Discovered another broken spoke yesterday, back wheel of course on the cassette side! A job for the Sunday mechanic in me?

Got up early ( 06.00 ) this morning, had breakfast then had to wait an hour for it to get light enough, and stop raining on my open to the elements work area. I’d already prepped for the work, i.e., removed the back wheel, taken off the tyre and inner tube before it started raining late yesterday afternoon. I also managed to take off the cassette, only my second time, but it was easy peasy! Then it had been a mad dash to get everything back into my cramped shed, before my tools and everything got wet.

Cramped doesn’t do it justice, it was a real struggle to get my Pioneer in there upside down. Had to give the whole household strict instructions, “Don’t go in the shed!”.

The rain finally stopped at 07.30, so out I went. Again it was easy to replace the spoke, the cassette and I was about to put my Schwalbe Marathon tyre back on, when I thought, even as mild as it is, wintry conditions must be round the corner, so I should put on my “winter tyres”.

I bought them with other gear, my bike tools etc., on my works cyclscheme. They are a real mouthful though, I’ll have to take a deep breath to get this out.

“Continental Top Contact Winter 11 Premium Hybrid Tyres”

What do you think?

At £49.95 each, I hope they are going to be as impressive in performance as their rather long title. They’re not studded tyres, but have very concentrated tread patterns with thousands ( it seems ) of little strands of rubber stood proud of the surface. I’m sure there is a word to describe that, but I can’t think of it now. ( “Labilli”, just came to me, hope it’s not rude. )

Well, I had the whole bike put back together again by 09.30, tried it up and down the street to discover I’d forgotten to connect the front brakes. Yes, I know ” a real Sunday mechanic”.

But that was simple enough, so all in all, I think I made a good job of it. Replaced a spoke, trued the wheel and put my “winter” tyres on.

I am ready to roll.

Cheers.