The Rebuild

Ever since I started medical school I have had an urge to do something that was not studying or sitting in front of some type of screen. I wanted to do something with my hands and not the memory part of my brain (hippocampus for those of you paying attention) I recently cleaned out the creepy back room we have on our garage, put in a workbench and created a space for projects and puttering around.

I also decided that it was wasteful and sort of stupid to drive the 2.5 miles to school, only to park 1 mile away from the building, then take a shuttle or walk to class, wasting another 10 minutes of my life. I have a bike and I used to bike all over LSU's campus, but now it sits in my garage, tires flat and the frame starting to rust. I have come to the conclusion that a productive waste of my free time can be spent rebuilding my old derelict bike. I'm going to use this blog to monitor my progess and preserve a record of just how much I screwed up a perfectly good bike. Also, if it put it out in the public forum, people can ridicule me for not following through on my plans.

courtesy of trekbikes.com

The bike itself is a 2004 Trek 820, purchased new for just over $200. Its a steel framed mountian bike, weighing in at 35lbs. This is heavy, most commuter bikes weigh in at about 25-30lbs, but the bike is sold. The idea is to start this rebuild now, and hopefully be done for the spring to start riding to class. My plans for the rebuild are as follows.

• Complete disassembly
  
• strip, sand and paint.
  
• Thorough cleaning of all components
  
• conversion from a 21 speed to a 7 speed.
  
• installation of slick road tires.
• fenders, lights, chain guard and what ever else I deem nessesary for a commuting bike.
• new saddle and grips