My nemesis......

 7:54 am - Tuesday - June 14th - Likely, CA - 45° F, humidity 62%, wind - CALM....crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 67° F on this the first day of summer.  On this date in 2017 we had just arrived at the west entrance of Yellowstone National Park, and were having dinner at the Slippery Otter Pub with good friend Art Young....ironically, yesterday all entrances into Yellowstone were closed due to flooding within the park.....↴

Then.....

Today......

.....unprecedented rainfall combined with normal June snow melt has caused massive flooding, and destruction within Yellowstone National Park, and many folks are stranded there with no way to exit the park......WOW!

As you know, I began tearing down Kathy's Columbia MTB Sunday during our rain event, which,  by the way, dumped quite a bit of rain on LPG&RVR, so on Monday morning I began the task of cleaning the chain, wheels, frame, derailleurs, handlebars, etc.  I then pulled out the axles and bearings from each wheel hub, cleaned and repacked them with grease, and did the same for the headset (where the stem, and handlebars attach).......

Headset

and bottom bracket (where the pedals, and cranks attach)....

Bottom bracket

  Once that was done I set about replacing the rear brake, and the front derailleur cables, then adjusted the front and rear brakes, then the rear derailleur to be sure it shifted through all 7 gears on the rear free wheel....

Rear derailleur

7 speed freewheel

.....then came the adjustment of the front derailleur.....my nemesis!  The front derailleur shifts the chain from the small chain ring, to the middle chain ring, to the large chain ring (three chain rings in all), and I could not get it to shift through all three chain rings....

The 3 chain rings

Front derailleur....my nemesis...lol!

......after several hours of repositioning the derailleur, taking apart, and reassembling the shifter, and two shift cables I finally got it to work and shift through all three chainrings.  Around 5 pm I took the bike outside for TLE to ride up and down our road to see if everything worked for her.....the bike is too small for me (lol)......

.....everything worked!  I'll spend about an hour Monday fine tuning the adjustments I've made, and then deliver Kathy's bike back to her fully functional once again.....the derailleurs work, the brakes work, the front shock works, and the headset, which had major issues, now works properly again.

It's been a while since I've spent an entire day working on a bicycle, but I loved every minute of it. Time just seems to melt away when I'm 'lost in the weeds' on a bike project.  The front derailleur stumped me for quite a while, but I never thought I wouldn't figure it out.

Thanks for stopping by!