My poor old Serota has taken quite a beating lately. Amber and I rode over 1000 miles in the past 4 weeks and about 100 miles of that was off-road, on 25mm tires. I have a Ti frame which will probably outlast the Apocalypse, but my carbon forks are about 15 years old. I don't want them to fail on me while I'm descending a rough road at 40mph so I decided to replace them before they fail.
I took the bike into Don's Bike Store in Redlands and Mike, their head mechanic, looked at it shaking his head. My bike is very old school with a threaded steerer tube and all the old-school hardware that goes with that. "I can get you a threaded steel fork for $60", he said. Nope, said I, it must be carbon.
So Mike ordered an unthreaded carbon fork for $300 and replaced the stem and other assorted bits of hardware. To make his life more difficult I have an ancient set of aerobars with stripped allen bolts that cannot be removed from the handlebars so he had to cut the old stem off. This turned into quiet a project for him.
In the end I now have new forks and a new stem that actually look like they come from this century. I can also turn the handlebars far enough to get my bike into one of those accursed Amtrak bike boxes - not that I ever intend to again.
Total cost was $434. Very reasonable when I consider how much hardware and time was required to do the job.
While I was there I noticed Don's sells a Giant foldable bike for about $600. I plan on giving it a test ride when I get a chance. I've been thinking about a folding bike for touring for a while. I wonder if I can get longer crank arms on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment