On Thursday morning of this past week I had a major success with my bicycle repairs. I’ve taken on as much as I can to be more skilled and also save money.
After I had installed a new rear cassette, I had taken a couple of days off because I wasn’t thinking clearly and I wasn’t seeing clearly the chain install.
But when I got back to it on Thursday everything snapped together perfectly! I had left the new chain in two pieces because I had determined that it was too long so I had taken one link out.
But to my elation, I had already placed a pin in links of those two ends, so I had a good, single chain ready to install.
Installing the master links is always a challenging part of the chain install. It takes tedious and delicate touches.
I sat a chair down for me next to the bicycle stand and started working at the master links to get them to lock.
Once they are partially in place, we need to use the bike pedal to push down forward and the hand brake to keep the bike in place at the same time.
This causes a tremendous amount of pressure on the chain and locks the master links firmly and safely in place.
However, I had one problem. The bike I was repairing didn’t have a rear disk brake. So I thought and came up with the old wheel which had a good disk break on it.
Hold on to your old parts at least until you’ve successfully replaced them. You might not know what can come up that you can cover with an older part.
Therefore, I substituted temporarily the new wheel for the old wheel and kicked hard a couple of times on the forward pedal while holding the hand break down.
It worked perfectly and the master links were now safely locked.