I've been pretty lax in documenting this project lately. Two
important things to note:
Firstly, the Shimano crank I installed earlier in the month is still
going strong. It has not come even slightly loose, even once. The
bottom bracket sounds good, and feels good. This is despite me doing
a lot of riding on it (I've even started doing short rides for
exercise in the morning!), and despite me, in the early days after I
installed it, deliberately putting a lot of load on them by mashing my
way up hills out of the saddle. So, it seems like this project's
longest running problem (by far!) is finally solved.
Secondly, the Franken-Peugeot has acquired a basket! It's a whopper,
too. It's the "Robin" basket by Basil. It has two struts which
attach to the front axel, just like a Wald basket, but whereas Walds
attach to the handlebars at the top, this attachs to the fork crown.
It's rated to carry 10kg and has 27L capacity, which I think makes it
even bigger than a Wald 139. This is mostly due to extra depth,
rather than length or width. I don't think it's anywhere near as nice
looking as the Wald baskets, but I really liked that mounting it
didn't involve the handlebars at all. That, and it was at the co-op.
They asked 5 Euro for it, which is ridiculous for a basket of this
size and build quality. I insisted on them taking 10 Euro for it, and
to be honest it was still a steal. It's seen a lot of use already -
it's cold enough here now that when I ride to the forest on weekends,
I definitely want to be wearing a jacket and insulating layer when I'm
sitting listening to my radio, but I self-heat very efficiently when
exercising, so on the ride there I'm comfortable in a long-sleeved
tshirt. The basket easily swallows low-tech clothing like a woolen
jumper and surplus jacket.
The bike has never been in better condition, but that's not to say
it's perfect. The saddle has begun squeaking again - very annoying,
but not dangerous to me or the bike as far as I can tell. I still
haven't done anything to the pedal bearings. The rear wheel could
really do with having its spokes tightened. The project isn't "over",
but with the inevitable arrival of deep winter on the horizon, I'm
really just trying to do my best to get the number of hours I've
ridden the bike higher than the number of hours I've spent working on
it. I figure until I break even on that point I can't really consider
the whole undertaking a success.
