Begone, rusty chain! (LGRAB #3)

When I read the tasks for the LGRAB Summer Games, it seemed as though some of them were thought up especially for me. Rent a bike? Hey, I was going to try out the Bixi bikes! Group rides? Absolutely! Visit new parts of town/bike paths? All stuff I was going to do anyway this summer. Bike maintenance?

Clearly somebody has seen the state of my bike.

When I bought the Opus, I assumed that the shop had put something on the chain, or that the chain guard would mean I wouldn't have to worry about dirt and so forth. Silly me. It took one good rain to disabuse myself of both of those ideas. The chain became rather rusty. It needed cleaning and lubricant. It got neither of those things.

Naturally, I got right on it. I mean, really. I thought about cleaning it a lot.

Trouble is, the chain guard makes cleaning the chain a bit difficult. I don't want to take the guard off since that seems to be very involved, but that means I can't use my fancy-dancy chain cleaner. However, I managed by dint of poking the bottle through the spokes and squirting far too much lubricant on the chain. It got a bit messy, and I'll have to do yet another wipe down before I use the bike again, but the chain is now clean. Well, cleaner, anyway.

Other minor maintenance tasks included pumping up the tires and finally adjusting the bell so I can reach it more easily with my thumb.

So, LGRAB task-wise?

Only 4 new items to go. I decided to cross out "commuting to work if you don't already" since it's not exactly an option and I don't want it staring me in the face every time, mocking me.

By the way, the fun stuff is not the only thing I'll do twice. I was walking my bike up Bay Street yesterday; Jill and I were on our way from a fabulous mani-pedi* at My Touch Salon (which is a rather grand name for the place, but the people there are lovely) to MoRoCo to devour a pot of sipping chocolate when I came across this poor, sad ring & post:

The city's Post and Ring page tells you to email 311@toronto.ca if you see a damaged post. So I did. And they emailed me back today to say that someone will look at it within 5 days. So yay for advocacy! No word on the additional bike stand requests, though.

*That's right, dude. I cleaned my chain and maintained my perfect manicure. Beat that!