The other day, a few of us biked down to Land O' Lakes. It only took 20 minutes to get there and the tiny little city was cute. Kasey and I stocked up on food and we all wandered around until we found the garage sale. It was hidden away in this old creepy looking storage unit. But when we went inside, the lady was super nice and there was lots of interesting stuff. In the way back there were two bike. I'm a fan of vintage bikes myself and it looked as though the boys liked them too. So I bought the vintage, brown, road bike for $20. What a deal!
There was a bit wrong with it, but Russ, Collin and Kai seemed excited to work on it. The next day we had it set up at the Rec center ready to be torn apart. There was a lot more to fix than we had anticipated but they weren't worried. The wheels were bent and the brakes didn't work, everything was rusty, but with oil and the right tools, we could make it work.
So we started to take it apart. Kai and Mei-Jing started on the wheel while Russ and Collin worked on Collin's bike.
There was a lot of grit and grease in the wheels, and it needed to get taken out. Mei-Jing and I spent most of our time cleaning different part of the bike. I cleaned the chain, she cleaned the wheels.
I had never done anything with fixing something before, so it was very fascinating to watch them talk and point to something. It was like a foreign language to me, but I learned as much as I could with what we were doing.
Once Russ and Collin started helping out we moved quickly. We fixed as much as we could in the 2 hour window we had before dinner.
Everything was getting shinier and smoother. The bike was looking better, but we hadn't put everything back in.
Though we hadn't put everything back in yet, we wanted to see if it rode smooth. So with no brakes, no chain, and lots of parts sitting on the curb, we took it for a spin.
With no chain and no brakes, there was no way to start or stop. So we ran it up the hill, and rolled down it. To stop we simply put our feet down after we were rolling slower.
It was super fun. Can't wait to see what it looks like when we are finally finished. But that may not be for awhile. In the meantime I will keep you updated in the progress.
PEACE,
Kaia
