Xtracycle Build Pt4

With the bike striped down and the Freeradical attached it was time to re-attach the brakes and rear derailleur. I’ve never messed with the derailleur before so I admit I was intimidated by just the thought of adjusting it.

Here is were things got silly. I re-attached my brakes to the free-radical… my breaks are canti’s. That’s a bad thing. It’s not like I hadn’t read that I needed to use “v” brakes but I initially thought the canti brakes were “v”  brakes. [STOP THAT LAUGHING] they look like a “v” and all…

There are a couple major issues with this:

1. being these brakes won’t work with the freeradical [I know because I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to adjust them]
2. I took the super-nifty extra-long brake cable the people at Xtracycle sent me and cut it [way too short]

bummer dude…

I then re-attached the rear derailleur. As I tried to remove the old derailleur cable I pulled my bar end shifter out of the bar end… which tore my shellacked tan bar tape… [are you laughing again?] Once I had neatly ruined the tape I realized I only had to push the derailleur cable backwards to remove it – no need to touch the bar end shifter.

…but wait it gets better…

I ran the cable, cut what I thought was an appropriate amount of cable housing for the derailleur and put the Rollamajig in and slided the cable onto the derailleur – then I drew a blank – I’m not kidding – I couldn’t figure out how the cable was supposed to be “held tight” to the derailleur.

[I would like to pause this ridiculous story for a disclaimer:]
If you have not done ANY of this before, or worked with the above mentioned components then this is all  NEW to you. The directions that come with the xtracycle assume a certain amount of knowledge and most helper web sites out there do the same. I’m in no way knocking them – it would be impossible to give in-depth step by step instructions because of the vast array of bike configurations – I’m just trying to explain my lameness.
[back to the broadcast]

I was disappointed and tired at this point and went to bed, but not before I put the freeloaders on to at least look at what I was supposed to have.

of course I couldn’t sleep and it didn’t take that long for me to remember I had to loosen TWO things to remove the derailleur. I knew I could fix the derailleur and I did but it took awhile to realize I had run the cable over instead of under the freeradical and needed to change it. Once I did that I tightened the cable and the shifter worked great first try. [go figure]

I attached the freeloaders and snap deck and road the thing to work today – Monday – sans rear break.

I have ordered real “v” brakes and brake leavers [I don't want to use the travel agent] and a tandem brake cable. :p

I did get a little discouraged in the middle of this but all in all I only want to learn more about doing my own work, not less. I understand this is pretty basic stuff but it saved me $150 on the install and I gained a greater confidence level regarding my bike’s maintenance. I’m spending an extra $10 on another cable but I don’t care… good times…

Follow the Build

• Xtracycle Build PT1
• Xtracycle Build PT2
• Xtracycle Build PT3
• Xtracycle Build PT4
• Xtracycle Build PT5