Greased up

This is a visual approximation of Mike, yesterday afternoon, after I took him out into the hallway with a rag and a bucket, washed him off, scraped gunk out of all his gears, and applied liberal amounts of oil. (The part of Mike, obviously, is played by C3P0: but I insist that I am NOT Luke.)

("Thank the Maker!")

Did it ever make a difference. I had no idea how much crap had built up - grit, grime, general gunk. Not only does Mike just look better now that you can actually see the colour of the tubes, I headed downtown this evening for my dance class and was blown away. So much less work, so much smoother. Smooth enough that I noticed the funny little bump my back tire has picked up (and the slight wobble in the pedals, which will need to be fixed come spring, or I'll have a crank arm pop off in the middle of the street the way I did a couple of years ago when I got one of those wobbles.) But wow. Let this be a lesson to me: it's winter. Buy bucketloads of lubricant, and use 'em. 

It's also only about -1 tonight. I'm slowly starting to believe in that whole 'summer' thing again.