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kept him on the road

the journal of Michael Werneburg

Kokubunji, 2022.09.27

The Boy was pushing his bike pretty hard and had the chain "fall" (he can't describe it better than that, I think it skipped). He took a pretty bad tumble but seems to be fine. The bike has some broken parts and the handlebars were turned 90°. I had to replace a small and usually innocuous part that got smashed; it's the threaded-in tensioner on the brake lever that helps you fine-tune the brakes.

This happened on his way to school, and by evening I had a new brake lever and a new brake line installed and had straightened and tightened up the handlebars. I fine-tuned the brakes and he says it's better than ever. I was happy to think of the spare brake lever that I had in the attic, a lucky spare from when I was showing him this kind of repairs back in Toronto with Jon's old mountain bike. The total spend on today's repairs was ¥600.