unpleasant than usual.  It’s a shame about the lost days, but things could be worse.  And though it looked like Rachael might have picked up my cold, that doesn’t appear to have happened either.  We’re both fine.

And everything is packed, and checked-in.  The suitcases worked fine, as did the super-large duffel bag that Rachael scrounged up on one of her outings. 

A longer version would include the details of disassembling the bicycles.  It wasn’t easy!  Even with my new industrial strength spanner I still had trouble removing the pedals and wished I’d gotten some new industrial strength biceps while I was at it.  They finally budged though and I moved on.  Everything went well until it came time to remove the mast from my bicycle, which absolutely would not budge.  This happened at least once before in the past, and since then I’ve made sure it was well greased before assembly so it would slide out again.

Nine months on the road is a long time, and there’s plenty of time for corrosion to occur.  I finally gave up, found the nearest plausible repair shop, partly reassembled my bike and wheeled it over to Napalm Bike, a motorcycle repair shop about a half a mile away.  The place had good reviews - he speaks English, is happy to help, and has a big wall of tools.

Napalm Bike’s door s wide open when I arrive, and it looks promising - it’s just a slot of a shop, but its walls are indeed lined with millions of tools.  It looks quite promising, but there’s no one here.

Finally a big guy emerges from the shop across the street and walks my way.  He looks the part - big, burly, scruffy, long braid running down the back, and bearing two good, industrial strength arms.  And he does speak English, and is happy to help.  Perfect.

It takes a more than a little convincing until he believes that it really does separate at that joint line there, and should just pull out.  Finally he has at it though, and while I hold the frame steady he applies those industrial strength biceps to the handlebars.

Nothing.  A strong squirt of WD40, more wrestling, and still nothing.  A stronger squirt, more wrestling, and finally there’s just a bit of slippage.  At first it’s not clear even where that slippage is - maybe it’s flexing up at the handlebars?  But gradually it breaks free and slides out.

Dry and a bit rusty.  Nine months is a long time.  If we ever take this long a tour again I should pull out the stem every few months and regrease it.

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Keith AdamsThe seat post on mine was stuck very firmly in the mast, but the mast itself came free of the frame without a problem so I could take it up to my preferred shop for separation. The post is now well greased, after a thorough scrub with steel wool. I also scrubbed the inside of the mast before reassembly.
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesWhen we first got our Bike Fridays we were dismayed to see the low quality of many components. I even wrote an article on this is Crazyguy (now lost, I think) "The Joys and Trials of Buying a Bike Friday". One of our beefs was that so rustable collar that gave you the grief this time. Like you and others, I am always steel wooling and greasing this thing, but to little avail. I initially wrote to Bike Friday about it and got a reply from Hanz Scholz, I think, with the amazing assertion that Bike Friday is a small company and can not afford to source quality metals.

About the pedals, we too wrestled with the disadvantage of carrying a honking great pedal wrench. We settled on the self delusion that we could have a wimpy wrench, but would remember to loosen and tighten the pedals periodically. Of course that will never happen, so I settled on a lame solution: I only tighten the pedals ever so lightly - risking having them loosen and fall off - and then my wrench is actually a very light 15 mm cone wrench, useless, except for loosening improperly tightened pedals (and for bearing cones!).

Finally, about the suitcases. We so much empathized with your trials in getting the bikes to fit. We used to have elaborate maps and photos to help us. And we had a long letter to TSA enclosed, in case they would be so foolish as to pull any carefully fitted parts out. It was worse, too, because Dodie's custom frame is much different from mine, requiring two different packing strategies. We finally gave up on it, and went with the Bike Friday bags, for the folded bikes. But these were weak and tended to rip. Now we just put the unfolded bikes into the airline supplied giant plastic bag (to catch any parts their handling sets adrift) an hope for the best.
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonTo Steve Miller/GrampiesSteel wool? What a concept?

It’s not a recent deterioration at Bike Friday. I had this stuck stem issue at least twice with my first NWT, including our memorable first tour of Sicily. We found a motorcycle mechanic who used a mallet to hammer it into place at the start of the tour, and to hammer it out again at the end. The older stems were actually easier - they had a cotton pin or something that with the right sized spanner (which we eventually carried) you could leverage it out with.

The pedals are interesting. I always tighten them very lightly so I can free them again, and always forget to tell our LBS not to crank so hard on them when they reinstall them. I figure it’s a macho pride thing. Here, see if you can wrench them lose again!

And the suitcases are interesting alright, and a bit baffling. Photos do help, and I have my own gallery I refer back to. Suzanne’s suitcases are the same model we started with, and have plusses and minuses. The dimensions are just slightly different than the newer (now also obsolete) model that came with our 2nd generation bike. Perversely, Rachael’s smaller bike is a tighter fit than mine. I packed hers first, and then had a very restless night certain that there was no way mine was going to fit. No problem!
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1 year ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesThe goings on and fortunes at Bike Friday are a topic that could be of some interest to present and future owners. Perhaps I will do a forum post about it. What triggered that for me was not the steering tube (this time) but the fact that I reached out to them for help when my assist conversion failed. They began by just flatly blowing me off, with "it's not our system so we don't support it", but when I came back with "if you have some more reliable, higher quality parts for this I would like to buy them" they came back with "we don't sell these parts". In fact we now see that they no longer sell any parts! They have taken down their parts section on the website. wtf!
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1 year ago

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And the longer story would go into the details of how difficult and stressful it was packing the bikes into the suitcases, and the anxiety and despair felt when it looked for a time like they might not fit after all.  But it’s time for boarding so we’ll save those exciting details for the next release.  For now we’ll just include these packing photos that Rachael insists need to be included.  Blame her.

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