Super Pen--More Powerful Than a Mulch Volcano

MULCH VOLCANO BEGONE

When last we saw our writer he was walking his dog through a dystopic residential landscape of yardwaste-littered streets and trees fallen prey to volcanic eruptions of mulch. The rising tide of misplaced organic matter seemed beyond his powers to counter. All he had was the power of his pen (in the form of a blog), his trusty dog Leo, and, adding to the sense of dysfunction, a bike made nearly unusable by deferred maintenance, in the form of wobbly wheels and a stretched chain.

Two blog posts later, the tide has turned, particularly for the Norway Spruce, rescued from a siege of volcanic mulch by the tenant, who, we choose to assume, was inspired by the blog post to seize the moment and take organic matters into his own hands.

CYCLAB

And the bike has made considerable progress towards recovery since visiting the student Cyclab, in the basement of Rockefeller College just down University Place from Nassau Street. Knowing next to nothing about bike repair, I stopped by and got assistance truing the wheels, adjusting the brakes and replacing the chain. All assistance and parts were free, thanks to financing by the college.

It's open to students and town residents alike, and I have to say that town residents can present the students with new and exciting challenges. Until a town resident like me showed up, the student who helped me would have had no opportunity to encounter a bike chain so woefully and for so long neglected. He didn't believe me when I passed along a local bike shop's warning, that a chain stretched by ten years of use and altogether too sporadic oilings will have worn down the gears so much that a new chain will not work. We put a new chain on and, sure enough, the chain was incompatible with the worn down gears, and kept slipping. On the next visit, I'm hoping they'll help me put on a new derailleur to better match the new chain. They'll have learned a real world lesson about bike chains a lot earlier than I did, and This Old Bike will be ready to take on another winter of salty streets.