Wednesday, January 12, 2011

UBI day3



Ashland, OR has been a cool town so far. I've scoped out a few of the trails in the area and checked out some of the local flavor. This place has tons of local beer and coffee shops so it works well for me. Even saw a wild deer walking on the sidewalk through downtown tonight.
I've been staying at the Cycle Hostel which rents out to UBI students only. We have an interesting international crowd here. Guys from China, Brazil, Canada and all over the US including Alaska. They have a few bikes around the hostel for us to get us around town, I've been slaying the streets on a crappy steel single speed with a broken spoke. It beats walking...
Today we focused on bottom brackets, pedals, cranksets and tires.
A majority of the day was spent on cranks and bottom brackets. We did all types of cranks and BB's. We learned the history and evolution of cranks and bottom brackets and worked with them all. I didn't think they could spend more than 6 hours on the subject but they managed. We disassembled, reassembled and did trouble shooting on every single style.
Then we went into pedal styles, overhauls, installation and trouble shooting.
Finally we did tires. We focused on styles, compounds, sizing, tread patterns, tire pressures, changing them etc. Its nice to learn it from instructors who helped evolve tires and worked for the tire company's over the years.
Time for rest, tomorrow looks like it will be a long day of wrenching and learning.