Bike tool fun

I ended up having some interesting bike tool fun in the past week. It all started with the seemingly simple operation of installing a freewheel and rear brake on my cross check so that I could race 'cross this fall.

Removing the cog and lock ring went well - I now know why there is a couple of millimeters of space between the cog and the lock ring on Phil Wood hubs. While it makes it difficult to use a lock ring wrench on a wheel alone, when the wheel is on a bike with a chain, the spacing is absolutely perfect, and the frame makes holding the wheel steady simple.

Installing a freewheel was easily done as well, but things became more interesting when I went to install the brake. One side went in easily, but for some reason the bolt wouldn't start on the other side. I inspected the bolt as well as the post, and everything looked fine; I even tried the bolt in the other side just to be sure. After a few minutes of complete confusion a crazy idea occurred to me. I grabbed a flashlight, and sure enough my hunch was correct - the canti mount on that side had never been tapped.

I went down to Wild Rose with my conundrum, were it came to light that Surly, in measures to keep costs down, also didn't use removable brake bosses (no simple solution here). A while later, I devised a clever solution involving zip ties (safe for the rear wheel in the event of a failure), but still wasn't really that confident in the zip tie solution.

After some research on SheldonBrown.com to confirm that tapping the rear bosses would be possible, I called around to a few more shops armed with more information, but didn't have much luck. Cyclesmith said they would give it a try, but would have to run down to the hardware store to buy a tap. I wasn't about to let them have all the fun, so I went to the hardware store myself. 6x1 mm turns out to be a standard size, so a tap was only $5. Five minutes later (thanks to the late Sheldon Brown's directions) I had successfully tapped my first threaded hole and had a beautifully functional brake mount.