Fixie Up!

My one goal this evening was to make the fixie right again. All I needed was a front brake. Dumb Champaign bike guy gave me a rear instead of a front brake, so I went to Velocipede with intent to trade. Beth, the Wise One, warned I would have trouble finding a modern short reach sidepull in the boxes of old brake parts, and she was right. No dice. So I hightailed it to Joe's, where yet another adorable bike monkey took pity on my plight, and rummaged through the parts drawer for a proper brake. The one he found was too bulky and would have torn my tire to pieces, so he came up with an ingenious solution (and free to boot) - replace the back nut with a longer one so that it would fit through the drill hole in the fork (which is wider than the drill hole in the back, standard on most bikes). Ten minutes later I am Good To Go. I buy a bunch of tubes as a thank you to kind cute bike monkey, and rock on outta there, stopping at Whole Foods for some staples (milk, raisin bran, strawberries, ice cream). Dinner and then brake cable installation and barwrapping and shazaam! I am all set.

Of course, the new bars and stem are a tad long for my reach, and the Brooks seems a lot less comfy now than it was in the spring, but it's all about readjusting, yeah?

First ride tomorrow...can't wait.